How do shows like The Gentlemen get all that weed on TV?

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As the sun stretches over the South London horizon into morning, two hoodie-clad figures roll up a warehouse shutter door, quietly loading a Luton van with leafy green plants in hydroponic pots.

This isn’t the hasty removal of a soon-to-be-busted grow. This is Sugavision, the go-to production company that supplies the world’s leading TV and film productions with hyper-realistic fake cannabis plants.

Sugavision is the brainchild of Marko Waschke, the founder and visionary behind the company, which launched in 2000. After completing a master’s in Art & Design, Waschke worked in TV and film art departments, moving up the ranks from assistant to production designer, creating sets and props for the screen. It was here that Sugavision was born.

“One of my strengths was finding physical solutions for abstract ideas – turning a concept into something tangible. I was working on a movie production, the production buyer asked me if I could make cannabis plants for their upcoming feature film Saving Grace, a comedy starring Brenda Blethyn who plays a lady growing weed to pay her debts. At that time, there was nothing available that looked like a realistic cannabis plant.”

cannabis prop plant in saving grace — Sugavision plant in action for Saving Grace. Source – Craig Sugden Photography

Creating fake plants from scratch isn’t as easy as it seems. After all, Waschke couldn’t grow a cannabis crop himself for inspiration without falling foul of the law. So how do you make carbon copies of plants you can’t physically see or touch?

“We sourced some credible-looking artificial hemp leaves, and I sat down with High Times magazines and the Sea of Green book to model and prop-make hundreds of cannabis plants, from seedling to harvest, all featured in the film’s storytelling.”

With filming wrapped, Waschke had a bright idea. Instead of leaving the plants to gather dust at the back of a prop cupboard, he bought them back from the film’s production company. Knowing nothing else existed on the prop market for fake grows, he launched Sugavision to offer other production companies plants that looked good on the big screen.

sugavision plants on display at the Camden Open Air Gallery — Sugavision plants on display at the Camden Open Air Gallery. Source – Sugavision

Sugavision quickly found its fake weed in high demand, armed with an arsenal of real-looking plants and dried harvests. Today, the business covers design, fabrication, hire, and on-set consultancy. From big Netflix shows and TV drama series to indie movies, music videos, and short films, Waschke and his team have become the industry name for prop weed. If you’ve seen cannabis on Top Boy, Brassic and EastEnders, then you’ve seen Sugavision’s work.

Perhaps the biggest break of all came one late summer day in 2018 when Gemma Jackson, the production designer of Game of Thrones, and Martyn John, the production designer of The Last Kingdom, came to visit Waschke about Guy Ritchie’s next upcoming feature film, The Gentlemen.

“I greeted them with a bow like a humble subject greeting royalty. Gemma said, “What are you doing?” I replied, “I know who you both are – you are design royalty.” It made them laugh,” Waschke recalls.

“Six weeks later, the challenge of delivering an industrial-sized crop of realistic-looking cannabis plants was complete. On set, Gemma Jackson made me a cup of tea before signing off on the dressed set and giving me a big compliment, saying the plants looked better than she could have imagined. That was one of my personal highlights.”

The police soon turned up thanks to reports of a suspected grow.

Thanks to this success, Sugavision has been able to grow beyond prop cannabis. The company produced 3,500 alien flowers for the award-winning 2019 sci-fi film Little Joe. “The highlight of this production was attending the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival,” Waschke says. “Being on the red carpet, going to a drinks reception on a yacht, attending an after-party on the beach, and seeing the production company’s sales stand decorated with my creations was as thrilling as it was exciting.” As well as selling Sugavision’s creations online to enthusiasts and businesses across the world, Waschke’s plants have also featured in art installations and on the high street. “Last summer, we installed a grow setup in the shop window at the Open Air Gallery in Camden. You can imagine how many heads turned when passersby spotted the plantation. I saw a mother covering her child’s eyes with her hand when walking past the store.”

Producing realistic cannabis plants comes with some obvious challenges. While putting together an order in a workshop at Elstree Studios, the team found themselves short of space, so they placed props on the windowsill to make room. The police soon turned up thanks to reports of a suspected grow. “I felt very honoured that they looked convincing enough to provoke such a response.”

While transporting a shipping container-sized truck to France, the border force was equally confounded by how realistic the plants looked. “Customs officials stopped the driver to inspect the truck’s contents,” Waschke remembers. “They ordered him to remove all 500 trees and place them on the floor outside their office. Then, the officers called their colleagues to join them for a selfie with the “haul”! Once the picture was snapped, they told the driver everything was OK, and he could put the trees back on his van and carry on to France.”

All just a normal day at the office when you’re that big in the prop weed game.