So, what happens when Friday boredom meets a website where you can make a slideshow in the style of an old film? Well, it means a new slideshow for our MySpace page - including 20% of never before seen pictures.
And on a slightly related note, a video for the weekend: Hausfrau Hitler.
(This post is in Finnish, and talks about how great our producers are. And they are! :)
Onneksi olkoon Rautataivas-elokuvan tuottajille Tero Kaukomaalle ja Petri Jokirannalle Suomen Elokuvatuottajien keskusliiton myöntämästä palkinnosta, joka tituleeraa Teron ja Petrin vuoden 2007 elokuvatuottajiksi, kiitos Jadesoturi- ja Miehen Työ -elokuvien, ja tietenkin pitkän uran jonka molemmat ovat käyneet läpi. Näin Energian kannalta on mukava kun kaverit saa palkintoja, etenkin tyypit joiden kanssa seuraavaa leffaa väännetään :)
SEK:n tiedotteesta:
Suomen elokuvatuottajien keskusliitto ry on valinnut Vuoden 2007 elokuvatuottajaksi Petri Jokirannan ja Tero Kaukomaan elokuvien Jadesoturi ja Miehen työ ansiosta.
Petri Jokiranta ja Tero Kaukomaa ovat tehneet hedelmällistä yhteistyötä tuotantoyhtiö Blind Spot Pictures Oy:ssä kuuden vuoden ajan. Vuoden sisällä on tullut ensi-iltaan kaksi heidän tuottamaansa hyvin erilaista, omaperäistä ja kunnianhimoista elokuvaa: Jadesoturi ja Miehen työ.
Jadesoturi on uraauurtava teos; kansainvälinen, lajityypiltään erityinen elokuva, joka on vaatinut vuosien ponnistelut rahoituksen varmistamiseksi. Tuottajakaksikko selvisi pitkästä ja kuluttavasta tuotantoprosessista kunnialla avaten samalla suomalaiselle elokuvalle uuden markkina-alueen Kiinassa. Heidän esimerkkinsä on omiaan rohkaisemaan muitakin suomalaisia elokuvantekijöitä uusiin haasteisiin.
Miehen työ puolestaan on pienimuotoinen, huolella tehty ja tyylikäs elokuva, joka pienimuotoisuudestaan huolimatta kasvaa suureksi elokuvaksi tarinan omaperäisyyden ansiosta. Jokiranta ja Kaukomaa ovat vuosien mittaan lunastaneet paikkansa laadukkaiden art house -elokuvien tuottajina.”
I finally finished Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace last night. It kept me up until 4 in the morning just because the story kept kicking on higher and higher gears so I couldn’t leave the book with only fifty or so pages left. It was funny in a way. After all, I’d been reading the book for quite a while already, in tiny snippets every night before bed. (Oh, what I’d give for the time to sit down with a good book…)
I bought the omnibus edition Peace & War at Finncon last July, after listening to the author being interviewed Actors Studio style and realising three things at once. One, the man is funny, intelligent and an incredibly gentle person. Two, I’d only read two pieces by him: a translation of his seminal Forever War back when I was in school, and the Vietnam-themed poem (!) DX in the anthology Demons & Dreams edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (ISBN 978-0712630214, good luck finding a copy). And three, those two works - a three-page poem and a translation (for crying out loud!) - had left me with a lasting impression of a terribly skilled novelist. It was time to reacquaint myself.
True, the title of the omnibus - Peace & War - is a reference to a classic (I should really say, another classic). But it’s also very accurate: that’s what Haldeman writes about. Not content with merely describing either, he recounts the lives of people taking part in war in a way that makes the necessity of peace achingly evident. His style is remarkable - friendly, casual, like listening to a friend relate something that happened to him. That style gives his works a light and approachable quality, but also emphasises the understated way he describes moments of savage action. No build-up of tension, no deceptive calm before the storm, it really brings home the horror of combat when you have to re-read the last two sentences before it sinks in that an ambush has just been sprung and someone lies dead from stepping on a land mine.
And the sheer scope of it! Not for Haldeman the simple statement that war is hell. No, he goes right ahead and demonstrates that if war is indeed an intrinsic part of human nature, why then, the evolutionary quantum leap necessary to rid us of war is worth it. True, being one of a dying breed (as his protagonists tend to be in these stories) does leave one feeling rather forlorn. But then, war also leaves one feeling rather forlorn, or rather dead. Think about it.
Hey, there’s even a way to link this rant with Iron Sky. In 2004, Mr Haldeman split the James Tiptree, Jr. Award with Iron Sky writer Johanna Sinisalo. According to her, he was so much of a gentleman that he spent most of his acceptance speech praising her work. Having listened to and read the man, I’m inclined to believe it.
This is a wee bit late hour for the entry, but just wanted to say few words about New Context Conference 2007 in Tokyo, where I attended as a speaker. Our collaborative online film production platform, called Star Wreck Studios, was first time introduced in iCommons 2007 event in Croatia, and invitation to speak at NCC07 was a follow-up of that.
The conference was stacked with pretty high-level speakers – Joichi Ito (Creative Commons), Ashwin Navin (BitTorrent), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), as well as loads of not-so-well-known guys behind Technorati and Google AdWords etc. – oh, and me somewhere between there as well.
I was invited to talk about Star Wreck as a case in a Creative Commons panel, and after that had my own one hour presentation about the production and distribution of Star Wreck, as well as our idea of collaborative film production. Basic stuff, that’s what I have been talking about last two years now…
But I wasn’t prepared for the simultaneous interpretation that was going to take place during the speech – and I was asked for my presentation and a script of what I’m going to talk there for the interpreters. Of course, I didn’t have them. My presentation was halfway done, and I’ve never written a script about what to talk, I just let my presentations roam freely… So I was swamped with work throughout the whole conference, and couldn’t attend any speeches other than my own ones, and the last one about Mission Eternity.
The hotel, Westin Tokyo, was un-friggin’-believeable. Remember the hotel in Lost in Translation? Well, this is the big brother of that. Servants everywhere, service everywhere, massive lobbies, huge rooms and unbelieveable breakfasts as well… And the conference organized parties constantly, with great dinners (a lot of sushi) and everything. Everything was so well prepared – you don’t get that kind of attention in a normal european conference. Here, I didn’t have to think at all. They had organized everything, from minute-tight schedule to a personal assistant… Well, I can’t complain, it was all good.
I also had some time to visit Tokyo during one day, and I bought a Totoro for my kid, as well as met with our Japan distributors in a great dinner that slipped way beyond midnight – yeah, we had damn fun time.
My experience about Tokyo was faint, since I had only one day to walk around the city. Shibuya and Harajuku were filled with gothlolis and other freakish Tokyo-gals as well as their male counterparts and shops filled with great clothing (not my size, apparently), and everywhere there was a shitload of people walking around in masses. I also bought two albums of Tokyo metal in random, and by accident liked them both.
The trip to Tokyo was something I couldn’t have even wished when we released Star Wreck. Everybody was enthusiastic about the film, our story and our future plans (yeah, got to talk a bit about Iron Sky, too), and I met some wonderful people. My next goal is to bring Star Wreck with me to USA. It’s hard to say how the panel picker voting for SXSW goes, but we’ll see. We should know by the end of the month.
Next to me the folks of Mission Eternity holding a case containing 8 grams of Timothy Leary’s ashes! Photo by Digitalbear.
During the entire history of the universe, only one Finnish movie has been turned into a computer game. That was back in 1986, when Uuno Turhapuro Muuttaa Maalle was released on the Commodore 64. In the game the player took part in non-stop action of plowing the field and cutting the grass. Yet, compared to other licence games of the day it held it’s own.
Now with Iron Sky we decided very early on, that we don’t want to do “just” a movie, we want to create a whole world - with history, future and unlimited posibilities. We want the world of Iron Sky to live and breath on it’s own, not just for the movie. Maybe the movie will be only one of the stories told about nazis on the dark side of the moon.
I’d take most of you can guess where we’re going with this… The Energia gang has been raised playing video games and RPG’s. Last year we released the Star Wreck Role Playing Game written by Mike Pohjola. Next, we want to make a computer game about Iron Sky.
We realise we know very little about making computer games, but we know what we want to play. That’s why we’re looking for game makers who would be interested in the idea. As the first step Timo went to visit the local chapter of IGDA (International Game Developer’s Association) and talked to the game industry people about the film. While the Finnish movie industry is generally very reserved about everything and pessimistic about anything new, the game industry is almost the complete opposite. To begin with, the are Finnish games competing head to head in the global market. The biggest difference is, that people really seemed to like the idea about making a game about nazis on the dark side of the moon and thought that the Iron Sky game could definetly be done, it’s all a question of finding the right people.
What kind of game are we making then? Well, it hasn’t been decided yet. The world would find many kinds of games from real time strategy to moon buggy racing. However I have to say that the game type that interests us most are the good ol’ adventure games. Because while shooting nazis is always fun it takes a great story to make a game really memorable.
We’ve opened a forum for the Iron Sky game, so go check it out and tell us what you would like to play.
p.s. Personally, even though I’m very fond of games like Monkey Island and Sam & Max, the best game ever made is UFO: Enemy Unknown. No sequel or re-make has ever come close to the original, because nothing can beat the atmosphere of the the desperate fight for Earth. I couldn’t care less about the bottom of the ocean or some unknown planet. It’s all in the story, even if there isn’t that much of it.
German fandubbers Crash Dub Studios have made a German version of the In the Pirkinning trailer. We showed this in Assembly, but now it’s on YouTube as well. Currently it’s only the trailer, but maybe some day the entire film can be enjoyed in German.
Check it out.
Oh and there’s also the professional Italian dub that was shown on Canal Jimmy, check out the clips on Revver.
Konnichiwa!
The success story of Star Wreck is definitely not over! I’m happy and proud to announce you that as of this week, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning - Imperial Edition is available also in Japan.
Released by AMG and Medallion Media, this wonderful package has it’s own sleeve design artwork, wonderful poster/liner notes - and as a cherry on top, a full, high-quality Japanese dub! This is definitively something we didn’t see coming when we released the film back in 2005, but this is again a proof that releasing a film for free doesn’t mean it’s worthless after that - more like the other way around!
Take a look at the front cover, and check out and excerpt of the film in Japanese! And I have a mission for you people - spread the word for your Japanese friends about this extraordinarily epic release! You can purchase a copy of Japanese SW:IE for example from here.
During my trip to Japan I also met the people from AMG and Medallion Media, and we had some pretty unforgettable time in the nightlife of Japan. They had invited me to the dinner, where I was introduced to sake, ebisu beer and potato-vodka, as well as traditional Japanese cuisine - a lot of sushi and items I had never eaten, nor never got to know what they exactly were, were brought to our table in an unending stream. We had a lot of interesting conversations about the film - they really knew what Star Wreck was about and loved it, and dropped some very good questions I was happy to answer about production and the story as well. As the evening grew darker we also visited a small Shinto temple and walked around the small streets of Tokyo, and I have to say I’m pretty amazed of the Japanese culture and state of mind.
First thing I learned that Tokyo, being one of the most populated areas in the world, is also one of the safest cities to visit. I was told that I could leave my laptop and wallet in the most crowded trainstation, and nobody would steal them. Actually, my friend Hector told me that his friend had forgotten a laptop to a tram during rush hour, and when he called the tram central, they had fould the laptop and had it delivered to his apartment in less than 20 minutes. The same guy, few months later, travelled to Europe, and the first thing that happened in Danish airport was when he was buying a bus ticket, turned away for a few seconds from his luggages, and the same laptop was stolen in just a few seconds.
In general, I have to say I’m very proud of this release, and so is everybody at Energia as well. When we released our film for the first time, we were just happy if many people would download it and like it. But when these new releases keep on popping here and there, it’s way beyond what we ever could have expected. I also hope that our story encourages many filmmakers working on their first productions to see the positive sides of releasing the film also for free. This way the film is right away available for viewing all over the world, and if the film is good, it’s value in other distribution medias is boosted drastically. Had we released Star Wreck just on a DVD, we wouldn’t be standing here at all, and we’d be cursing how the evil pirates steal our income. Today, we can happily give our film for free for everybody we want, the “piracy” doesn’t affect us at all (actually we are pretty darn proud of our Chinese and Russian pirate versions of SW:ITP :), and still can trust that those who really love it, also get the DVD.
Having said that, I would also like to point out that none of this would’ve been possible had we not had you, our dear community. Some of you have helped us in producing this film, and even more of you have helped us in getting the word spread around the internet, and still keep doing that. Energia team would like to collectively take our hats off and take a deep bow for every one of you that have made Star Wreck the thing it’s today! Arigato!
- Timo, Samuli, Jarmo, Atte, Antti and all the other weirdoes down at the Energia office in Tampere, Finland.
Update:
Here’s the Japanese trailer, it’s made by the distributor. It’s certainly different that our trailers. Download the trailer here (.wmv).
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