blog.starwreck.com

It has been brought to our attention that Finnish Film Foundation has decided to give the production support for the script of Iron Sky to Johanna Sinisalo. I’m not sure on this, but I have the feeling that this might be if not the first, at least one of the very few science fiction scripts that have received production support in Finland, and I think it’s a good sign!

(This post is in Finnish, and it’s about Finnish manga Oblivion High, that’s gonna be out soon. And it rocks.)

Ihan hiljattain putkahti sähköpostiin toimittajana uraa tehneeltä, Wreckin ruotsinkääntäjänäkin ansioituneelta Johanna Koljoselta vihjettä siitä, että häneltä on pukkaamassa kotimainen viisiosainen mangasarja Oblivion High. Empiiriset kokeet osoittavat, että Wreckereistä moni on myös mangusti, ja kotimainen manga tuskin on mikään ovista ja ikkunoista tursuileva ilmiö, ajattelin siitä täälläkin kertoa - ja kun tiedän, miten hemmetin hyvä kirjoittaja Johanna on, en voi kun suositella niille, joita aihepiiri kiinnostaa, tsekkaamaan setit ulos, kuten ameriikan maalla tavataan sanoa, saisikohan tähän vielä pari sivulausetta, ihan vaan kun vauhtiin päästiin.

Tässä vielä pieni minitiiseri tuloillaanolevasta sarjasta. Julkaisupäivä ekalle osalle on 31.3.08.

EDIT: Ja koko traileri löytyy tästä:

As some of you have already guessed, last weekend we were actually filming a music video for a band called White Flame! The shootings were great, and we had a lot of fun, although days were exhausting and filled with scheduling problems, but it was good to be on a set, directing, once again, after a pretty long pause. Most importantly, we were able to test out some elements we would later need for the Iron Sky the film, and also filmed some missing stuff for the demo.

The script for White Flame’s Hour of Emptiness video has been forged so, that the production goes partly hand in hand with the last few things we still need to do for the demo. Also, it was good to fiddle around with some nazi flick cliches, like Ilsa and an interrogation room scenario, that would propably be a bit too cheesy as such for Iron Sky’s style, but terribly fun anyhow!

I’ve never liked that much working on music videos for some reason, but they are good for training and pretty challenging - trying to fit minimum budget into maximum production values, and respecting the ideas of a group of half-alcoholic rockers (ok, ok, WF guys are actually nice people :). After that, shooting a film with enough crew, time and everything in my own hands will seem easy as hell! :D

The environment was amazing. We shot the film in the cellars an old, abandoned asylum close to Tampere, where we set up the most roughest interrogation room. The place was pretty creepy, and when we entered the room for the first time, we found in one corner a big pool of blood and some shells lying around the floor. No idea what had been going on there, we hope it was some props for another film that had been shot there several months ago. What made me feel uneasy was the fact that the blood was still wet and fresh…

The second day shootings took place at Akun Tehdas, a small studio in the vincity of Tampere, where we set up the greenscreen and had the band play for the camera. Good fun.

One of the things I’m most happy about was the castings: three super-cute girls from a Swedish pop-trio Sister Love, and a model called Sofia, accompanied by the band - mainly Vince, the singer - and each and every one of them did amazing job. I was especially surprised how well Vince, being a rock-band singer and having virtually no experience in front of camera, worked like a seasoned professional, always in a good mood and sporting everyone else up.

Schedules sucked big time and technical problems were present all times, but the crew was amazing, didn’t utter one word of discontent, and worked like hell despite long hours! The video was shot by Juice Huhtala, directed by me, and produced by Samuli Torssonen. We don’t know the release date yet (it’s up to the recording company), but you’ll be the first one to know! We posted some pictures to our Flickr account, go check ‘em out!

Is that a bit out of focus… Oh, wait, no it’s not!

Photo: Mikko Tikkanen

Third morning in Berlin Film Festivals. I’m sitting in the hotel room of Villa Amadeus, in third floor. Sun is shining brightly outside, birds are twittering in the trees and life seems nice. Only one thing has changed: yesterday I met Christopher Lee.

The story goes like this: we were in one hotel in a smoking room, enjoying a cigarette and chatting idly, when AJ (Annila, director of Sauna, which is going to be the greatest horror film ever) spotted a tall guy smoking a fat cigar in the corner. He notified us that there’s a guy who looks exactly like Dracula. We were looking over our backs and realized that oh-shit. That’s him. Mr. Christopher Lee himself. I was totally starstruck, but Ukko (Kaarto, of Bronson Club) went on chatting with him, and led us there. I had to run for another meeting, but had a chance to introduce myself to him, and told him Iron Sky’s logline (”In 1945 the Nazis went to the Moon. In 2018 they are coming back”) and gave him a leaflet we had created. He laughed and said he liked the idea.

And then I had to go. But Ukko and AJ stayed there, sat down with him and what do you know, Christopher actually knew Finland pretty well, because during the World War II, he was fighting in Finland as a volunteer. So, naturally, they had a lot to talk about, and later found themselves singing Finlandia in Berlin with mr. Christopher Lee. Isn’t that just as cool as it can get?

Meeting Lee was my high point here, but I’ve had great time in addition to that a lot. We’ve been going around Berlin from an event to an event, spreading the Iron Sky word and meeting with a lot of people. This year for Finns, Berlin has two important films. First, of course, Black Ice (”Musta jää”), the film that’s competing in the Berlin festival competition. They had a wonderful party in embassy on day 1, a party that lasted to about 6 in the morning. Then there’s Lordi. Dark Floors, I mean.

I’ve been following the discussions around Lordi the film, and would like to hear your opinions, dear readers, if you’ve seen the film. I myself don’t believe a word of the reviews, because what I know is that Finnish film reviewers don’t know jack shit about horror films. I believe much better those who actually know the genre, and one of my very favourite film reviewers, whose opinions I’ve learned to trust (also, I met with him in a dinner on wednesday) is Todd from Twitch Film, and he said it was awful lot of fun. Todd writes:

Now, Dark Floors is clearly not a perfect movie. The script shows signs of being written outside of the author’s native language - which it was - in some unsteady dialog and spotty character moments. There are also a couple of obvious plot holes - more logic problems, really - that the film asks you to accept. But perfect or not it is an awful lot of fun. The logic issues are nothing beyond what you see in any number of films, the major ones basically coming down to cooked up obstructions to force the characters to stop on each floor rather than descending directly, and the dialog issues are more than overcome by an immensely likable cast.

I have the feeling that Todd sums it up well, but then again, I haven’t seen the film yet, and I’m planning to go with Energia posse back in Tampere to go and watch it.

Well, I’m signing off now, I need to run to the main festival building to meet a distributor. You people have fun, I try to write more as I have some time. Also, I will upload some pictures as soon as I get them off my phone!

Yesterday Laku, Samuli and I drove 100km to go trough a bsement filled with of old electrical things, educational posters and stuff. After several hours of rummaging we got back with a car-load of props and reference material. We even found a German cutaway poster of a steam locomotive from the 40’s. It’s a shame that all kinds of useful stuff lies around just waiting to be thrown out. And it’s just matter of luck if somebody know somebody who knows the owner of that stuff.

Anyway, Antti wasn’t there, so when he went to lunch today we hid his phone and replace it with an old service man’s phone. He came back from lunch and didn’t notice anything until the phone rang…

First teaser for AJ Annila’s Sauna has been released. There’s also a teaser website with a retroish text adventure/choose-your-own-story type of game. With more videos at the end for those who finish the game.

And yeah, we’re working with the same producers as Sauna, but it means that we’ve got a look at the script. It’s good.