It’s quite clear that the autumn is here to stay. I noticed it when taking a walk today without gloves and a hat and almost froze to death. It seems that Helsinki is still a bit warmer, being closer to the sea, but in Tampere it’s already starting to feel that the winter is coming, and this year, I think, it’s gonna be one hell of a winter – at least compared to last one.

We just had a long chat with Samuli about Energia and our future. We noticed that the whole autumn has been quite damn hectic (no, we didn’t have summer vacations…), but it feels like we haven’t actually completed and released anything in ages. That’s not the whole truth, but compared to the first half of the year, we’ve been more under the radar during the latter part. It’s not a surprise, since we did release the Iron Sky teaser in the summer, we had few seasons of Energia Dailies and visited all kind of festivals here in Finland – and latter part of the year we’ve just focused much more on the film itself.

So what’s actually going on with Iron Sky? Well, let’s have a quick glance at where we are right now:

The Script:

The script for Iron Sky has been under construction for over a year now, and we’re putting the finishing touches on the second draft as we speak. Johanna Sinisalo has been writing like a madwoman the last few months, and the story is getting better and better after every revision. Right now, if you take some wild guesses on the length of the film – judging by the normal 1 page / 1 minute – it’s around 2 hours. But fear not, the original script of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was well over 2 hours at one point, and ended up in 100 minutes, which is our aim this time as well.

As we’ve said before, and I’m going to repeat it again: the script is the most important part of the film, that’s why we’re putting so huge amount of work on it at this point. I’ve found out that 20 minutes is exactly the amount of time a film can fly without a good story, but after that it’s dead. In science fiction (and in horror genre, which I’ve been digging a lot lately, as well) I’ve seen so many good, original ideas ruined by a fluffy and weak script, and there’s nothing any ensemble of actors, directors, producers or musicians can do about it if that’s the case.

To quote somebody in Iron Sky Teaser’s YouTube-comments: “This is a great idea. Please, please don’t fuck this up.”

We intend not to.

The script of the Iron Sky, written by Johanna Sinisalo.

The Actors

We’ve also started the castings for Iron Sky - that means, we’re picking the actors for the roles! Working together with our German producer Oliver Damian and a German casting agent Uwe Bünker we’ve found some smashing actors for the nazi roles of Iron Sky, and although we’re not yet revealing any names, I would say that we’ve more or less nailed the main role and some supporting roles for the film. The search goes on, and next we’re extending it overseas for the US leg of the castings. We’ll be dropping some names as soon as we are able to!

Casting session for Iron Sky. On the right, our German co-producer Oliver Damian, on the left our casting agent Uwe Bünker.

The Schedules

Our very faint idea in the beginning was that we’re going to be shooting the film in 2009, and release it a year later, 2010, and so far there’s no reason to be changing those, even though now we are much wiser and know much more on the realities of everything. Starting in few weeks, me and our cinematographer Mika Orasmaa are going to start to work on the storyboards, and our production designer will be starting to plan on how to create the required sets. Iron Sky will be shot in Berlin in the fall of 2009, and there will most definitively be Dailies from the set coming to YouTube for you to enjoy!

So, it’s gonna take FOREVER for you to finish the film? What can I expect to see/hear/read next?

We have to admit we’re already pushing ourselves far beyond the limits just to get the wheels of the production running smoothly, and we’re focusing all of our energy to that. But hopefully things are rolling nicely by the end of this year, and we have a bit more brain capacity to focus on producing some of our/our community’s wicked ideas!

But until that happens, you can do is help us to get there. By joining the production in WreckAMovie.Com we’ll get a good community ready to work on some of the crucial tasks that are soon to be launched in the platform. Also, all I can say is BUY MORE WAR BONDS! We’re always short on money, and any contribution will be respected greatly! In addition to that, keep on spreading the YouTube link for the Teaser, it’s the best promotion for the film you can do!

We’ve been visiting some original Nazi bunkers under Berlin. It’s creepy fun!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Energia, Iron Sky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.