Beyond the Iron Sky

The collaborative film production platform WreckAMovie.Com is growing steadily. We released the official beta of the platform few months ago when we got the MindTrek Grand Prix, and the most interesting feature we added then was the ability to add your own productions. Right now, WreckAMovie.Com is growing steadily, as we add features and make it more compelling for filmmakers and fans to work on with. Right now, we have 1213 registered Wreckers on the system from 38 different countries, working on 27 productions, ranging from feature films to short internet episodes, from films in very early developement stage to films already in theatrical distribution. But that’s not enough for us - we are looking forward into building WAM into a platform that hosts hundreds of thousands of active users and thousands of films, pushing out to worldwide markets of all sizes hundreds of films every year.

Our aim is to keep WAM running steadily for the next year, while we develope the platform and it’s functionalities, and drop from beta somewhere early 2010. And you can join the process as well, by joining the Wreck A Movie Platform production on WAM, where you can share your ideas and thoughts of the system in general.

I thought about doing a short sneak peek into three interesting productions right now active in WAM. There’s a lot more, but I’ll bring these up for now:

Star Wreck 2pi is a fan film of a fan film, a film set in Star Wreck’s universe, and taking place - as the name says (2pi=6,283…) between Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (”VI”) and the rumoured Star Wreck VII. The film is in canon with Star Wreck universe (well, as far as I know), and they are right now developing the script with a pretty fast pace, looking forward to shoot the film next year. They are right now looking ideas from the community for the script - jokes, ideas on how the world is in 2010, how Pirk’s fleet should be like etc. The people working on this - Fabienne & Thierry Gschwind - are rock-hard Wreck fans, but have also produced a massive fan parody production about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, called Verhäxt und Ufgspiesst (the monster-of-a-name means “Jinxin’ and Stabbin‘” or something like that :), that’s already finished, and also in production on WAM.

What Became Of Us is a feature-length film about class reunion, made by a group of Finnish guys who did an awesome youth film, funding it out of their own pockets, called Graffiti In Us (Graffiti meissä, 2007), which won the AFIA film festivals last year - and which I’ve seen, and know it’s pretty darn good. I’ve also had a change to look at some material for the upcoming film, What Became Of Us, and it looks *very* convincing. The film is right now in post production and should be out in 2009 . They are looking forward to get some help with their marketing and website, cuz the film is pretty much done by now.

Son Of Man is not actually a film - it’s a book. At first, when I noticed this production being set up to WAM, I was a bit worried, but then I realized that what the hell, it’s all about collaboration, and if people want to work on a book on WAM, it’s just wonderful! Then I realized who’s behind the production - Mike Pohjola, a Finnish writer, who also wrote the official Star Wreck RPG few years ago. Mike is looking for recommendations on films and asking where the future is taking the book format.

Well, that’s it for now! Stay tuned, we’ll be back with you already before the end of the year in various shapes and forms, just like Cthulhu monsters!

Last week and weekend I was visiting in Norway, in a small village of Os that’s just few miles away from Bergen, at WT X:th Os International Film Festival. I was invited over to talk about Star Wreck, WreckAMovie and Iron Sky, the three things I love talking about. The festival is small but cozy, organized by group of film enthusiastics from Norway, some of them also members of the road crew of Immortal, one of the gretest black metal bands out there. I actually learned that Os is *the* place where a lot of the black metal movement is originated from, and it was nice to stroll around the city thinking about how this beautiful, scandinavian and idyllic view has inspired some of the most brutal music out there.

I had an opportunity to see some very interesting films in the festival, out of which I would suggest to everyone that if you haven’t seen Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, you should. It’s pretty funny, and Robert Englund is really on fire! Also, the presentations went well, one of them was also filmed and I should be able to post a link to it once it’s online.

In the last night of the festival in Saturday, there was the grand gala to which we attended. Most of it was in Norwegian, so I didn’t understand anything, until suddenly the language changed to English. They announced that this year they wanted to give a Special Award for the work that has been done over the free culture and introduction of the collaborative production model to filmmaking. I was shocked, surprised and delighted. I even received a bronze statue and everything! Totally out of the blue, but it was a very welcome surprise! During this fall, WreckAMovie has collected 3 awards, so not a bad at all!

That’s me and my new best friend, the Bronze Idol! (Photo by Essi Suomela).

Speaking of WreckAMovie, we just set up loads of new tasks there, do check them out - we’re gonna need your help on designing the Earth fleet for Iron Sky!

Click the picture to join the development on WreckAMovie.Com.

And here’s the AWESOME music video from Immortal, shot - propably - in the woods of Os! Enjoy, and do check out the amount of views on YouTube! Most likely the world’s best known black metal video out there! :)