Toni Nummela has done a great job re-creating the Iron Sky teaser with Lego. This joins Rust Sky in the Hall of Awesome Iron Sky Remixes.

Iron Sky teaser done with cheap Duplo LEGO standins. This video was shot in about two hours and edited in about five hours. No pre-planning was made and everything was shot adlib and in order. Difficult part was to make this all by myself: move the camera, match the timing and move the LEGO-stuff – or find a creative way to do it otherwise.

For those familiar with Iron Sky teaser: watch out for an infamous rendering bug after the motorcycle.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

A number of things occurred to me recently. For one, next week it will be eight years since Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings film came out (and seven and six years since the second and third ones, respectively). Second, the 25th would be Humphrey Bogart’s 110th birthday, were he still alive. Also, apparently writing commenced on what would eventually form the novel Lord of the Rings in December, 1937; we recently covered a “retro-reimagining” of Matrix; and not long before that, the “pre-made” Raiders of the Lost Ark trailer gained considerable popularity at the offices. (How’s that for a strained lead-in?)
With all that in mind, I thought this a perfect moment to feature something that combines two things rather close to my heart… film noir and Lord of the Rings. What if the complications in getting his novel published had led the frustrated Prof Tolkien to offer his text to Hollywood instead?

As usual, Gollum takes the cake as the most memorable character, even though he’s up against some pretty tough competition here… including Bogie and even Godzilla!

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

Some friday fun for your inner 9-year old. You know you like it.

There’s really not much else to say about it. Just be happy that we live in a world where geeks can film anything in slow motion and upload it to YouTube in HD. I bet you couldn’t have imagined future would be this cool back when you were blowing up toy cars. Just don’t mention anything about not having jetpacks.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

At least in the silent film era Neo would have had more than one facial expression.

An ingenious silent film treatment of Matrix from the Russian group “Big Difference“.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

(This post is in Finnish and it’s about sketch comedy segments we produced with our friends from the sketch comedy troupe Huba. They’re running on TV right now.)

Tiesittekö, että 95% hammasbakteereista esiintyy suussa? Entäs sen, että uudet Huba-sketsit ovat pyörineet TV2:n sunnuntai-illassa jo useamman viikon?

Energia on Huban kavereiden kanssa tuottanut joukon sketsejä TV2:n Radio Millennium -ohjelmaan. Jaksot tulevat ulos sunnuntaisin 23.20 ja uusitaan myöhään tiistaina. Huba-sketsejä nähdään yleensä yksi tai kaksi ohjelman “mainoskatkolla”, jossa tulee myös muiden tuottamia sketsejä. Sekoittamisen vaaraa ei pitäisi olla, Huban sketsit kun tuppaavat erottumaan.

Ja koska elämme tulevaisuudessa, niin sketsit löytyvät myös YleX:n sivuilta:
Korvaako koulutus kaiken?
Piilokameran parhaat
Länsimarket
Oral Attack

Käykääpä katsomassa.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

The first teaser for Griffin (previously known as Project Worm), the communally produced web series has been released. The teaser features Mikko Hyppönen of F-Secure. F-Secure will take part in the project as cybercrime advisors.

The made-for-Internet TV series F-Secure and the Wreckamovie community are collaborating on is called “Griffin”. The series tells the story of Griffin Sharp, a good guy with a complex past in the world of cybercrime. It will initially have six episodes each taking place in a different country. “Griffin” is being developed by a web community of enthusiasts on the Wreckamovie platform. The community is creating the stories, the script, visuals and will also take part in the actual filming.

The pilot of “Griffin” will be available in 2010. You can join the “Griffin” community and be part of the story at www.wreckamovie.com/griffin. To watch the teaser, go to www.youtube.com/FSecureNews

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

Couple of weeks ago a group of fans from all over Europe gathered at the Energia offices in Tampere. They were here to shoot a fan film of Star Wreck called Star Wreck 2pi. The shoot was arranged by Swiss fans Thierry and Fabienne Gschwind on Wreckamovie. Samuli and Timo reprised their roles as Pirk and Dwarf and all of us from Energia had a lot of fun.

In case you don’t believe me I asked British filmmakers Martin Lejeune to do a guest blog about the shootings. You can read his recollections below and if you’re into apocalyptic comedies you might want to check out his short film Untitled Dystopia.

So, here I am running on about three hours sleep, holding a microphone below a man who is painted like a chocolate bar in a heavy metal wig as he barks orders at a battle fleet which is presumably somewhere behind the green screen we’re in front of.

Hang on. Let’s back up. After a day of travel, I’ve been sleeping on a sofa at the offices of Energia productions in Tampere, Finland. Not very much - mind you - due to the two hour time difference. Everyone’s been setting up equipment like it’s nine in the morning, but I could swear it was still closer to seven.

Something which is not helped by the fact I’d arrived late the night before and been handed a bottle of rum by someone determined to make a case for Fin’s being the most welcoming culture in the world.

It’s as cold as a fridge outside so to wake myself up I go for a walk and grab some breakfast. So I head out to take my first daylight glimpse of Tampere.

Accidentally, I manage to make brief eye contact with a group of old men sitting on a bench, which I soon find out is a massive taboo here as one stands up and starts getting irate with me in Finnish. I ignore him until he goes away. It is later explained to me that in Finland the most interesting thing to do is stare at is your feet. Always.

Upon my return to the office to discover a pair of scantily clad women throwing themselves from imaginary computer terminals and falling out of chairs.

We are shooting Star Wreck 2pi the Swiss-Norwegian-Finnish spin off to 2005’s “Star Wreck: In The Pirkining” and this is just the kind of thing that is to be expected.

Most of the forty minute film has been shot in the Swiss town of Basel with a new set of characters, but the production team has come here to shoot some important crossover scenes with the original cast to tie both films together.

The Energia team has been a fantastic host. Whilst various extras were being shot to be placed in the background I had a chat with Jarmo Puskala and Antti Hukkanen, two of the guys who make Energia tick. We tried to work out what made British and Finnish comedy so similar; The Fast Show still plays on national TV out here and the self depreciative nature of both cultures provide a lot of the fodder for their respective senses of humour.

In the afternoon Star Wreck’s lead actor Samuli Torssonen arrived to reprise his role as Emperor Pirk. With the help of a crack team of interpreters the script was translated from German to English to Finnish; for the jokes work in all three languages it’s got to be good.

Timo Vuorensola was also on set for an hour to do his scenes as Lt Dwarf. Although he didn’t have his full “Plingon” ridges he quickly got into character and gave a very loud performance in a very short space of time.

The second day of the shoot it was my turn to be made up. I was to be wounded facially. Luckily I’d brought Ena with me to do just that kind of thing. So she started covering me in blood and scars.

I was promptly instructed to throw myself around as if on a ship taking hits from torpedoes. It took a couple of takes for everyone to throw themselves in the right direction. Then to disguise myself I put on a heavy metal wig and shot more sequences of being blown up, injured, running and generally swearing; in German of course.

The production team took advantage of the ‘Wreckamovie’ platform a website for making films collaboratively. This is how they have found people from all over Europe to work on the project. After putting the project online last November forty seven people have joined up to offer advice, help or to work on the film, from concept art through to helping with the post production workflow.

Unfortunately with my time on set at an end, I was shown around the annual fish market where we enjoyed some local fried herring and other delicacies, but as I dig in, I am especially cautious not to make any unexpected eye contact…

Martin Lejeune is an Exeter based filmmaker and Effects Artist, He also enjoys wandering the world as a digital vagabond.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

I’ve had fun time watching people (well, at least one individual) doing remakes of Star Wreck trailer, inspired the Revolver’s recent U.S. version of the trailer. Here they are:

Here’s the Revolevr’s U.S. Release trailer. It was nice to see how they made this seem almost like a serious film.

Finnorbit from Star Wreck forum started to do his own versions. Here’s the Arthouse trailer…

…and adults only…

How about you? Anybody out there to do us a remake on Star Wreck trailer, as if it was an American Indie Love Movie? Or Tarantino film? Hell, I’d loved to see Star Wreck as a Bollywood trailer!

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

The grandest of all Nazi films lately is coming to the theaters tomorrow here in Finland, so we decided to celebrate it with a small video we made with the Iron Sky team while in Cannes.

Enjoy ;)

Shot and edited during one quite fuzzy and hot day in Cannes by our wonderful Pekka Ollula, directed by umm maybe me or something :)

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

I’ve already mentioned the Star Wreck fan fiction production Star Wreck 2pi some time ago on this blog, but thought about coming back to it now that it seems that the guys have really managed to shoot most of the film, and just released a short making-of clip of how things are progressing. The folks behind the production are Thierry and Fabienne Gschwind, a bro and a sis, and they are based in Switzerland. Check out the making-of, and join the production on Wreckamovie to help them get this thing off the ground!

They seem to have quite an ambitious hull breach scene!

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

Here’s an interview I gave to a Finnish-Mexican blog called Tequila Bajo Cero, where I explain a bit about Iron Sky & Wreckamovie.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

The Finnish Film Foundation just released their latest funding decisions.

Obiously the big news for us is that Iron Sky will be receiving 800,000€ in production support. Most Finnish films receive support from the Foundation and it’s often a big part of the budget. We’re obiously very, very happy of their support. If you read Finnish there’s a lot of other info on the film as well, maybe even bit of a spoiler in the synopsis, so watch out.

Also, it’s been very interesting lately to read the support decisions. There are many interesting projects in developement right now and I’d go as a far as saying that the field of Finnish film is changing. The gem (that has absolutely nothing to do with us) in this month’s support decisions was called Zombie-Risteily, that would translate to “Zombie Cruise” about a cruise ship overrun with, you guessed it, Zombies! And what’s even better for us Finns is that’s it’s one of the ferries sailing between Sweden and Finland - also affectionately known as “drilling platforms” and many other names. Basicly they are huge cruise ships with about 2000-3000 passengers that are not so much going somewhere as going to the ship to get absolutely and totally wasted. There are thousand and one stories to be told on those ships and zero films thus far.

Also in the scripting stages is a film adaptation of Kimmo Risto Isomäki’s book Sands of Sarasvati. A thriller about the climate change - and trust me, it’s good. It should also adapt to the screen very well. If you want to have a look the comic adaptation is already translated into english, but the translation of the novel isn’t out just yet.

Other interesting genre-ish films are Haaska (aka. Carcass) - a horror film about a nature photographer in the Finnish wilderness. And Lykantropia (Lycantrophy) that’s to be a drama/thriller about child killing wolves in the 19th century.

And since we’re talking about Finnish films I can’t resist gushing on about the teaser for Mothgirl, upcoming film from our friend Toni Pykäläniemi.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

In Cannes every day is like christmas.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

The original paperboy is back, bringing The Truth to the busy people at the Cannes film festival. How do they react to the shocking news of a Space Nazi attack?

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.

We talk to our friend Eric Vogel ,producer of the awesome upcoming Norwegian film called Norwegian Ninja. I read the script a while back and even in text form it was a blast in the best possible “Holy crap! Ninjas! In Norway! Oh wait, didn’t that really happen in the 80’s?” kind of way, so really looking forward to seeing this one.

Check out Norwegian Ninja on Wreckamovie.

Originally published at Beyond the Iron Sky. You can comment here or there.