We are all living in a bubble now. Last week, we went over and did Covid-19 -tests to all of the crew at the production offices (all tested negative, thankfully!), after which the bubble was closed. We are not to leave anywhere where there are other people, and nobody from outside the bubble is allowed to enter. All food and grocery runs are done by a runner who handles everything specifically clear, masked and obeying the social distancing rules to make sure the risk of getting infected runs as low as humanely possible.
Also, we have indeed started to crew up. The first AD arrived last week’s Monday, after which everything started to become more and more real. Schedules, planned meetings and crew lists started to fly around. On Wednesday, the director of photography arrived, making things even more clear. I finished storyboarding our first bit to shoot here, and ever since that, we’ve been running around looking for locations (luckily, which require meeting no people), getting the camera gear and all that. And finally, on Friday we closed the first cast members – and I must say, I’m really excited to get to work with these people, as I’m a big fan of both of theirs.
Other than that, life here at Village Studios has been quite, well, small and closed. Days we spend either at location scouts or at the office, working on shooting plans and by evening, we gather up at Mackie’s, the in-studio bar that’s offering drinks and entertainment. Some nights, it’s a movie night – last night we watched Predator – other nights, we have few drinks, sing karaoke and shoot shit with the awesome bartender John, who has stories that make your ears drop off.
Sometimes, we gather at the porch of the Hearsey House, one of the houses and do some grilling and listening to music. If it’s a week day, we may stay up for a bit, but hit the sack after a while – on weekends, the sit-downs tend to drag longer and whether it’s politics, religion or film business, there’s quite a lot to chat about.
Sometimes, I just walk outside of my little house and sit on the porch enjoying the warm night breeze that’s blowing between the units and look up at the starlit sky. There’s very little light pollution here, so the stars can be very bright – and the brightest of them all is Mars, shining clear and reddish in the sky. Sitting there, I can’t help but think how happy I can be to be working in this business, doing films and getting to see places and meet people who I would never normally cross paths with.
But, all things move towards the fact that one day, the blissful prep is over and we move to shoot this movie. The time is closing: our first shooting day is on Friday, after which it’s time to rock. There’s still quite a bit of unfinished things that need to get done for the shoot to begin, but we’re getting there – so I’m pretty confident it’ll be quite a show. Well, at least the crew seems phenomenal, the cast will be amazing and the script really works.
Now, crossing fingers all goes smoothly to the end, nobody gets sick and we get the thing done!
PS. There’s this one thing I was thinking whether or not I should bring up here, as it’s not related in any way to the film I’m working on here, but I think it’s pretty timely, so I might as well write few words about it. The production company of Iron Sky, called Iron Sky Universe, one which I jointly set up with Tero, is going under. At least, there’s a high potential for it to happen, as a bankruptcy filing has been done on the company – obviously, we are trying to find solutions to prevent it from happening.
This is of course heartbreaking for me, as I believed in the company and hoped it would get past the rough times but unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. We spent several years with Tero building it as an entity to handle the Iron Sky franchise, but now it seems it’s going to need a different approach. Iron Sky has played a huge part in my life for the last 15+ years, so it would be a very disappointing to see it all go to waste, especially after all the effort we built into it, both financial and creative – me, Tero and the Iron Sky fans who are also minority shareholders in the business.
Obviously, of course, the films still exist, and the fandom still exists, so the stories we have planned for Iron Sky can and will continue, we just don’t necessarily know in what exact shape. There’s still possibilities to save the company, which of course would be ideal, and that’s what we’re hoping for. If this doesn’t happen, well, there are always other options – partnering up with some other entity being one of them.
So, it’s not the end of the world but simultaneously, not what I was hoping this year to bring to Iron Sky.
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