Let’s invade the Museums of Modern Art

Helsinki Art Museum contacted us because they want to reinvent the whole museum experience and what would be the better way to do that than building Iron Sky exhibition in collaboration with the fans of Iron Sky!

What should we do except showing concept art and movie props or costumes? The show needs to be epic and together we can achieve it!

If we succeed, the Iron Sky exhibition will see the light of day in 2012. Our common goal should be an exhibition that shakes the art world and starts a life on it’s own.

Dive into Wreckamovie.com and be creative!

 

Nothing Says “I Love You Mom” Like A Moon-Nazi T-Shirt!

You have been asking us to add some women’s T-shirts on our web store, and now we deliver – kick things off with a discount campaign! Check out the women’s model of our new Walkür shirt on our web store.

Many countries in the world celebrate Mother’s Day on 8th of May, and what would be a better way to say “I Love You Mom” than some Moon Nazi merchandize. If you order a women’s model T-shirt before 8th of May, you will get a discount! And if you are wondering what to do with the money saved, we can help you: Go and buy some roses for your mommy and include them in your greatest Mother’s Day present ever.

 

 

 

 

The Race for Three Hundred Thousand – Week 1 report!

The first week of The Race for 300000€ is now over, and it’s time to take a look at what has happened during the first week, what has been the reaction to our campaign, and what are the results, mistakes and successes we’ve had so far.

Just to recap what I did – I set up Iron Sky on 9 different crowd funding platforms out there, and begun the journey to raise 300000€ – a gap in our budget due to bad weather conditions – by using the services available. But more interestingly, I started to do a comparative research on the platforms, attempting to define the ultimate crowd funding platform out there, and share my experiences with filmmakers around the world.

Here’s where we are at the moment:
IndieGoGo:$1790 (1278,24€)
Interactor: $805 (574,85€)
StartNext:391,50€
Verkami:: 275€
Sponsume:£135 (158,42€)
RocketHub: $25 (17,85€)
Flattr: 1,85€

Pending:
Kickstarter

Account suspended:
Pozible

2697,71€

And as a rabbit in the race, our own means (excluding investments), through which we made 2111€ during the same time.

It was clear from the very beginning that setting up the project on multiple platforms isn’t going to be the most effective strategy. It was also quite obvious that 300000€ in 60 days is quite a challenge. But in order to be able to compare services out there, the multiplatform strategy with high goals was the best way to go.

We chose the services through suggestions from our Facebook and Twitter fan pages, and narrowed them down to 10. Unfortunately, one of the services (FansNextDoor) refused to set up Iron Sky to their service, and Kickstarter is using Amazon Payments for their reimbursements, and since we’re not a US company, we were unable to set that up (we have a workaround in plans for that, but we’ll see if that happens…).

Unfortunately, one of the services (Pozible, from Australia), kicked us out of the system because we were not using solely them for crowd funding. This was quite an unexpected move, and does annoy us quite a lot, since we had already raised close to A$700, and had quite big plans for our Australian crowd funding campaign.

Other than these setbacks, all the services have been most helpful. IndieGoGo chose us to be one of the Projects of the Month, Interactor were in close discussions with us planning the strategy, Verkami has been most helpful and even sent out press releases of our involvement to reach Spanish media and StartNext from Germany’s been actively promoting Iron Sky. The collaboration with the platforms has been crucial, in both understanding the possibilities each unique platform offers, and the techniques that making a project interesting on the platform takes. I’ve also realized that multi-platform crowd funding is probably the way to go – but one needs to pick carefully the platforms. Each of them has to offer unique qualities for the supporter, and it seems that locality has a lot of advantages.

Reactions & Things To Come

The reaction from the Iron Sky fans and followers around the world has been positive. People are interested to hear the results and see how the campaign progresses. It’s good to know that no matter if we succeed in our goal or not, the main point for me is to research the platforms and hopefully write an article and publish it after we’re done with our campaign, so that filmmakers out there know what services are out there, and how they can take advantage of them.

The Race continues. We’re hoping to get things rolling faster as we move forward. I hope you’ll stick around, and if there’s something you’d be interested to hear, or would like us to look into, or just wish to comment the whole process, do let me know – drop an email to timo at ironsky dot net, or a comment down here.

Next update coming next Monday. Until then, take it easy and see you around!

The Race for Three Hundred Thousand Euros begins

Crowdfunding is a hot topic nowadays. I’m about to embark on a journey to find out just how deep a succesful crowdfunding campaign can go, using available crowdfunding platforms. I’ve launched Iron Sky on 9 different crowdfunding platforms, and my goal is to race them to 50000€ each! Timeframe is tight – I’m giving 60 days (until 31.5.) to reach the goal, and in the end we can all see which of the platforms has raised the most money.

And as a rabbit in the race, we’re simultaneously benchmarking the results with Iron Sky’s own crowdfunding sources – the Store, the War Bonds, the Sneak Peek and the Investments – in the same timeframe.

THE RACE
The reason for launching The 300k Race is very simple: we need to fill a gap in our funding, I’m really interested on crowdfunding. I’ve been following with constant amazement how the topic – which I was very dismissive at first – is growing bigger and bigger. The first completely crowd-financed film is already out, and it’s only a matter of time when crowdfunding becomes one of the de facto tools for funding independent films.

Because of this, I’m eager to write a comparative article about crowd funding, combining our succesful experiences with our community (we’ve managed to raise about 500000€ through our community, through various different sources), and the lessons I learn leading The Race. The idea is to make the first-ever first hand experience -based article available, using a project that’s very “crowdfundable” – already community-minded, already succesful in crowd funding and quite well-known around the world.

As said, we also do need the money to fill the gap. The problem is that we went over budget during the shoot because of weather conditions – we were struck down for two shooting days in Frankfurt because of a huge snowstorm, and the floods and cyclones in Queensland affected our shoot so that we were forced to move several locations indoors and build expensive studio sets because we couldn’t shoot things on location. The problem with exceeding the budget is that we need to be able to prove our financiers by the end of May that we’ve come up with the money. We’re of course working on it on our fronts, but we really need your help to really succeed in this. The biggest fear is that the missing money will be chopped from our post production, which is a big blow to our CGI team, music and sound and … all that that makes the film as cool as it really should be.

TIMELINE
The Race begins on 1.4. and ends on 31.5., giving it two full months of time to succeed. It’s an extremely tight schedule for raising 300000€, but we’re certain that with the help of our community – that means you – we will succeed!

SERVICES
I gathered a good bunch of almost 20 services through our Facebook page, and narrowed it down to 10 services, out of which one dropped out – leaving us with top 9 crowd funding platforms we will use. The platforms are:

Flattr is quite different from any other services, but I deliberately wanted to put it up here; it’s more like a Digg/Reddit, where you can “flatter” articles and items on the Web, and you’ll get a small sum of money for every flattering you’ll get. The best way to support Iron Sky is to click the Flattr button on items we release – blog posts, videos and so on. Flattr built by Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay fame. Flattr doesn’t have perks of any kind attached to it.The biggest amounts of Flatterings, 2014, so far has been received by Firefox tool NoScript. Click here to find my profile on Flattr to see what are the submissions to Flattr by Iron Sky team.

IndieGoGo is one of the biggest crowdfunding platforms; they’ve succesfully funded numerous projects, and they’ve been very tightly developing their service ever since 2008, when Slava Rubin, Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell set up the platform. So far, the most succesful campaign has been the one of a film called Happy New Year, where the filmmakers managed to raise $26380. IndieGoGo operates in US Dollars. IndieGoGo operates on the perks, meaning that for each contribution, you’ll get something cool – thank you in Iron Sky Signal, or a War Bond, or even an Associate Producer title, if you happen to have extra $13000 in your back pocket. IndieGoGo operates on Keep-It-All -basis, meaning all the money pledged to the production goes to the production, no matter if the production reaches it’s goal. Click here to find Iron Sky on IndieGoGo.

Crowdfunding from down under! Pozible is a nice Australian crowdfunding platform, not only for films, but for anyone from amateur photographers to journalists, musicians and so on. Pozible operates in Australian Dollars, in the all-or-nothing -basis, where if we don’t reach the goal by the given schedule, all of the money already pledged will be returned to the supporters. The biggest success in Pozible is New Matilda Relaunch, which raised A$175838 (A$ is quite close to $) of it’s goal of A$175000. Perks included. Click here to find Iron Sky on Pozible!

Rockethub is an US-based crowdfunding platform that looks quite nice, and has a bit more focus on music than film itself, but is still completely feasible on film as well. They have also an interesting possibility for submitting projects and receive Launchpad Opportunities, which are special opportunities for promising projects – say, a Gibson Music Retreat in New York and so on. It’s a nice and professional crowd funding plaform. The biggest success so far has been Bobby Belfry & The David Budway Trio album One Lucky Day, which received $10296, which was over 250% of the goal they were aiming for! The system works on All & More -basis, meaning the creatives get to keep the money pledged for them, and if they reach the goals they’ve set, they also get additional perks. Perks included. Click here to find Iron Sky on Rockethub!

A German crowdfunding platform, focusing on creative projects like films and music, and also things like products and inventions. The site is in German, which is great because I believe that local is the new global in the Internet. Startnext has perks like other services, and it uses a new system called FidorPay for support. FidorPay is sort of like PayPal, but German, and apparently a bit easier and more flexible to use. It’s great to have Iron Sky localized on a German platform. Really happy about this, and looking forward how well it goes down here! Biggest success on Startnext is a 50s-style detective radio drama Richard Diamond Private Detective, which raised 6254.60€ of its’ goal of 5000€! Click here to find Iron Sky on Startnext!

Verkami is one of the most delightful crowd funding platforms I’ve come across. It’s a private initiative born in Mataró (Barcelona) from a father and his two sons: Joan, Adrià and Jonàs Sala, a biologist, an art historian and a physicist. The platform operates tight schedule, which is an excellent thing in crowdfunding – the time limit is exactly 40 days, and if during that time one doesn’t reach the goal, the submissions are cancelled. Because of tighter limit, we’ve pimped up the perks for Verkami – everyone supporting Iron Sky via Verkami will get a frame from the film in digital format, and those who put up a bit bigger support take part in a draw for an ORIGINAL MOON NAZI HELMET & GAS MASK (as seen here), a costume part you’ll be able to get from nowhere else! Click here to find Iron Sky on Verkami!

Sponsume is a UK-based crowd funding platform. It operates on the Keep-It-All -basis, and has perks, too. So far, the biggest success of Sponsume is 4915 UK Pounds for Il Maestro, a ten minut dark comedy about competetiveness of calssical musicians. There’s a lot of great things in Sponsume, and the variety of projects there is great! They’ve also released a nice article – the Seven Deadly Sins of Crowdfunding. Based on this, I’m going to be burning in crowdfunding hell! Click here to find Iron Sky on Sponsume!

Interactor is a rather new site with only two projects, but a very nice interface, very clear and very film-oriented platform for crowd financing. Created by filmmakers working on a film called Errors of the Human Body – directed by Xavier Gens (Frontiere(s), Hitman and The Divide). The service is not officially open for other film submissions so far, but will be later on – Iron Sky got a special treatment and got added thanks to awesome folk at Interactor. Perks included. Click here to find Iron Sky on Interactor!

COMING SOON:
There’s a bunch of services we’re about to use, but it takes a while to set things up there. The services are:

The big Kickstarter is probably the best known crowd funding platform out there. It’s not focused solely on films, but there’s a lot of different kind of things it’s supporting – music, products and so on. Kickstarter is US-based, and uses Amazon Payments for the reimbursements – which makes it impossible for companies and projects outside of US to register. But there are ways around it, and I’m working currently on a way to get Iron Sky also up on Kickstarter! Hope we’ll succeed, it’d be great to be there, too! The most succesful project on Kickstarter so far is TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch Kits, basically a wristwatch with Apple iPod Nano attached to it. They’ve raised $941,718, which was more than 6000% more of which they originally set a goal for! Kickstarter operates on the basis of all-or-nothing, meaning if you don’t reach the goal by the end of the time, all the money is returned back to the supporters. Perks included.

RESULTS:
You’ll be able to follow the whole race, from start to finish, on our website, in a specifically designed area for The Race. I’ll be blogging every week about the progress to our blog. And most importantly, I’m simultaneously gathering information to write a comprehensive study on crowd financing using the Internet communities and available platforms, which I will publish later this year for all the filmmakers out there interested on crowdfunding to read!

I’m also interested in your experiences. If you decide to support Iron Sky using one (or many) of these platforms, I’d be happy to hear about how the process went from your point of view. Feel free to drop me an email on your experiences at timo ironsky net.

WHAT CAN I DO?
Of course, best thing to do is to support us, using one or many of the platforms – whichever you prefer the most. But in addition to that, spread the word – to your friends on Twitter, Facebook and wherever you’re in contact with them. And of course, all ideas, thoughts and comments are more than welcome.

So let’s rock! Enjoy the race!

Preview the Iron Sky Promotional Trailer on Sneak Peek

If you’ve been following us making Iron Sky you know we have a tendency to be a bit perfectionists. That means we want to make sure everything is just right before we release something. This time we decided to try something different and release a work-in-progress version of the promotional trailer of Iron Sky. Of course we can’t completely let go of our perfectionism, so the trailer will only be available to members of Iron Sky Sneak Peek.

Oh, and we published a new episode of Iron Sky Signal, which you can see below!

The video created as a promo for buyers at the Berlinale film festival to give a glimpse of what the live action in the film will look like. It’s missing about 50% of the material that will be in the final trailer – most notably the CGI. We’d love to hear your comments on Sneak Peek how to make it even more awesome. The finished version of the promo trailer will be released at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.

Originally we promised that Sneak Peek is the place to see the first five minutes of the film as soon as they’re complete. Meanwhile we’ve posted exclusive making of material, but we decided to expanding the service into an experimentation laboratory. We will release other pieces of ‘work in progress’ material in addition to the trailer, and ask for your feedback.

So head over to Iron Sky Sneak Peek at http://www.ironsky.net/sneakpeek/ and get an eyeful of our new promotional trailer!

The New Iron Sky Sneak Peek is Out – Come Visit The Moon Studio!

All of us in the Iron Sky team have been very busy with work since we got home from Australia. The post-production of the film is in full swing, the CGI team in Tampere is busy rendering Nazi UFOs, Timo and our editor Suresh are piecing together the movie, and our “making of” guy Janos is wrestling with the over 200 hours of behind the scenes materials from the shoot and the last year.

In spite of this we took the time to update Iron Sky Sneak Peek, and this month you are in for a real treat. We will visit our sound stage in Village Roadshow Studios, where we built the surface of the Moon. You’ll get to see different elements that went into shooting the Moon scenes, including the stunts, the costumes and of course our custom made Moon dust. So, head over to www.ironsky.net/sneakpeek/ and check it out – and thank you for supporting Iron Sky!

A New Trailer is Coming

- Give Us Your Comments!

Last month we teased you that we are homing in for a big release, and we are almost there. You have been asking us for a new teaser for months, and soon all of you who are subscribed to Iron Sky Sneak Peek will get to see what we have been up to: a new Iron Sky trailer that’s aimed for promotional use! The trailer contains a lot of live actors and some awesome CGI, but the latter will be finished a bit later this spring.

Our plan is to open up and expand Iron Sky Sneak Peek a bit. What this means is that we’ll publish new material in there for the Sneak Peek users to screen and to comment on. The Sneak Peek subscribers will get a chance to be our test audience and voice their opinions about what certain parts of the film, trailers etc. will look or sound like when they are finished – starting with the promo trailer which we are working on currently and which we will publish in the Sneak Peek in the very near future!

Stay tuned and keep watching the skies!

The Iron Sky Team

The Editing for Iron Sky begins!

As you may or may not know, we’ve finished the shoot of Iron Sky one month ago, and now it’s time to move on. One of the major things we’re starting today is the editing of Iron Sky.

Our editing team – editor Suresh Ayyar and assistant editor Courtney O’Brien-Brown – have come all the way from Australia to here in Finland, where we’ve created our little editing bureau at the downstairs of Finnish Film Foundation. That’s where the magic happens.

Basically, we’ll be editing until 1.5., and after that, the full edit of Iron Sky should be more or less in place. We’ve reserved one more week of edit to the fall of 2011, just to be able to tweak the film a bit more when we have more finished CGI.

We started the edit by watching the whole film. Suresh has already been working like a madman, doing what we call the Assembly Edit of the film. Basically, he’s been editing all the scenes together quite loosely, just to get a general idea of the flow of the film. So, when Suresh and Courtney came to Finland, we sat down together with them and viewed what we had in our hands.

I think the first edit is always the worst for the director. All you see is the mistakes, there’s no music, no sound effects, bad dialogue, no CGI… And still, you need to imagine that there’s a film somewhere hidden there, between over-long takes, clumsy acting and crappy green screens. I was prepared for much worse, but when the 2-hour edit of Iron Sky was over, I felt… relieved. I think we agreed that hell, it’ll be a proper film, one day. I was afraid that it would be dragging, boring, not funny at all, but I was wrong. I think what we have already now is a good basis for a great film, and I’m so happy about that.

But there’s still a lot of work to be done, in edit and of course in every other sector of the film. Much of the editing process is me sitting together in a small room with Suresh and going through material: “did we shoot this angle”, “oh man that was a horrible camera move”, “do you mean we don’t have anything else in this size” and so on. But in the end we always spy the bits that work and slam it together, and eventually, it’ll turn into a film we all can be proud of.

Speaking of all, we’ve also reached two nice goals with the community today: our Facebook community has grown to 50,000 people, and we’ve reached 40% of our investment goal – that means, we now have 358000 € of money invested, with top 3 countries being Finland, Germany and UK. Because of Finnish law, we’re able to offer investment possibilities to only 99 fan investors / country, so if you’ve been thinking about investing money, especially from these three countries, be quick to sign up, because after 99 we’re not allowed to get any more investors on board from your country.

…And It’s a Wrap!

The news just arrived from Downunder: principal photography finished, all filmed material is in the can (or on portable hard drives in this case), and everyone is washing away the Australian dust with a hefty soaking of assorted beverages! On the part of the Finland crew, congratulations on making it this far and thanks for all the hard work, and see you on Monday!

The film itself, of course, is far from finished. It could be said that most of the work is still to be done. Editing is part of it. Arguably a larger part still are the visual effects which have already been underway here at the Tampere office for several months – and the pace will only pick up from here.

Stay tuned.

Iron Sky Sneak Peek – See the Storyboards

This month those of you subscribing to the Iron Sky sneak peek get to take a look at the storyboards for the first scene. If you haven’t subscribed yet now is a good time to do so. It’s only 1 euro – or you can pay what you want (the average is actually almost 7 euros!).

Anyway, long story short. Click here to see the storyboards created by Anssi Rauhala and Jussi Lehtiniemi.

p.s. Some of the storyboard images are actually screenshots from a simple 3D animation. They’re called animatics and we use them to plan out the more complex scenes. You’ll get a look at them in sneak peek as well.

Iron Sky Shoot, Day 18: First Australian Shooting Day

It’s so strange to start again. I thought that the hardest part was already over, but then we were slapped with four and half pages of script to be shot on the first day, and possibly the hardest scenes for the actors to play to begin with. The working conditions here in Australia are different, yet so similar. What used to be chilling cold is now steaming hot, and what used to be snowstorm is now torrential rain. And either way, the weather is not favoring Iron Sky.

But we’re getting it done, day by day. Yesterday, we had nice shooting day at the film theater – a very lengthy one, and no matter what, it does take time to get started. We were fumbling around with the first scene for a bit too long time, and after that we still had most of the day left. But after the lunch we cranked up bigger gear and roared to the end, being able to get everything we needed just in schedule.

The heat here is humbling. Makes me crankier than I should be, so it probably takes a few days to get used to.

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