FAN FILM FRIDAY: Jarmo Puskala talks to us about "Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning" and "Iron Sky"

Jarmo Interview

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. today we’ve got a huge treat for any fans of fan films: We’re talking with Jarmo Puskala ( http://www.jarmopuskala.com/ ), the co-writer of the first truly epic Fan Film, “Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning.” Jarmo, thank you very much for taking the time to be here today.

JARMO:
Thank you. Being Finnish I'm not quite sure what to say to such compliments :D I'm happy you enjoyed the film, for us that's the big idea behind making movies.

REPUBLIBOT 3.0:
“In The Pirkinning” is pretty much the holy grail of Fan Films: It’s feature length, it’s got very high production values, the visuals pop. There’s a lot of gee-gosh-wow space battles, and on top of that, it’s funny as hell. I’ve yet to meet a single person who doesn’t like it, and of course, a huge part of that credit goes to you. How did you get involved in the project

JARMO:
The Star Wreck series of films was started by a guy called Samuli Torssonen. By the time of "In the Pirkinning" he had made five short films and released them online. It was in 1999 when he send a message to Usenet looking for people to give some fresh feedback on his next Star Wreck film. So, having loved the previous films I volunteered. And they still haven't gotten rid of me!

REPUBLIBOT 3.0:
Had you been involved in any of the previous Star Wreck films?

JARMO:
No, I was just a fan.

REPUBLIBOT 3.0:
The writer is generally the most overlooked guy in the Fan Film community over here. Everyone seems to want to assume as long as they’ve got some sets and some costumes, they can just make it up as they go along, and it shows. Your film was *extremely* tight and structured, however; it actually *feels* like a real feature film. How did you approach writing that script?

JARMO:
It was not very organized at first. Originally the film was supposed to be 15 to 20 minutes long and making a feature length film was just a dream. Then I came aboard and we got feedback some other people who had answered Samuli's call for comments, the story started to grow and eventually it was decided this should be that feature length film of our dreams.

REPUBLIBOT 3.0:
Was the initial idea yours, or was it the product of a whole lot of brainstorming sessions? How much input did the others in the team have for the finished story?

JARMO:
The basic story of Captain Pirk taking over the world and going into the Babel 13 universe was there when I joined. But back then it just turned into one big space battle and ended. That basic outline came from Samuli and his friend Rudi Airisto who had already been writing the previous Star Wrecks.

Then when I joined we started to flesh out the Babel 13 side of the story with much of my contributions being there. We used email and IRC to brainstorm. Often it would go that Samuli had an idea and Rudi would write something based on that. Then I would write my own version and Rudi would then write his own version of that and then Samuli would come in and write what Pirk would _really_ say. And then when it was time to film the scene the director Timo