We started our shooting day at 5 am in the new public library Oodi. This was my first big commercial shoot so I’m not used to seeing customer’s representatives on set. Their presence made the day a little bit more exciting and even the early morning didn’t matter at that point. At 8 am library visitors started coming in and little did they know that we had been filming there for the past few hours.
From Oodi we continued to our small single room apartment location in Katajanokka to film one scene. Only a few were lucky enough to fit inside so me and my new friends were outside camping in the snow (and enjoying the catering). After that we got onboard the cruise ship and finally ended our long shooting day in the terminal tube around 8pm.
Gladly some of the crew consisted of familiar faces from Blockbusters Gang:
Client: Viking Line Suomi
Production Company: Otto Tuotanto Oy
Director: Jappe Päivinen
1st Assistant Director: Iiris Juutilainen / Blockbusters Gang
2nd Assistant Director: Aino Niemi / Blockbusters Gang
AD Trainees: Janne Lähteenmäki & Senni Hautala / Blockbusters Gang
Electrician: Rosa Mäkinen / Blockbusters Gang
Location Assistant: Emma Ylistalo / Blockbusters Gang
Extras Casting: BBG Casting
My job was to assist our first AD Iiris and later help our second AD Aino with background actors. I was eager to see how Iiris and Aino managed to control almost 40 extras on-set. Turns out clear commands and making sure that everybody understands them are key elements to good end result. Aino also told us some tips on what kind of instructions we should give to extras and what to say in their briefing session. The fun part was that some of the extras had much more on-set experience than me.
The terminal tube in which we filmed in was super cold. Background actors were told to wear middle season clothes so me and Senni had to hand out warming jackets during longer breaks. The result looks good so it was all worth it.
During pre-production I assisted Iiris in making the callsheets for the crew and finally seeing it come to life was a good lesson on how everything must be planned in advance so we can make the most out of our shooting days.
– Janne
BBG Junior Program Participant 2019
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Learn more about Janne:
“I’m 21 year-old film and television production student from Helsinki, Finland. I’m currently studying at Aalto University/ELO Film School Finland and participating in Blockbusters Gang’s Junior Program to achieve more knowledge and understanding of the film industry.
So far I have assisted in various productions both on set and at the office (for example managing background actors, scheduling and logistics). I’m very interested in the whole process of filmmaking and hoping to complete an internship in a larger production during Summer 2019.“