As a production and marketing service company, we are enthusiastic of helping our clients to complete their productions instead of creating projects on our own. There surely are some exceptions – like our own BBG Coaching concept with for example Fairy Godgang Project or our numerous Networking Nights at at the office, but these are our way of evolving the filmmaking culture in Finland rather than telling a story or selling a product. In our opinion and experience this means freedom, excitement, lot of new ideas, and lot of new friends. Here’s one great example of it.
On February 2015 Iiris received a message from old colleague asking would she be able to chat with a first time Director about his film idea and production plan for a superhero movie. Surely, we said. About a week later she met Jesse for a cup of coffee and went through a regular workflow for a Finnish film with him. Though Rendel never was a basic Finnish drama, this is how it all started for us.
Jesse, Emma and Iiris on March 2015 posing after a pre-production meeting.
After chatting Jesse hired us to work with a production plan for the film – Iiris broke down and scheduled the script and Minna budgeted the production. As we were working on this we asked Jesse for his plans for Cannes this year – we’d be able to have a pretty decent package ready for the financiers in case he’d be interested in investigating any international connections for the film. After one hour Skype with him we suddenly renewed both our plans for the festival and market: we’d launch a crowdfunding campaign, screen the first concept teaser, create promo walks and of course have a party for the industry to catch the interest of buyers and financiers. Though as an indie film Rendel’s festival budget wasn’t huge we were all ambitious to see what we’d be able to build up in these couple months.
Cannes Film Festival & Marche Du Film 2015 Rendel promotions and party.
During the festival preparations we also contacted some people we already knew in the industry. On our first day of Cannes we introduced Jesse to Miika from Black Lion Pictures which in the end became the co-producer and distributor for the film in the Finnish territory. If there was any ice it was definitely now broken and Rendel officially began it’s journey as a full-lenght indie drama. During the crowdfunding campaign we also coordinated couple of additional promo walks back in Finland.
Rendel promo walks in Helsinki and Tampere in June & July 2015.
BBG wasn’t involved in any of the shoots for the film but we are happy to know there was something we helped to make possible. Developing the production package, making complex film concrete in the beginning and helping out with marketing and festival promotions in Cannes we hopefully have given something extra to this story. Even though all the plans needed to be updated pretty heavily when co-producers signed in, we are happy Jesse already had something they could start working with.
Rendel party and promo walk in Cannes 2016.
All the best to Jesse and his loyal workers – we hope your journey with films (and us) is only going to get bigger and better!
Helsinki guest premiere in September 2017. We were very happy to finally see the finished film and celebrate the release with the Jesse and the crew.