Kai Amberla//Finland Festivals – What it takes, How it helps…

The other day we had the pleasure of having Kai Amberla, Executive Director at Finland Festivals, as our guest. As described on their website “Finland Festivals is a non-profit organization that serves the culture and tourism sector, focusing on representing the collective interests of festivals, marketing and public relations, information gathering, research and training”. As a musician, former manager and director of various organizations including the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras and Finnish Music Information Centre, Kai Amberla has a lengthy repertoire of experience and expertise. He has both experienced first hand what it takes to conduct an arts organization as well as seen the development of the festival culture in Finland.

Speaking of Finnish festival culture, let’s go back a bit a few decades where even the word ‘cultural summer’ had an old fashioned and absurd resonance. It was the world of Finland in the fifties; the world an encouraged composer named Seppo Nummi lived in. His was a vision of a long lasting culture-filled summer full of events that would unite the arts and people in celebration. Back then, people were very sensitive to foreigners’ criticism, which presented a challenge to individuals like him hoping to open the cultural doors to the world and avoid falling into a ‘culture vacuum’.

Nowadays, culture managers such as Kai Amberla carry on this legacy of a still young and blooming Finnish festival culture. He pointed out his satisfaction of the fact that Finland is not a rock festival country, nor opera festival country, but a country of many festival types. It is popular now in Finland to attend festivals during the summer though it wasn’t until the late sixties in 1968 when such a vision was born in the form of Finland Festivals. Originally founded by 8 different festivals, the ideals at the time were still narrowed as to the involvement of any more festivals for Finland. The problem in that time was that the quality standards were still quite low although spirit was high.

There is a distinction made by the executive director, that you have professional festivals and amateur festivals. There are certain characteristics that distinguish the two. Firstly, in a professional festival, the management ought to be “professional”; Second, that professional art is presented; and that all the systems surrounding the festival are of professional standard (waste management, emergency areas, restrooms, stages, security, assessment of legal issues, etc). Then there is what we can call, the “weird festivals” such as spouse carrying, mobile phone throwing, sauna Olympics, and other anything goes festivals. These are the ones that unfortunately people hear about according to Kai Amberla.

One of the main important things about making this distinction is the impact that festivals have on the economy, local culture and the perception from the rest of the world about what that local culture is about. This concerns image and thus quality. As our guest explained during his presentation, festivals also play a key role in city branding. There are places in Finland where it is considered that the main reason people go there from outside the region, is for some festival or culture event. In other words, this has an impact on the tourism economy. Festivals are in essence culture products but as travel routes open up further in the international realm, the culture product becomes essential to tourism. Because of this, Kai Amberla points out, “We [Finland Festivals and similar organizations] are part of the tourism business”. Festivals comprise the possibility of enhancing the value of a city when the city is ‘packaged’ into a product. For example, when a city is branded as a touristic destination where the geographical location is the core product and the festival is an added value from which you seek to make profit (in this case, for further development of the city’s economy).

However popular, since 1968 until now, festivals in Finland lack a greater interest and attendance from foreigners. This represents a big challenge for festival organizers since the local population is relatively small, and the foreigners either residing or simply passing through Finland represent valuable stakeholders. This is why an organization like Finland Festivals exists today. “Finland Festivals works to improve operating conditions for festivals and to influence government policy in its sector by establishing close ties with parties that formulate relevant public policy”. The previous quote taken from Finland Festivals official website describes what is one of the most essential elements of their work. Because of the many challenges that festival organizers face, it results very often in very high costs, considering the low attendance of foreigners in comparison to local attendees that still represent a small number. Thus festival revenues rely on many other important income sources, mainly government subsidiaries and state subsidiaries (funds, grants, investments).

By influencing government policies establishing closer ties relevant to public policy, Finland Festivals can help improve the situation for festivals allowing for more flexible conditions to operate. They also provide consulting and management services to their members as well as providing passage into a growing network.

As Culture Export managers, we learn from organizations like these and such organizations are of our concern. Whether it’s a festival, a play, a band or any other culture product, we benefit from working close to those organizations that help improve the conditions that can allow us, in other words, better market entry possibilities for the culture products. So let’s support the Seppo Nummi’s and Kai Amberla’s of today and tomorrow that serve as agents of culture export as well as an influence in the social culture!

Links: http://www.festivals.fi/en/

Text & Pictures by

Alejandro Díaz Ortiz

With Riikka Hakola in KaDeWe Berlin

While we were having an adventure in Berlin we took one afternoon to sit down with a very charming lady: the Finnish opera singer Riikka Hakola. Riikka is originally from Finland, but currently living in Berlin with her family.

Riikka Hakola is a soprano who has done a great international career. She started out as a young girl, graduated from Finnish music school Sibelius academy, and has worked in many projects ever since all around the world. She has performed for example in Helsinki Finnish National Opera, In New York at Metropolitan Opera, and also has she been performing in various exotic locations. In New York she was performing in War & Peace opera with Anna Netrebko, who is one of the leading stars in Opera industry. Riikka told us a lot of stories about living life in New York, which many of them made us laugh. Riikka has performed a wide range of different operas, which include many classics such as Violetta, Anna Bolena, Donna Anna and Tosca.

We asked Riikka`s opinion about the industry and how she sees that we future Culture Export Managers would fit into industry. This was a question that we asked from everybody we met in Berlin. And the answer was every time the same: there is plenty of work for us, the industry needs people with enthusiasms and passion, but it will not be an easy road. Like every cultural field, also opera has faced some difficulties in the past years. But obviously CEM students are up for a challenge.

We also asked from Riikka how she takes care of her health, after all voice is the biggest tool she has. Her answer was really down-to-earth and practical. She told us that she just simply tries to keep her in good shape, and tries to avoid overreaction like sleeping in oxycen tanks or avoiding speaking days before shows.
Riikka was really fascinating persona and time just flied by when talking to her, and unfortunately too soon we had to already rush into our next meeting… But hey, did I already mention where we met her for lunch? In the finest department store there is in Berlin (and also oldest: KaDeWe was opened in 1907). We had lunch in the top floor, we there was an incredible restaurant with breath taking views.
Great day, great people and good memories from Berlin!

Text by Senja Hämäläinen

Pictures by Naomi Zino & Päivi Kettunen

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014 // Story about internship part 3

Live in the Festival

So far half of my time in Edinburgh is gone. First milestone: the preview dates and the premiere! This is time to validate how successful work we have done. The tickets for the preview dates are usually cheaper or even most of them are complementary tickets. It is the first time for the cast to perform on the stage for the audience. Definitely four hours of the technical rehearsals were not enough to have a dry run for everything. Will the music and sound effects play in the right way; are all the costumes on the right sides; how audience will apprehend the play? Likely, everything went smoothly for both performances. After two preview days, there is a premiere. Officially the Festival opens from the premiere days, therefore it is a bright start for non-stop three weeks of festival life!

Now it might sound that the most of the work is done, however it is just the beginning! I mentioned earlier that there were over 3 500 shows and events daily, and it is indeed high competition for the audience! During the Festival apart of big venues that open a few stages under the same roof and huge permanent venues, there are dozens of small venues, pop-up stages. For instance, you could find a venue from 10 sitting places till up to 3 500 sitting places. An average number of visitors per show (information is taken from one of the workshops hosted by Fringe Society) was a little bit over four (!). This average number means that all the shows happening during the festival weeks were taken into consideration, and it is difficult to compare this average number with number of sitting places in a very small and in a very big venue. A typical contract with a venue assumes a minimum audience attendance for theatre is 35%. Not difficult to see that reality shows different numbers. Moreover, remembering that there are performers and the shows with well-known names, it makes it even more challenging to attract audience. Does it sound pessimistic? For me it sounded like “challenge accepted!”

#EdFringe2014

The most used hashtag during the Festival! However, here I will briefly describe our physical and SoMe promotion activities, PR and marketing.

We have created and updated Twitter accounts for Chaplin (@playchaplin) and Last Call (@LastCallThePlay), and maintained ACE-Production Twitter (@aceprodfinland) and Facebook accounts. However, for the social media we started creating the audience and buzz, but we did not have many followers beforehand since the market and the product were new. The Twitter account feed was displayed also in the official Fringe Festival web-site (see: Chaplin and reference on tweets for Last Call), so it had some visibility there.

For our great regret, outsourced PR services did not meet any expectations, and after hiring the PR person due to not providing any services, we had to hand over these responsibilities. With the great support from our cast, we managed the press releases and some media and reviewer contacts, but most of the priceless time was missed at that point. This incident showed once more the importance of trustworthy, responsible and hard-working partners.

During the preparatory work a show is included to the official program of Fringe Festival, therefore listed in the official guide, joint venues’ brochure and available on the web-site. On top of that, it is very important to present and to be outstanding and visible for the audience in physical marketing materials. There are all possible fences, billboards and posters all over the town! There were even 12 special festival pillars for the posters on Royal Mile. On the picture below you could see how many layers of posters this pillar grew during three festival weeks!

The VirginMoney Festival pillars’ change during Fringe

Once we got the posters and the flyers printed, we immediately started street promotion activities. They grew accustomed to our everyday schedule: before the first show at 12:20 (Chaplin) we were flyering on Royal Mile or at the venue, Pleasance Courtyard; then during the daytime at the same places. Later during the day and before next show at 19:55 (Last Call) we went to Royal Mile or Princess Street to Half-Price Hut box office or closer to C-venue at Riddles’s Court. Personally I always tried to talk to people instead of just giving them a flyer. It took much more effort, but it paid off! I have definitely improved my pitching skills and learnt to find a personal approach to every person. Especially when I talked about Chaplin. I learned turning a pitch to a conversation. Quite often, if I talked to the people who have seen the play already, I received very positive feedback. The nature of the Festival is so that there are many shows with very tough schedule. We had only 20 min after our performance to clear the stage and let next performer start. It means also that the audience have very limited time to move from one venue to another, if they planned seeing a few shows in a row. Therefore, talking to the people allowed me gathering the feedback that they do not necessarily have time to share just after the performance. This could have been a perfect customer-oriented way of promotion, but the ratio between number of people you can approach this way and number of potential visitors is too small.

As a conclusion, the smarter you plan the promotion or marketing campaign the better. However, planning makes sense if it is done well in advance. Being already there does not allow you spending too much time on re-planning! It is time for actions: if some approach did not work, try another, and then another again. It is important being brave and self-confident; there is no time for hesitation or wondering around. If there is this limited manpower as we had, you certainly have to prioritize where it is the most important to be at the moment. Either it is taking part in a workshop, network, do online promotion or arrange a meeting, but there is no such work that could not deserve any attention.

Learning Points

I am truly grateful for this opportunity being a part of such a wonderful Fringe Festival. It always have been very busy schedule and long working days; frustration from times to times if something did not work as was expected, and finding courage going on and trying something new; meetings with very interesting people; the festive atmosphere and every day bringing you something interesting and new. I haven’t mentioned even one tenth from my experience being in the internship in Edinburgh. On top of that there were meetings, interaction with various stakeholders; I managed to see quite many great shows (likely much less bad shows) and visit a few interesting places.

Some shows that I have visited during Fringe

There are some random learning points and skills I have developed during my two months experience:

• Time is priceless. Use it as efficient as possible;
• Talk to people, network, and exchange experience! The Festival (applies to any other event) brings so great people together, use this opportunity;
• Be proactive. If you do not know an answer, ask!
• I have seen and been a part of production process, that significantly supports my Culture Export Management specialization and better understanding of creative industries;
• Know the Why behind all your actions. Even before taking a part in the Festival ask yourself why you want to be present (share experience, find valuable contacts, have great audience or something else?);
• Always test and try new things if something doesn’t go well; do not rely on assumptions, but try to validate them;
• I have seen many entertaining or tear bringing shows; great and bringing food for thought. It is not the way of spending time during the Festival, but an opportunity to broaden your knowledge of the industry and analyse the trends;
• I have learnt understanding Scottish accent;
• I have spotted some culture differences and experienced different working environment;
• Smooth communication between all stakeholders is crucial as with external stakeholders as within a team;
• We have developed own efficient way of postering;
• Enjoy the unique atmosphere and unique opportunity.

Especially I am grateful to the people who supported me during my amazing journey at EdFringe2014: Chryssa Skodra, Hongjia Qi, Sven Sid, Sari Jagielski, Juha Hippi, Mikko Räty, and amazing Sarah McCardie, Michelle Edwards, James Bryce, Christopher Page, John Scougall and Ross Dunsmore.

Cast, director Sven Sid, production team and technicians

 

Text and video by Maria Strelkova
Photo by Maria Strelkova and Hongjia Qi

 

 

 

 

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014 // Story about internship part 2

The Rehearsals Weeks

The very first impression from Edinburgh: warm enough but slightly raining; smiling and friendly people; original cabs; the buildings reminding some sceneries from Harry Potter movies and a great apartment. Moreover, everything is in English! Ough, I forgot to mention, it was the first time when I visited native English-speaking country. So exciting! The evening of the first day was spent on unpacking and examining local surrounding.

Already from next day we started the rehearsals for Chaplin. We had a great rehearsals venue at Dance Base in Grassmarket: a spacious studio with a proper sound system. Thanks to company visits at Culture Export Management Program and some of my previous experience, I have been to the rehearsals, but never followed them from the very beginning. I know the script, I have seen the play from a recording, but I do not know what to expect from the process and from the actors. I have never been inside this environment!

When the actors arrived, I understood that all of them are amazing individuals! Round of introduction, and straight to the business – reading the script together, planning the working tempo, specifying some practicalities. Worth mentioning that our amazing cast Sarah McCardie, Michelle Edwards, James Bryce, Christopher Page, John Scougall and Ross Dunsmore was gratefully supporting each other and us, so it made our working together such efficient and enjoyable at the same time.

However, I was assured once again that production work and artistic work are the two parts of creating one successful piece of culture, but these tasks have to be under different persons’ responsibilities.  Thus, while the creative team worked on rehearsals and putting all great ideas together, the production team consisted from Hongjia and me were working on logistics, communications, promotion and all ongoing tasks. Some tasks included coordination of order and delivery printed marketing materials, looking for the props, update ourselves with the latest important information from the venue and Fringe Society, social media promotion, supervising that PR materials are ready and correct, taking care of the guest list and complementary tickets. Once some props and the costumes were delivered from Helsinki, there was quite a lot of work with trying them on, seeing what costumes can be altered according to their sizes and what has to be replaced. Some alterations I have made myself, some of them by a professional tailor. In addition, I was assisting our director and providing feedback and advice when needed.

Rehearsals

I shall admit that by the end of the third (and the last) week of the rehearsals I knew the script and most of the acting gestures by heart.  There was quite a lot of routine that I simply had to take care of in order that the artistic process could go smoothly. However, there was something magical seeing how within such a short time some text on the paper becomes an accomplished and beautiful play. So much hard work stays behind the scenes! I think if audience see and feel completed, and all-sufficient play without noticing how much work was done in order to make it vivid and natural, then the work is done perfectly! Working on every single move, gesture, tone, look, accent and even minor details – everything stays behind the scenes, and audience shall enjoy the experience!

Also quite a lot of my time I decided to spend on self-education. Chaplin is a fascinating and touching story, a bibliographical theater play about Charlie Chaplin as a person with such a rich, tragic and at the same time beautiful life story. I did not know anything about Charlie Chaplin apart of a few films with him starring as a Tramp. Therefore, I decided that in order to understand the play that I am helping to become a success, to talk about it with potential audience better and professionally, I have to learn myself quite a lot. Therefore, free evenings I was reading Charles Chaplin’s book “My Autobiography”, searching for articles in the internet and watching his movies.

Almost here!

The closer it was to the official days of the Fringe Festival’s opening, the more people and more vivacity was on the streets. Every day after the rehearsals, I was walking down from Grassmarket to Canongate (20 min by foot) and it usually took me over an hour. What performances, what an amazing festive mood in the air! Amateur and professional street performers, street art, portray, live statues, hand crafts, unique and creative styles of the shows – everything you could find on Royal Mile! To run ahead, I will note that Royal Mile was a centre of the entire Festival. It was an accumulation of all street promotion, scheduled street performances and events. The street of 0.2 miles long later on took over 20 min to pass through because it was overcrowded.

Street performances

At the end of the third week of Chaplin’s rehearsals, Juha and Mikko came with rehearsed in English Last Call play. A little bit earlier that time Sari Jagielski, who also takes part in Culture Export Management program, came to Edinburgh to help. I genuinely appreciate Sari’s help who brought so much positive energy to our production team! All together we started physical marketing promotion (flyering and postering), also a just before the previews there was quite a lot of work with moving the props and the costumes for Chaplin from the rehearsal venue to Pleasance and going through technical rehearsals together with the venue’s stuff. Chaplin was performed at the Pleasance Theatre Trust venue, Pleasance Courtyard Forth; and Last Call was staged at a new venue for the C-venues: Riddle’s Court. In my first blog post I mentioned that once the contract with venue is signed, the venue becomes the first contact for the performer. In order to ensure a successful arranging and conditions for the performer, there should be close cooperation between venue and performer. Venue shall become a second home, a host for the performer; and this relationship has to be trusting and reliable. Having great and organised atmosphere in the venue, performer can focus on the performance itself. Unfortunately, it does not necessarily happen. For instance, Pleasance has a very professional attitude, yet it is clearly seen the all the stuff loves what they are doing. Therefore, it was a pleasure to work with these people. Whereas in C-venues were quite a lot of problems in communication and in finding solutions in some difficult situations. As the conclusion of everything mentioned above, a producer and all production team (venues also can be seen as a production team for all performances happening at their premises) shall have a passion towards what they are doing. Professionalism, right ways of communication, some knowledge and networks are very important in the creative industries, but it might be gained with experience. I believe that if production team do not have passion towards what they are doing, cannot enable performer’s success, not striving for excellence and not being proactive, the piece of art that they are producing cannot be successful.

Jaha Hippi at C-venue with Last Call poster on the wall

The billboard with Chaplin outside Pleasance Courtyard

Text and photo by Maria Strelkova

…to be continued.

Showroom Berliini!

On the 4^th of November we Culture Export Management students visited a contemporary art space called Showroom Berliini in the heart of Berlin. Showroom Berliini promotes and does exhibitions for Nordic especially Finnish but also international contemporary art. The main reason why Showroom Berliini wants to focus on Nordic art is because they are the once who need to be promoted more and need help with it. Showroom Berliini also hosts variety of different and remarkable events like solo and group shows by young and upcoming artists, dj and movie nights and talks on contemporary up-to-date topics. Showroom Berliini started hosting these various events as a co-founded gallery in 2014.

Every exhibition they have in Showroom Berliini lasts 3 weeks. From their website www.showroomberliini.com you can find their autumn programme for their events and exhibitions as well as the entire list of the artists. During our visit there was an exhibition taking place from the visual artist Tero Puha. It had started already the 24^th of October but luckily was still on when we arrived. We saw three short video exhibitions from Tero Puha called BLOCKAGE, NINE TO FIVE and THE RIGHT WAY TO BE. First two of them really stand out and that’s why I chose to open them a little bit more in this blog post.

BLOCKAGE (2014)

Tero Puha’s new short film Blockage focuses on the individuals’ gender identity and how it is influenced by the ideas and expectations of our parents and the society. In the movie there is a woman going to her old childhood home after her mother’s funerals. She puts on her mother’s old dress and suddenly all her mixed feelings of her identity start to alive. At this point the viewer starts to think, “Who is she?”. This is exactly what Tero Puha was aiming for; he wanted to show the identity and the both sides of the gender roles of a modern human. In this movie he touches the subject of parenting and how it can affect a child who isn’t sure who he or she is. Is it possible that a “wrong kind of” parenting can ruin the real identity of a child?

The movie shows perfectly the struggle of those mixed and repressed feelings that the woman is dealing with. At the end she finally finds peace with her identity and leaves the house with a peaceful mind.

Picture by Tero Puha: Blockage 2014

NINE TO FIVE (2008)

This short film also made by Tero Puha focuses on the never ending work of a housewife. The movie shows a woman in her clean and perfect home working the same tasks over and over again. The viewer gets the point of the feminine roles and the routines described in the movie almost immediately. It is almost like you’re secretly watching some housewife’s day and realizing how it really looks like. The housewife tries to reach for perfection but at the same time is battling against the clock. Nine to Five movie ends in a chaos. While the day goes on with the same routines, the housewife falls apart with her constant rush and desperation. The dream of a lovely night shared together with her husband will never come true in the movie.

Picture by Tero Puha: Nine to Five 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should you be more interested in these exhibitions you can check his website www.teropuha.com where you can find more information about his work and projects.

Although Showroom Berliini is still very young since it was founded in 2014 it has developed very fast. Next year in January Showroom Berliini will bring events and different artist from Finland and Nordic countries. We hope all the best for Showroom Berliini and its artists!

Thank you for having us!

Text by Heli Laaksonen

Pictures by Tero Puha

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014 // Story about internship part 1

I still quite cannot believe myself that I have completed my internship in Scotland! The great and continuous collaboration between Culture Export Management Program and ACE-Production enabled me making it happen! ACE-Production has been offering a unique opportunity to the CEM students for a few past years, and this year it is me who helps to bring a piece of Finnish culture to the biggest in the world Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So, do you want to know how happened; what happened there; how it was, and you have dozens of other questions? I know the answers, so let’s start!

Edinburgh Fringe Festival in a nutshell

Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest arts festival in the world that takes place every August for three weeks in the capital of Scotland. The history of the Festival started in in 1947 from a few theatre groups being uninvited to newly formed Edinburgh International Festival. The International Festival was aiming on enrich awaking culture and economy of Scotland after the Second World War. However, the uninvited theatre group decided to perform, even though they were not an official part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s program. Therefore, the groups performed at the “Fringe of the Festival”. Year by year this “Fringe of the Festival” initiative gathered more and more amazing theatre performers. That led to 1957 when the Edinburgh Fringe Society was formed with own constitution to support the growing trend. Find more about the Fringe Festival at the official web-site https://www.edfringe.com/

Partly because of the nature how the Fringe Society was born, it has been following their strong policy of being an open-access festival. It means that there is no vetting for the performers, and they are included in the program if they have a story to tell and a venue willing to host them. There is no artistic director shaping the Festival’s program; and the main responsibility of Fringe Society is to provide knowledge and support to the performers. Nowadays the Fringe Society is still run by a small group of enthusiasts supported by the Board, and it is just unbelievable that every year Edinburgh explodes from the number of performances and people attending the Festival.

Fringe Society provides all necessary up to date information and statistics as for the visitors as for the venues and the participants. I strongly suggest subscribing to their newsletter (different for the visitors and for the performers) here at the bottom of the page if you are planning being there! The newsletter bulletin is another example of a great high-quality work and smooth communication between the Society and the stakeholders.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014

Thanks to the nature of being open-access, the Fringe Festival attracts more and more performers and shows from year to year. This year’s Fringe Festival officially was announced as the largest arts festival in the history with 49 497 performances of 3 193 shows in 299 venues. Estimated number of tickets issued for the performances and events during Edinburgh Fringe Festival is 2 183 591 (!) which is 12% more than estimated number of the tickets for the same period last year (read the closing press-release of Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014). Moreover, during the Festival weeks there are so many other events happening all around the city! Only the Royal Military Tattoo in the Edinburgh Castle withdrew from the main Fringe program over 2 000 people every evening; The Free Fringe (Free Fringe 2014 and newly launched Free Fringe web-site) has its own free of charge nearly 800 performances that attract another thousands of people. From one hand, it is indeed amazing and magical that the city with half a million inhabitants can accommodate and host hundreds of thousands visitors and performers during the festival weeks. From another hand, doesn’t  it sound like a very strong competition?

Royal Mile just before and already after the Festival

The Beginning

So, if the Fringe Society supports participants and visitors by providing an information platform, who practically makes the largest Festival happen? The answer is the venues and the performers themselves. A performer (read: a single performer, a group; a company in creative industry or a production agency) contacts a venue of their choice. Once the venue is set and the contract between the venue and the performer is signed, the main local responsible for the performer is the venue.  If the performer is not familiar with the local offers and venues, the Fringe Society provides a database of all the venues and helps you to find the one you need and love. It is also possible to set your own venue.

From now on, the venue becomes the first contact and information supporter of the performer. The biggest and experienced venues issue their own brochures, advice with the technical issues of the stage, schedules with you the shows, assists in ticket pricing, explains the box office system, monitors the submission of all necessary materials and the deadlines and does many other supporting activities. The earlier this process starts the better. Especially the performers who bring their shows from year to year are booking the best venue partners well in advance, so it is very important to do the same. Since I was working in the production agency, I will start using in my story their name to reflect the working processes. So, because it becomes a very high competition from the performers already in the preparatory stage, the production agency must be very proactive, with well-planned timeline and deadlines. When I said “well in advance”, it literally means a year in advance.  The bookings of the venues start straight after the previous Fringe Festival. Thus, being “part of the Festival” does not mean that you are just physically there during these three weeks, but also working hard on all the preparatory work.

My internship practically began in Helsinki. From end of May 2014 until mid-June, I was working part-time for ACE-Production located in Svenska Teatern at Esplanadi. The producer of ACE-Production, Hongjia Qi, was running all the activities listed above, moreover applying for the government grands, handling the rights of the play and many-many other responsibilities.  At that time I joined, all the processes were ongoing. ACE-Production was responsible for the production of Chaplin staged earlier in Svenska Teatern and coordinating the Last Call play (Teatro Labora ry, Juha Hippi and Mikko Räty). Last Call was a one-man show with translated script of the Finnish original Tippa play, and Chaplin was a shortened version of the original play in Svenska Teatern. Both scripts were translated, but whereas Juha practiced and performed Last Call himself, Chaplin required a six person local cast from Scotland. For that ACE-Production’s producer Hongjia Qi; Managing Director of Svenska Teatern and the CEO of ACE-Production, Johan Storgård together with Artistic Director of the Chaplin play Sven Sid went to Edinburgh for conducting auditions.

In the beginning of my internship I spent quite a lot of time on familiarizing myself with the current stage, the processes and own responsibilities, taking care of legal papers and visa, and trying to help as much as I could with logistics and marketing.   End of spring and June was indeed a hectic time. Being quite behind the schedule, all preparatory work had to be done in a very tough schedule. All of us who were going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014 were new and with no previous experience of being during the festival weeks in Scotland.  Here I would like to emphasize the importance of personal qualities of a person who makes everything happen and puts all the pieces together. Thanks to Hongjia’s highly professional attitude, outstanding organizing skills and proactiveness, we handled all logistics in a very short time. So, Scotland, here we come!

Hongjia Qi, Sven Sid and I at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport going to Edinburgh

Text and photo by Maria Strelkova

…to be continued.

Lecture with Stereoscape

Ugh. It’s Wednesday. Well, I guess it’s pretty close to Friday. At least I like to think that it is. First you go through the basic routines. You get up, eat something and then you migrate straight to Porvoo Campus. Well, at least this is one of the last sunny(ish) days of the fall, so it’s nice to get some fresh air before working and studying.

First it is critically important to set your priorities straight, some coffee from Amica. It’s going to be a long day, but at least it’s somewhat sunny and we have an interesting lecture coming up. Otto Myöhänen is coming to talk to us about 3D. I personally have no idea what he is going to tell us. Sure I have seen a lot of movies in 3D (very few of them have been good simply because of the 3D), but I have a feeling that they do much more than just movies. (Spoiler in advance: I was right!) Muchos excitement!

All in 3D!

To be fair, I’m not that in to 3D. Probably because I don’t really understand it… I know some people are literally unable to see it, but I can and still I don’t really like it. Sure, it is a nice gimmick in movies and all that, but I’m guessing that there is more to it. And I was not wrong…

I was really impressed with the level of expertise Stereoscape has. I didn’t know that we have the best in the business here in Finland but it certainly is impressive. They worked on some really big movies, like the Moomins and that’s just the tip off the iceberg. They are competing with some really high rollers from Hollywood and that can’t be easy.

They had also done some really nice marketing videos for Wärtsilä. They basically used augmented reality, so you could try out watches without even having to go to a store that sells them. That was really cool, especially if you could use that technology with clothes, shoes etc. Online shopping could get a lot easier and a lot more interactive. That was in my opinion the main point of the lecture, interactivity.

All in all, the lecture was quite informative. The topic might have been a bit hard to grasp because it is pretty technical, but I think we all got a good impression on what Stereoscape does and what sort of things this technology can be used. Especially in the future when it becomes more common and when people get more used to it.

A big thanks to Otto for taking some time for us and an even bigger kudos for the success their hard work has brought them. It was quite inspirational to hear him talk with so much passion about their industry. A really good motivator!

Text and pictures by Mikael Miilumäki