Finnish folk metal legends Korpiklaani and filmmaker Kimmo Kuusniemi teamed up for two tours - Russia 2016 and Japan 2017 - which were documented by Kuusniemi.

Made In Russia is available here. Check out the Made In Russia homepage here, and the Live In Japan documentary is available here, both as Video On Demand streams 

Kuusniemi has offered a behind-the-scenes look at some of his experiences during this project. 

"With these documentaries I broke several rules of professional filmmaking. The first rule: Never get involved in films that don’t have a budget.

I didn’t realise the mad journey I was about to sign up for when I met Jonne (Korpiklaani vocalist) at my brother's garden in 2016. Jonne asked me if I wanted to make documentary about Korpiklaani. When I heard that Korpiklaani were going to have a long extended tour through Russia and Siberia I was sold. There was no budget, so according to rule number one, walk away. Which of course I didn’t as the excitement of the road trip overpowered the sensibility, which is a common problem with creative people.

After unsuccessfully trying to get the  record label to fund the film, etc. the only way I could see to do this was by crowdfunding. I had never done this before so even this sounded exciting. The band didn’t want to take the risk of crowdfunding, so as well as everything else I decided I would do the crowdfunding myself. So, I broke the second important rule of filmmaking: Never take personal risk financing a film.

Eugene (co-producer) and I did a very extensive advertising campaign for the documentaries. When the crowdfunding ended we realised that the money raised didn’t even cover the work and time we put into the crowdfunding advertisement. We did not get the money to finish the film but instead we did find some very loyal and supportive crowdfunders who believed in the films as much as we did. Not everything is measured in money.

During post production on the Live in Russia film the band were going on tour in Japan, and the plan was to get me there to film another documentary. Japan has alway’s been my top ten list of destinations to visit. I have made commercial films for Japanese markets before but never had chance to visit. So very tempting.

Once again I broke the first rule of film making: 'Never get involved with films that don’t have a budget.' So now I have done it twice in one project.

As planned with Jonne; I again set up a crowdfunding project for Japan. Just when the campaign was online I was forced to cancel it for reasons which are most bizarre. 

Against all the odds, I still ended up on tour in Japan with Korpiklaani and Waltari. In Osaka, I also met Piotr from Polish death metal band Vader. Last time we met was in Poland 25 years ago, when I made their first music video for MTV Europe.

Then the hard work of editing all this footage together began. I spent a lot of time to editing the Russia film into a loose three hour version. At the same time I was trying in vain to find extra funding through sponsors, etc. At this point I had to stop as I had already used all my rainy day savings and needed to work on commercial films to balance the accounts.

Then film editor/musician Sophia LA stepped in to save the day. 

Sophia was really excited about the material and wanted to trim my three hour version into the final documentary. She spent a long time editing and did a fantastically brilliant job on it, but the film was still in its first finished version two hours 47 minutes long. She also had reached her limits on working with the film.

Made In Russia was now finished to a long version and could be shown to the crowdfunders who liked it so much that some of them were willing to donate to help funding so we could start  work on the Japanese film. This gave us a much needed moral boost to get the Live In Japan edited. 

Making films and music is a very lonely place; you don’t get much support until you have finished. Here we are talking about projects that took four years to get published. So, the support from crowdfunders was very important and gave me a reason to finish my films, while all the time I was working on the commercial side of filmmaking to balance my books. 

The next problem is how to release these films. 

All my documentaries have been globally distributed  through my International TV Distributor. He was basically interested in this these films but was doubtful about the interest from the international TV companies, as Korpiklaani are not Metallica or Iron Maiden. During the four years these films took to finish,  DVDs had  a sudden death. 

Then came COVID-19, which changed everything. Film and music businesses grinded to a sudden halt. It was time again to get back to these films and finally get them out. I shortened the Made In Russia to 39min, set up the websites, and we were ready.

Now the new exciting option to release documentaries is your own VOD (Video On Demand) channel. Not the same as Amazon or Netflix, but you are your own master.

Did I learn anything from this project?

No, I would do the same mistakes again. The journey through Russia and Siberia was life altering, a once in a lifetime experience and something I will never forget. Great memories are worth the pain."