For the Eränkävijät director, band time was a school of teamwork, the lessons of which helped him become a successful media entrepreneur. The seventh season of the favorite series starts in October.
On the other hand, the statement would be completely correct, because Hostikka has progressed from a high-profile musician and album cover designer through Oulu Kärppi’s match videos to an internationally awarded TV producer by being in the right place at the right time.
In those places, however, Hostikka has worked tirelessly, managed to gather the right team around him and channeled his enthusiasm and creativity into products that almost every Finn knows.
– I have always been able to work with people much more talented than myself. I can say that I was the worst player in the band, but I did the most songs and the others could play them better than me. Maybe it’s the same today, Hostikka reflects.
Boredom gives way to creativity
At first, Hostikka only employed herself. Now, NTRNZ Media’s core team consists of twenty permanent employees at the Oulu head office – or wherever everyone thinks is best to work – and a close group of freelancers.
The office space in the old station building is more like a home than a workplace, and it suits professionals doing creative work well. The tapping of keyboards echoes on large-patterned wallpapers and half-panel walls.
– Here is a nice symbiosis of very modern industry and state-of-the-art technology and traditional old architecture. At the same time, when data is moving with the optical fiber, the workroom is heated with the stove.
The mood is quite relaxed anyway. Hostikka strives to have a four-day work week, although she admits that it has slipped from time to time. He also offers the opportunity for free working time to his subordinates.
– If you fill up the calendar for the whole week, you won’t get anything creative done. All creativity springs from a certain kind of boredom. If it’s even a quarter of a day boring, then something new and cool will be born, Hostikka reasons.
The eternal autumn of the coastal city drove to Lapland
The interview day is Friday. The director-producer often spends it somewhere else than at the office, for example paddling in the Oulujoki estuary.
All hobbies are somehow connected to nature, and following nature hobbies, Hostikka moved to her current place of residence in Kittilä Rauhala some time ago.
– There are clearly four seasons. In the coastal cities there is such an eternal autumn, it rained for a very long time. There it might pass in a week.
Above kayaking, mountain biking and trail running, the favorite hobby is freediving. That’s what Hostikka does with a splitboard, i.e. a snowboard that can be split in two into skis for climbing.
– In their own way, you have to be 100% present in all of them at that moment, otherwise it will go badly. That is perhaps the common denominator. Maybe it’s the opposite in running. It may feel like the body is working and running, but the mind is somewhere else.
After waking up peacefully on the shore of Lake Jerisjärvi – as late as possible – the producer-director-entrepreneur cranks up the thinking machine with a few cups of coffee. If the weather permits and free time beckons, the laptop’s lid might close in the middle of the day.
– But even the wonder of Lapland’s nature might mostly be looking at the scenery from behind the window, Hostikka admits.
The new season of batch goers is out in October
Hostika and NTRNZ Media were boosted by the Eränkävijät series, whose six seasons have been watched 50 million times, according to Hostika’s calculations.
The newest, seventh season will be available on October 2. Yle’s channels and Areena. The filming of the eighth season is already in full swing, Hostikka reveals.
– It was quite a surprise how popular it has been. We don’t really know anyone how it became so popular.
The series has been awarded four Golden Venlas and its rights have been sold to more than 30 countries.
On the other hand, the military history series Vaietut arctic sotas published last year is the first Finnish series that has been sold to Disney for international distribution.
Military history was a new conquest of territory for Hostika and a place for familiarization. Staring at the old war footage on the screen was a chore during the production phase, but the end result reminded us of how drastic things were handled.
– However, the hardest part was when the series was finished and went out in Finland, so it seemed that history began to repeat itself in Ukraine.
Man is at the mercy of nature
Success as an entrepreneur has brought the opportunity to do work that you enjoy on your own terms. Hostikka is grateful for this.
– Sometimes I dreamed of being able to do such things as a job, and now it is coming true and has come true.
There are still dreams: even more meaningful productions, although not always necessarily bigger in terms of production.
– It could be that people would learn to understand nature better or that the extremes of a polarized discussion culture would be brought closer to each other and thereby build mutual understanding.
As a nature person, it has sometimes been difficult for Hostika to accept human short-sightedness and the fact that we don’t realize that we are part of nature, at the mercy of nature.
– Somehow people end up pissing in their own cereal without realizing that they have to eat it right away. Natural resources are consumed and used very harshly, and yet everything should be built on a sustainable basis, so that greed in this moment does not take away opportunities from the future.
_What thoughts did the story evoke? You can participate in the discussion on Yle Tunnus until Monday 29 August. until 11 p.m._