SMOONSTYLE

Hi Sweets,

Our new video 'Storm the Sorrow' is finally online. You can find it here. It was created by Kunstoff and recorded in Amsterdam during the middle of February earlier this year. I've spend two days recording and the boys were finished in one day. It was the hardest, dirtiest and most fun recording I've ever done.

Storm the Sorrow; the Meaning of the Lyric

Storm the sorrow deals about all the negative criticism which everyone has to deal with in their life. Everybody has something to say about everyone and a lot of criticism comes from jealousy and envy. Besides being criticized by the public, you're also criticizing yourself. It is a struggle within and you alone can fight it.

Storm the Sorrow; The Video

The positive and negative are opposites, so are black and white. These are strong contrasts which work really well. I start off white and slowly more and more black streams are coming out of my body which are pulling me. The guys are depicting the negative and I am fighting against them. In the end, after being fully consumed by all the negativism, I transform back into a stronger version of myself, freed from all which was trying to take me down.

Picture and Clothing by Ingeborg Steenhorst.

The Recording

I arrived in Amsterdam the evening before the recording. There was a choreographer present to help me prepare for the shoot, which required a lot of physical work. They were absolutely right, I've only had one time in my life unbearable muscle ache, and that was when I moved house, but after the shoot I almost couldn't walk anymore because of the constant tension on the silicon bands.

The Suit

On the first day we recorded the scenes where I'm wearing the white body suit. There was no black slime to be seen just yet. The film company bought a white suit for me which was way too big and not flattering at all, so one of the seamstresses had to create a suit only hours before we started shooting.

There's no video shoot without the proper amount of stress and adrenaline hanging in the air. My hair and make up were done, all we had to wait for was the suit. Once the suit was done we could start to record.

Black Flubber

On the second day I knew that I was going to get dirty. The buckets of paint and silicon were waiting to be thrown on. We started with my hand which got a nice layer of black silicon. Around my wrist I got an elastic band which was attached to a silicon band. The team was pulling me and I was fighting back. As time went by, I got more bands coming out everywhere. Some were a bit short so the tension was really heavy. My ankle was not used to this and I almost couldn't walk the next day. When I crossed the street to go to the hotel, I almost fell flat on my face because my left foot refused to lift up.

One of the bands snapped and hit my backside really hard. I got beaten up pretty hard, lost lots of hair which were stuck between the bands and didn't sleep for two nights. Try go to to the bath room when you are stuck to 6 poles... You'll have to be resourceful.

A close up from the makeup done by Dominika Swietlik.

Red Bull Light fuels me up.

Species/Alien

First we agreed on getting me a black wig. I was supposed to be completely black, including my hair. Since we couldn't get a wig which looked realistic, we decided to put my hair back so I would be ready to swim in the darkness.

As time passed by, all the paint was starting to tickle me. I couldn't really scratch my face so they gave me a pencil to scratch. On the upper picture I'm 'smoking' the pencil. I guess that all the fumes got to me.

Here's another bucket of utter blackness.

A Scary Smoon.

A lot of the suit was covered with silicon which kept me warm, but the back was cold paint and after being stuck in the suit for over a day, I got a bit cold.

Pulling my strings.

After the black shots were done, I had to run to take a shower so that we could do the last shots with the beautiful clothes by Ingeborg Steenhorst. We started at 8.00 and finished at 6.00. I was so tired that I saw everybody double, but it was so worth it. The video is a real piece of art.