Part of the production involved recreating an entire forest indoors.

When Taiwanese artist Qing-Feng was planning a collaboration with artist Aurora, it was Sølvrev who got the call. Qing-Feng and his management had seen several of the productions the company had previously made for Aurora, were big fans of the work, and wanted director and producer duo Sigurd Fossen and Christer Dyngeland on the team.

Qing-Feng, not yet widely known in Norway, is an award-winning producer and artist best known as the frontman and creative force behind the renowned indie band Sodagreen. With 16 million followers, he is one of the most successful Mandopop singer-songwriters of the present day and has over 1.5 billion streams from his solo album "Spaceman" from 2019. Coming to Norway, his goal was to make a film with Sølvrev – and the aim of the video was to create an abstract and artistic interpretation of the song Storm.

"Storm is a beautiful ballad that explores some dark thoughts and emotions, and how two souls find each other, find the light, and lift their gaze through that journey. Inspired by Norwegian winters – with just a couple of hours of daylight per day – we wanted to explore the concept of light as a symbol of hope, in the middle of an otherwise misty, empty, white and cold landscape. When you are dark on the inside you can feel like a stranger to the world, as though everything is a kind of dream, and that is what we wanted to reflect in the visual universe of this video. At its core it is all about the special connection that can form between two people, and how we can be a light in the darkness for each other, even when we are physically far apart," says producer Christer Dyngeland.

Brought the forest indoors

The duo wanted to create an iconic visual universe that accounted for both artists' visual expression and brand. One approach was to film in perhaps Norway's most unique oak forest, full of large trees, heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures. To realise the vision and to abstract it one level further, Dyngeland had to recreate the oak forest indoors.

"The Sølvrev team is never afraid of a challenge or of getting their hands dirty to get the job done. A great example is how Christer stood out in the forest and figured out how to recreate it in the studio – something that required countless work hours, moving 8-metre-tall trees across Oslo, and an insane effort from the art department and Fiksern," director Fossen explains.

Working with a vision that is simultaneously so concrete and so abstract means every department must execute their tasks perfectly for the images to land – and that requires extensive preparation, clear communication and coordination. Fossen is very satisfied with the effort from everyone on the team: "This was a large production with over 40 people on set. For us, making a music video is a very personal thing – we pour an enormous amount of soul into the project and work in a tight core team from idea and concept to finished edit to ensure the vision is upheld. What we are especially proud of in this production is the process – we felt we genuinely took care of people along the way. It takes something to come out of a production this intense with everyone still happy, but we had a crew who worked incredibly hard and we are very grateful to all those who were so generous and gave so much of themselves. We know we had an ambitious production and we carry a great deal of experience from completing a project of this scale – experience we look forward to bringing to our commercial work. And I must add that it is not every day someone voluntarily travels from Asia to Norway to sit in quarantine for 14 times two days and then trudge around in the cold for hours on end. So all credit to Greeny and Aurora for placing their trust in us," Fossen concludes.

«Dette var en stor produksjon med over 40 stykker på sett. For oss er det å lage musikkvideo en veldig personlig ting, hvor vi legger ekstremt mye sjel i prosjektet, og jobber i en liten kjerne fra idé og konsept til ferdig klipp for å sørge for at visjonen blir ivaretatt. Det vi er spesielt stolt over i denne produksjonen er prosessen, der vi følte vi tok godt vare på folk underveis. Det skal litt til å komme ut av en så heftig produksjon hvor alle fortsatt er fornøyd, men vi hadde et crew som sto på hardt og vi er veldig takknemlig for alle som var såpass raus og gav så mye av seg selv underveis. Vi vet at vi hadde en ambisiøs produksjon hvor vi sitter igjen med mye erfaring etter å ha gjennomført et prosjekt i denne skalaen, noe vi gleder oss til å bruke videre inn mot reklame. Og så må jeg tilføye at det ikke er hver dag at noen kommer frivillig fra Asia til Norge for å sitte i karantene i 14X2 dager for så å tråkke rundt i kulden i flere timer. Så all ære til Greeny og Aurora som gav oss tilliten», avslutter Fossen.

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