F E L I N is a Swedish audiovisual duo consisting of songwriter/ artist Elin Blom and photographer/ director Fredrik Etoall (the “F” in F E L I N). They’ve worked with the likes of Icona Pop, The Rolling Stones and Adam Lambert, and got on our radar after releasing a sick comic-inspired music video for one of their tracks.

We had a nice chat with FELIN on their approach to music, how they created the music video, and what’s to come.

How did you get the idea for the “LaLaLa” music video? What was your inspiration?

LaLaLa is about secretly wishing for karma to bite back on a person who’s betrayed you, but seeking revenge is a slippery slope that can get really messy and that’s what we want to show in this video.

While working on our live visuals the animator had an idea of creating a video in Modesty Blaise style for one of the songs. I loved the idea and thought we should turn it into a music video, so I then turned to my amazing friends and scriptwriters and we wrote a dark vengeance story that would fit the track.  I’ve always had a thing for the villains in movies and not the heroes so it was natural that I should be the bad guy in this short story.

Compared to some of your other videos, what made you go with full animation?

My songs are often inspired by movies and by animating the video we got to go full on Tarantino movie in the video too with splatter, sex and violence.

Who is the illustrator?

The illustrator is Giuseppe Cristiano, an amazing artist who has worked with the likes of Jonas Åkerlund before. After he had done all the illustrations an animator, Johan Holm continued to work on the video.

Okay we’ve got to ask: what was the process of putting your music to a comic-based video? Was this something you orchestrated or did you get help from a director?

I directed the video from start to finish and were involved in both the story and idea as well as all the details throughout the production. But it’s very much a Felin Collective project where it could never have turned out as great as it did if it weren’t for all the talented souls who brought their creative ideas to the table.

The process started with me and my talented friends, who work as scriptwriters, sitting down to write the story and collect pictures and references for the characters and locations. I then found the illustrator through some other friends and he brought the story to life with his pictures. An animator we’ve worked with before then animated all the movements and extra effects such as fire and so on, to finish up the video.

How long did the entire process take? (Not including the time it took to record the track)

It was definitely a longer process than expected, since there’s so many details that have to be figured out like what the characters should look like, what the locations should look like before the illustrator can start to work on the story. From the first idea to a finished video it took 3-4 months I think.

Can we expect more videos like this from you in the future?

I’d love to do something like this again, but I also always want to create something new and unexpected, so if we were to make another animated video it would have to have some kind of new twist to it.

Alright, how about a shameless plug. Where can people find you if they want to follow your music and do you have any upcoming shows or music releases?

We just released our debut album “Reckless Dreamers” which you can listen to here: https://open.spotify.com/album/3FAcvbFcs4q8PpbiewAddN?si=bUvbY5xUTIuAubGNwNwR3Q

For gigs, new music updates and other fun stuff you better follow us on Instagram @thisisfelin or like our FB page. We’re already in the studio cooking up new music for the next album and are so excited for 2020!