10 November, 2010

Förkväll - Round 2

I'm not done with Förkväll just yet.

Take a longer look behind the scenes with these extra photos and control room videos:

A peek into the control room. There were about eight people in this tiny room directing the program.
The long, long hallway leading into the studio/bar. The open door leads to the server room, which in turn leads to the studio.

Some bulletin boards with pictures of the staff and interns in their daily lives. There were a lot of photos posted up around the hallways.

If you look closely, you'll see Jessi and Anja sitting down in the hallway on the left. They were chatting with Jenny, who was sitting on the right-hand side of the hallway.

I told you I took pictures of everything. This was in the bathroom. Don't ask me why they had rugs and lamps piled on the floor in there.

The computer server room with all the video and camera feeds being sent here and back out. The room was a little bit warm.

The list showing who needed to have make-up done and at what time. Jenny is listed as an artist and writer.

The dressing room. It's housed in the same room as the make-up room.

The view of Stockholm from the make-up room.

This list shows exactly what the crew will be doing and at what time. Studio set-up, preparation, run-through, make-up, technical set-up, food break, actual broadcast time.

The list of guests for the day along with the program hosts for the day.




Video from the control room as the show was being aired live. These people were directing the cameras,setting cues for the graphics, clocking the interview, and wrapping up the different segments.




More video from the control room.

The show was over and we were given the go-ahead to see the studio. I rounded the corner and one of the interns was putting away some props from the show. She happened to be putting away a copy of Jenny's book and CD as I passed by. I had a camera, so I took a picture.

The "stuff room". There were boxes and boxes of stuff piled high, as you can see.



The view of Stockholm from the studio itself. When we arrived around 5:30, it was light outside. By the time the show wrapped at 6:30, it was pitch dark.

The guests mingling after the show. You can see two interns sitting on the right hand side of the photo. The show crew was breaking down the set all around us, while the guests chatted with the hosts of the show.

Jessi with her handy camera filming the action. You can see the mix of the studio and bar in the background. The set hadn't been fully broken down by this point.

A blurry Anja posing for my camera as she takes her own pictures of the studio.

The camera room. I just wanted to press buttons. There were so many. It was tempting, but I didn't touch anything.

Voila. The bar is back. You can still see a few lights up from the show, but the bar was almost back to its old self by this point.


The empty control room after the show had closed down.



Food all gone! The guests and hosts made quick work of the food that was cooked during the program.



I found it utterly stunning that we were allowed to walk around and take pictures of everything. And when I say everything, that's what I mean. As you can see, I went into every possible room. The only door I didn't open was the emergency exit. What access!

The lobby of the hotel. They also have a bar downstairs and the downstairs lobby was crowded. And loud. We decided to go upstairs for some peace and quiet during our chat with Jenny.



This way! To the stairs! We went up the stairs, found a quiet, comfy spot and proceeded to chat about the album.

We spent some time discussing the album upstairs. Here are some highlights from the conversation:

Jenny is working with the PR firm Moore To Be. She was with Randolph promotion, but the PR manager was given an opportunity to work with another company, so she took it and Jenny went with Moore To Be.

The drawing in the back of the booklet is done by a woman named Sofie A and she is eighteen years old. Jenny had given a lecture in Northern Sweden and some of the woman's artwork was on display. Jenny bought the last three drawings that were left and one of those drawings is in the back of the "My Story" booklet. Jenny thought the drawing was brilliant and wanted to give the woman a chance by showcasing it on the album.

The majority of the songs on "My Story" were recorded in 2009 and later. The lyrics to "Living in A Circus" were also re-written. The original title was "Living in A War Zone" to convey the feeling that living in this world is a bit of a struggle, a fight. The re-write to LIAC explained the life she lived with Ace of Base, that the natural laws didn't apply to the group.


She also liked the shift from "Free Me" to "Living in a Circus" on the tracklist because it creates a 'what is this?' moment. It's something different. She said she played "Spend this Night" and "Dying to Stay Alive" for Jonas and Ulf last year. She also told us "Beat of My Heart" is from 2002, but the lyrics were re-written later on. We also found out that "Going Home" was one of the last tracks recorded for the album.

Jenny asked us what we thought about putting the lyrics on the website early and we discussed it. Jenny said she hadn't seen any comments online or on her blog at that point since her phone wasn't working. Jessi told her that people were asking for the lyrics to be put up online again.

She asked us if we had read some of the recent interviews. We told her we had read some interviews online and she asked what they had written about in the interviews. We told her what the journalists had written. We mentioned to her that we were surprised to find out that an interview is so long, yet so little of the actual interview ends up in print.

We also noticed that all the interviewers wanted to focus on the conflict with Ace of Base. Jenny confirmed our observations and said she didn't want it to come across as her trying to get media attention, but it was what all the journalists were asking about and writing about, so she answered their questions. If she said no comment to their inquiries, they would still write about it anyway.

"Beat of My Heart", "Free Me", "Here I Am", and "Give Me the Faith" were made into a small movie montage, but the video quality was unusable after filming, so they didn't finish it because they couldn't really use the footage. Someone suggested they crack the film a bit and use it as a background during different gigs.

Jenny has several songs left over that didn't make it onto the album. Among them are songs called "Knock, Knock" and "Emmanuel". (And ""[...] Serenade, but I can't remember the first word in the title).

Bonus Fact: As we left the hotel, Jenny was walking and singing, as usual. The song we heard that night was Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon".

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