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The Story:

- about the time they designed those annoying trousers Madonna couldn’t hold up in her music video ”American Pie"

Nordisk Film Commercial had seen some of my stuff and when one of their top still photographers Henrik wished to make a move into filmmaking they asked me to help him take that first step. So I was picked up somewhere in the sticks of Copenhagen in a brand new Mercedes, driven by Bjørn Bruun himself. Equipped with only two old 16mm Bolex cameras and measly 8 rolls of films I was taken to a lavish villa where the whole crew was gathered. And there were people everywhere! Strangely, this business prefers young boys to pamper them, with chocolate, coffee and Evian. I didn’t know anything about advertising and had sworn I would never be part of such evil activities, but the "free hands" I was promised I just couldn’t resist. What appealed to me - and still does - was the "take the cash in hand and run"-offer I was given (and with hindsight, it was, believe me, very little). The shoot also gave me a chance to test my second Bolex, which leaked by the way, resulting in a nice white stripe down the right side of the images. As it happened we could quite easily zoom this in postproduction.

Shine, the guy posing in the spot, turned out to be a really groovy guy and, predictably, we ended up getting smashed in beloved Christiania afterwards. As can be heard on the spot he was a real backwoods hick but very cool. The woman, Ivana, is still a top model and one of the sexiest women I have ever seen. Still have flashes of her turning in the grass in front of me in the blazing sun and whispering: "come on Martin its sooo hot"! This was also the first time I saw a model with the ability to "glaze over" on cue, a kind of sensual defocusing of the eyes, executed to perfection by the now famous Helena Christensen. A look far beyond the "fuck-me" eyes of just about every girl you’ll find in any lifestyle magazine...