The filming continues for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 postcards, and Belarusian representative, Ivan, is the latest artist to have their postcard finalised.

Ivan, real name Alexander Ivanov, describes himself as cheeky and self-confident, but with a smile, and wished to convey his love of both music and nature in his postcard. The Swedish film crew spent 2 days filming in three separate locations in Belarus in order to achieve this.

The three places that were selected were the old town and a music shop, both in Minsk, and the Belarusian forest. In the old town, Ivan was seen posing for photographs with fans and enjoying the sights. In the music shop, he played both a drum kit and a guitar.

For the shots in the forest, the Belarusian entrant took a real wolf for a walk. The wolf has a special spiritual meaning Ivan, symbolising his connections to nature. His producer and songwriter, Viktor Dobrysh, elaborates on this by saying;

Every person identifies himself with a certain totemic creature. Sometimes we suppress it in ourselves, but sometimes we have to face it. We want everybody to feel the thin line between humans and nature.

Wolves are also seen as part of the backdrop in Ivan’s preview video. During the filming in the forest, Ivan had white vertical stripes painted on his face. “The drawing on my face means a tribute to our ancestors and some ritual acts, nothing related to a war; these are not the fighting colours” he explained.

One of the Swedish crew members revealed more about their filming techniques during Ivan’s shoot.

We will show a few video portraits of every participant. This year we are using a very modern stabilization system for camera, so the viewers will feel as if they are flying around the star!

Ivan will represent Belarus at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. He will compete in the second semi-final, in the 5th timeslot.

Stay tuned to esctoday.com for all the latest news on Ivan, Belarus and the Eurovision Song Contest!