Summer Work - Crystal Castles, choosen music video band

Genre

1)      Alice the girl in the band identifies herself in the video Courtship Dating, the only video off the first album as she quite often wears a black hoodie with the hood up, in a dark room as they are know as a ‘dark’ band, in their witch house genre, likewise with the man Courtship dating.

Looking at a more recent video of theirs, ‘baptism,’ it’s still a non-narrative video with various shots of Alice singing, it’s more brighter and lively than the previous videos. The generic conventions consist of the random and weird effects used in the video but still it is quite simple, not like a big budgeted narrative plot as their target audience expects urban, working class videos. Conceptual music videos may suit their electro genre better but as they’ve got a hint of an indie edge a bit of a weird narrative could work quite well also. As their quite an elusive band, we do not find out much about them in their videos, thus in this one Ethan the man in the band is even covering his face by wearing mask.

Off their second album again is ‘Celestica,’ Alice is still elusive with her facial expressions but we see more shots of her, not in darkness or just jumping, this time although it isn’t a fully developed narrative, it isn’t very conceptual and thus we feel like theirs more story behind it. Every shot is well thought at and quite arty, which works well with their image. Yet they still have the quirky edge with children playing violins in graveyard, that’s in a forest looking quite magical. The youth target audience would appreciate the glamorous urban, quirky Alice and the magically weird graveyard children shots. 

 Out of all their videos I feel this is the most entertaining, as we get to see more of her and personally The shots are more interesting as she changes location. It’s just a shame that we only get to see the man in the duo at the start in a hoodie without a face shot and for two seconds smearing mud on his face. This being a generic convention to their music videos as he barely appears in all three official videos. Subtle changes have been made in these videos to see Alice more but in the last four years since the first album release we understand that they want to stay very non-mainstream, that they like being an underground but known band. Their record label is probably the only reason why we are beginning to see more of Alice, as the fan-base probably appreciate seeing more of her, as then the band can become more iconic and idols to the fans, as youth tend to look for that idolism in bands and their music choices.

Visual style and image=

The mise-en-scene in the first video is a dark room with a light shining on their faces because to their audience they are quite mysterious so in this video their only visual image we are able to see is them in black hoodies, representing their rebellion to society as ‘hoodies’ are frowned upon by society.

 In ‘Baptism’ there is no mise-en-scene as it’s a conventional video which highlights the idea that they are not making music to show off, that they are quite happy to make a basic video in a studio. Alice’s dark style is made apparent in her black clothes, black hair and eye make up, although she makes the ‘dark look’ quite glamorous. In the last video Alice is dressed in a long black dress with a white collar throughout, basic but different which the audience would appreciate. As if to make the point that a woman being covered up can still look pretty and cool, it’s obvious she’s a non-mainstream artist as she doesn’t sell her music through her body image.

 This video is mainly set in a forest which is quite magical and a graveyard in a forest which keeps the dark edgy feel with their music. The video flicks between various shots, one of the outline of a man beside the sea with the sun shimmering on it, to a close up of Alice’s face. Each shot has a dark twist, she could be stood in a scary looking place, or the forest that has a graveyard in, or children playing but they’re both in black and one falls over. The fast pace editing keeps the audience interested. However in ‘baptism’ the use of camera effects, create the whole video, as their making a point of selling their music and not their bodies and image so much.  

Digipack design research= analysing cd covers=

Crystal castles first album is self titled meaning that they didn’t give the album a name, they probably feel that naming it would be too commercial. The front is of Alice and Ethan, the band duo with their heads down, dressed mainly in black. This image sums up their appeal to the audience with their aloof and mysterious nature.

‘You love her cos she’s dead,’ doesn’t have a title for the album either and the cover has a close up of a girl who has blood round her mouth, a safety pin in her lip and like the girl in crystal castles has a pale complexion and short black hair. We therefore can recognise that the lyrical content to be quite explicit.

This brightly coloured and contrasted album cover has an uplifting feel that does fit within m83 and they’re bizarre but happy sounding music. The people on the front cover fit the different stereotypical looks of the fans of the band, which will promote the bands and people who see the cover who dress in that style will be interested in hearing them.  It’s not as dark as the other two album covers but that’s because the music has less of a dark edge.




part two= cd packaging ideas=