Sunday, 25 November 2012

Crystal Fighters- I Love London



About the Band:
Crystal Fighters are a British/Spanish folktronica band who formed in London in 2007. 

"Folktronica or electrofolk is a genre of music comprising various elements of folk music and electronica, often featuring samplings of acoustic instruments—especially stringed instruments—and incorporating hip hop or dance rhythms."- Wikipedia

The music video begins with a coloured VCR static look, giving it a retro and vintage feel. As if you had just pressed play on an old video tape recorder. 


As the music begins we can see that the effect of it looking like a VCR is played constantly throughout the video, making it look frantic. The shot is point-of-view, making it feel as if it is through the eyes of pedestrians giving it the effect of a home movie. The blue-ish tint on the video shows that the natural light from the sun has not been filtered out or edited.




The first lyrics that we hear appear as visuals on the video: "Hola mi llamo mimi", which translate from Spanish to English as, "Hello my name is Mimi", this links in with the genre of the music, Spanish folktronica, as well as Goodwin's theory of linking visuals with lyrics. 







The use of visuals and lyrics together is used repeatedly throughout this video. 

As we can see, the title of the song reflects itself in the song by using iconic London locations, Trafalgar Square, Underground Tube Stations and even tourist shops which sell ironic London Merchandise.


The video simply puts about London's abundant opportunities to experience new music, meet interesting new people and experience good, fun parties. The repeated phrase, "I wanna go to a friend's party" reflects that of youth and wanting to party.

The video fits with the genre of the music because of its fast cut, up-beat quirky look. 

Costume

When planning our music video we wanted to base the costume around a typically alternative, indie acoustic genre. They way in which we achieved this was to look at similar artists to our band and look at how they dressed. We focused on Bombay Bicycle Club (http://www.bombaybicycleclubmusic.com/) and their lead singer, Jack Steadman as well as Luke Pritchard from the Kooks (http://www.thekooks.com/).
Jack Steadman (Lead singer of Bombay Bicycle Club)

Luke Pritchard (Lead singer of Kooks)
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