The Crux: Crafting, Casting And Styling A World
“When a cover in a campaign hits right,” said photographer Neil Krug, Grammy nominated for “The Crux,” “it’s part of the language and the fabric of what makes a great record a great record.”
The pivotal setting of “The Crux” — the third album by Djo, the musical moniker for actor Joe Keery — was a fictional hotel on the Brooklyn-inspired section of the Paramount Studios backlot.
Krug, Djo and collaborator Jake Hirshland looked at dense scenes, like Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film “Rear Window” (also shot on a Paramount Studios lot), for inspiration. They considered locations in (the real) New York and Atlanta, where the artist was filming “Stranger Things” before locking the lot in.
Next came casting the characters that make up the scene. “Anything that we could come up with, we were just like throwing it at the canvas,” Krug said. A couple kiss in a window. A man fights a parking ticket in the foreground. Djo is seen only from the back, dangling from a window in a white suit.
– Elise Ryan, Associated Press
Djo | “ The Crux” & “Crux Deluxe” Album Campaign
Imagery by Neil Krug
Creative Direction by Neil Krug, Joe Keery, Jake Hirshland, and Taylor Vandegrift
Produced by Taylor Vandegrift at Cineaste Films