Textual Analysis - Narrative Music Video - Catfish and the Bottlemen - Pacifier

Catfish and the Bottlemen - Pacifier’

The video for Catfish and the Bottlemen’s ‘Pacifier’ entails the story of an underdog football team (played by the band members themselves) who overcome and defeat another team in a game of ‘street-ball’.

The video is set in a dimly lit warehouse which creates confusion and uncertainty for the viewer. The setting of the video is also particularly effective as the warehouse is dark and the use of the flare makes the band look like silhouettes. Flashing lights are also used well in the video. There are many close ups of the band members showing their outfits; skinny jeans and leather jackets etc- all of these work well together to create a vibe that conforms to the indie music genre and will appeal to the band's target audience demographic.

To make the narrative more interesting there is a betting system involved and also no rules are introduced either. A wide angle/establishing shot is used to show the two sides of the match. But the 180 degree rule is applied to maintain the continuity of the narrative.

The managers of the teams are introduced to make the story more interesting, as throughout the video they are used as a way of showing the result of the match. They are shown betting their money at the beginning of the video.

The way the score is kept, is by using spray paint, this shows a lot about the themes being expressed from this video, that being that this is very urban and underground, which links to the music and a method of relating the music to the images.

The use of slow motion is presented throughout the video as a way of matching the editing with the music as when the music speeds up the scenes have more motion to continue and to relate the music and the video. Also throughout the video the different players are hitting and smacking into one another, this aggressive behaviour is related to the music as when the music becomes more aggressive, so do the players and the scenes, for example spitting blood and elbowing people in the face.

The video continues with the same trend of following the music and how the video changes speed with the tempo of the music, the narrative then concludes with one of the teams winning and the team’s manager collecting the money. This is important for the narrative that the story has a conclusion and it follows the equilibrium cycle of the conclusion after the disruption (the match). This video contains semantic elements such as blood, punching etc which shows the audience that the video is very much based around underground narrative and illegal activities.