Music Video Analysis – Not So Sad by Faux Pas

For my analysis of this video, I’m mainly basing it around the music video conventions given by Andrew Goodwin in his book ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’. He names the following six as conventions of music videos:

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in rock video, dance routine.)

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals There is a relationship between music and visuals The demands of the record label will include the needs for lots of close ups of the

artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc.)

As Faux Pas are an individual band that have no record label, it is a lot harder for them to produce high quality music videos, therefore explaining why the whole video takes places in the same location. It is all a live performance music video with no storyline because they probably didn’t have a budget to film, hence why the location looks just like a band member’s front room and they appear to just be wearing casual clothing.

Right from the beginning, we can see that it’s quite an unprofessional video, because the very first shot is rather shaky, suggesting that the camera is just being held by hand and not by a tripod or other type of camera stand. This instantly looks rather unprofessional, however it is to be expected with an unsigned band. As the camera then pans down to reveal the guitarist playing, we get our first real look at the scene. However, the lighting doesn’t appear to be great as the background seems rather dark and shadowy suggesting there may have been a lack of fill lighting.

The next shot is then the shot that is used most commonly throughout the video. This is the shot of all four members of the band playing the song. This is then used throughout

the video as the recurring shot. This links into Andrew Goodwin’s conventions, because this style of rock music is often associated with live performance in music videos and that is what they have constantly throughout here. This also provides a link between the music and the visuals, as we can clearly see the sources of the music being played by the band.

There is also a couple of pieces of intertextual reference in this shot through the costumes. One of the members is wearing a t-shirt with ‘Catfish and the Bottlemen’ written on it, who are another band of a similar genre to Faux Pas. Another is wearing a t-shirt with discreet reference to film franchise, Star Wars and one could argue that

these t-shirts represent the fact these people are just ordinary males that like everything regular people do. Hey are with the rest of society essentially.

After a while another two of Goodwin’s conventions comes to fruition when we see an extreme close up of the singer’s mouth, which is in sync with the lyrics. Therefore, this is a clear link between the lyrics and the visuals, but it is also a close up which one could argue gives a personal feel to the band and helps the audience get to know them. There also seems to be a lot of close ups of instruments throughout the video. This could be so that the audience can see clearly the link between the music and visuals or it could be because there is no storyline, so it makes the video a bit more exciting rather than just having one shot of the four constantly throughout.

About a minute into the video we get the first real feature that makes you wonder why they have done what they have done. The members of the band all rotate and change clothes in an anti-clockwise direction. So the clothes stay in the same place but the

people are the ones that move. It is quite difficult to work out the reasoning behind this as there doesn’t seem to be any link to the visuals, because at this point the words being sung are ‘Just keep your head it’s not so sad. You know that I don’t mind’. This doesn’t seem to suggest anything about why the members have all rotated. In the actual song, the lead singer doesn’t change either so this is not the reasoning for it. Throughout the rest of the

video there are constant changes like this and it’s hard to work out the reasoning for it. As a group we contacted the band to ask if they had a reasoning, however as of yet we do not have a response.

One of Goodwin’s conventions of a music video that doesn’t seem to be apparent throughout the whole video though is reference to the notion of looking. There are no screens, glasses or anything else that references looking in the whole video, which one could argue is down to the fact they are inexperienced in the art of music video making. There is also no voyeuristic treatment of the female body. They are not part of a record label, therefore they probably are unaware of all the conventions usually used in music videos, as Andrew Goodwin’s study was done based on professional music videos with record labels.

Later on there is a lengthy instrumental where the band take the opportunity to do a lot of jumping up and down and loud movements, which is stereotypical of rock music

videos. They are here following the convention of genre. They are clearly really ‘going for it’ at this stage, which some may argue just looks a bit weird and bizarre, because the setting does just look like a front room rather than a studio or a concert stage. Therefore, one could argue the impression is given of the band going mad rather than the passion for the music which they were no doubt trying to convey to their audience.

At the end of the video, the music calms down and there is a much slower settling down part. This is the first time since a few seconds in hat the video location changes and we see a shot of just one of the members sat on the floor playing his guitar, which is a link between music and visuals. This makes a lot of sense because having the band continue to ‘rock out’ to such a slow part of the song would have looked even stranger.

To conclude the video they have a another intertextual reference; this time to children’s TV show, ‘Looney Tunes’ by having the ‘That’s All Folks’ screen come up that appears at the end of Looney Tunes episodes. It’s hard to work out the reason for this but it could just be the same as he reasoning for the t-shirts; they like the show and want to show that they’re part of society just like everyone else and have the same interests and find the same things entertaining.

Following this, there is a small post-video. It plays the song and has one of the members whipping another with a tie while getting changed. This doesn’t appear to have any reference to the rest of the song, but was probably just put in as a bit of a blooper to end the video on a funny note. They also take this opportunity to thank two people that have helped with the video, while playing a snippet of the track again over the top of the clip.

In conclusion, though this video fits a very popular characteristic of the indie-rock genre in that there is a lot of live performance, the video is clearly made by an unsigned band.

The lack of conventions such as reference to the notion of looking and voyeurism clearly show that there is a lack of knowledge of the genre or conventions, because they are not under the guidance of a professional. There is also a lack of a storyline as the whole video is live performance, which is very uncommon in music videos. However, although there is a clear lack of professional characteristics, it is still very much a valid attempt at a music video for a young, unsigned band.