Avicii – Waiting For LoveDate Released: 2015

Detailed Textural Analysis of Music Videos

Suzanna Oldsworth

Film language• Establishing shot: Rather than this being a music video recorded by

cameras, this is an animated music video and the first shot is of the setting that the music video starts in.

• Long shot: Because this is not a video recorded music video, the camera uses are different such as in this one which the camera moves across the setting to follow along with the story.

• Zoom out: In this scene, the boy and the dog that were shown at the start of the video have grown up and it shows that he has now been called to go out to war. The camera zooms out on this shot as the man hugs the dog before leaving in an army vehicle.

Pan shot: The video continues to pan across the screen to the right as the story progresses more. The dog in the story having grown up and going to find the owner that had left to go to war.

• Bridging shot: The camera starts to zoom out again as the video changes scene further, up until the point where the scene fades out and changes completely from countryside to city.

• Deep focus shot: This shot is one in which keeps everything in the video in focus including characters that are used to help establish the setting and vehicles moving in the background. However the main character stays in the middle of it all so the audience is still able to focus on them.

• Extreme long shot: As the character heads back out into another environment during their travels, the shot becomes an extreme long shot as they are shown appearing running behind a snow mound. This could be seen as a ‘very long shot’, however the background is much smaller than previously and the character is silhouetted which describes more of an extreme long shot instead.

• Big close up: As the main character has been blasted back from a bombing attack during a change of scene to a battle field, the shot changes to a big close of up them before showing the next shot which is a cutaway shot.

• Cutaway shot: While the focus is still on the main characters, this cuts away to when they are younger again rather than what is happening at the current moment in time. This is also shown by the more sepia like tones of the scene rather than mostly black and white.

• Medium shot: After this type of cutaway shot, it leads back into the main characters finding each other again which shows that the music video is nearing it’s end.

• Final shot: This last shot cuts back to the same setting shown at the start of the video. However they have stayed the same age and the man still has a missing leg which was shown in the previous shot so this shows that the moment is in present time. This slowly zooms out to conclude the video.

Genre Characteristics• The genre of this song is Progressive/house which tends to stand out

as it’s own individual song and video compared to some of the more ‘main stream’ music of our time. The video shows a unique story in it rather than only being made for the purpose of promoting the song and earning more money.

• As a house song it also has a calm feeling to it but with an upbeat tune in the background that doesn’t stray too far from the meaning behind the video.

Mise-en-scene• The outfits used in the animated music video are old war style ones

such as army uniforms and older trench coats and black umbrellas. This is also shown by the older style of hats being worn by bypassers.

Since this video is animated, there are no props used in it. However, there are items shown in the video that describe the time period such as the traditional style of cars moving in the background along with the letter that the man receives to be called to war.

The lighting in this video is mostly black and white. However some colour is used in ways to emphasise the video such as the use of red and orange for the fire at the war site, a glowing light while a main character is trying to hope that things will turn out fine and a sepia tone to show past events that the main characters were a part of.

Links between lyrics, music and visuals• Since this is a lyric video for the song, the lyrics are shown on screen

so it is easier to see connections between the visuals and the words. Some examples of this are:

• “Where there’s a will. There’s a way kind of beautiful” This refers to how the peacefulness of being young and the childlike joy can be seen as beautiful. This can also refer to the connection between the two main characters.

• “For every tyrant a tear for the vulnerable” This line of lyrics relates to the idea of war, how the world is being run by tyrants who are sending vulnerable people out to fight in a war even if they do not want to take part in it.

• “Thursday waiting for love, waiting for love” This lyric refers to how the dog is waiting for their owner to return and how they become fed up of waiting and decide to go out and search for them.

• “Guess I won’t be coming to Church on Sunday” These words refer to how the character won’t be sticking around in the place that they are used to because they are going to search for the person they want to find.

Representation of artist• This video doesn’t actually relate to the artist, rather it relates to the

concept of war and the people who have lived through it. It has even been said that it has brought people to tears and that ex-military personnel have thanked Avicii for making the video.

References to voyeurism (looking/the male gaze)Due to the nature of this music video and the fact that it is animated, there are no references to voyeurism as it would also not fit with the style or meaning of the song as it would for some other different types of music and videos.

This can be good in a way because some videos can become controversial due to some types of voyeurism being shown and because of the ways they may be shown in.

Intertextual references

• While it is not a direct reference, there are many films that deal with war in different ways such as “The Boy in the striped pyjamas” which relates to this music video in the way that it shows the innocence of childhood being affected by the wars going on around them as they are forced to go to war weather they want to or not. The family in this film also moved to the countryside to avoid being bombed like the cities would be which relates to the settings shown in the music video and the drastic difference between the rural and industrial areas.

• Another example would be “The pianist” which shows similar outfits and vehicles and also shows a war type of setting and a battlefield setting in which some of this video takes place.

Performance, narrative or concept based? How is this conveyed?This music video is not performance based due to it being an animated music video. However it is highly based on narrative in the way that it shows the war time setting and relates this to the main characters and the situations that they are in. This creates a story with a meaning in it of the person being forced to go to war when they grow up and of their pet going to find them during this.

This means that it is also concept based due to how concept of war has been used to build the narrative around.