1. Avicii – Waiting For Love
Date Released: 2015
Detailed Textural Analysis of
Music Videos
Suzanna Oldsworth
2. 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.
3. • 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.
4. • 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.
5. 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.
6. • 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.
7. • 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.
8. • 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.
9. • 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.
10. • 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.
11. • 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.
12. • 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. • “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.
18. • “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.
19. • “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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. • 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.
24. 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.
