A-Ha - Take On Me

'Take on me’ by A Ha was released in 1985 with Steve Barron directing the cutting-edge video which went on to win 6 awards. The video features the band in a comic pencil-sketch alongside live action. The narrative of this music video is romantic fantasy, with a lady sat in a café having a coffee then gets pulled into the comic, by a mysterious man, which she is reading. With thugs after her mysterious man, there is drama and action throughout. The ending is however happy with the man escaping from the comic and becoming human. Thrilled by this, the girl approaches him and they embrace each other. 

The success of this video is down to its distinctive creativity which was achieved using a technique called rotoscoping. Not commonly used at its time, rotoscoping is an animation technique in which footage is traced over frame by frame and is used in live-action and animated films. Before the advance use of computers, rotoscoping would be done by live action images being projected onto a glass panel and redrawn by the animator. Rotoscoping can add an artist’s vision to the movements of an actor leading to the creation of a unique storytelling medium. 

Referring to the ‘Take on me’ music video, rotoscoping is used to give a special visual effect that creates a contrast between real life and a fantasy world (approximately 3,000 frames were rotoscoped and took 16 weeks to complete). The clear division between the two locations (real-life and comic world) enhances the primary story line in that the girl and man can’t be together easily as they come from different worlds. This could be compared to the story of Cinderella, as Cinderella doesn't fit into the prince’s world of wealth as she’s working class. However in the end the girl gets the guy which could then push a further meaning that love has no boundaries.

Even though now we have the advances of digital technology that can help us achieve such techniques with ease, we should take into apparition the people that originally composed these techniques. Overtime methods in creating these effects have changed, displaying how fast technology has developed and how far music video production has come. You could argue that nowadays music videos lack the effort and creativity compared what they produced in the 80’s and 90’s. 

Contributing to the success of A Ha’s ‘Take on me’ music video could be down to the fact it was ahead of its time and used the latest cutting-edge editing techniques. Having a successful music video will encourage the sales of the single, so this meant A Ha had a secure place in the charts in August 1985. From this research I have learnt about rotoscoping and how a division between worlds and people can be presented.