Music Video Art

   I am a big fan of 80's music and one of my favorite songs from this era is "Take On Me" by the Norwegian band A-Ha. The song was recorded in 1984, and reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts in October of 1995. A big help in the song gaining popularity was the cutting-edge video, that was on constant rotation on MTV. It was directed by Steve Barron and uses a pencil sketch animation called rotoscoping mixed with live action. Rotoscoping is a type of animation technique in which animators trace over live action film movement, frame by frame. It is commonly used in animated films. This video has always been interesting to me, I thought it was ahead of it's time and memorable. I'm sure if you ever mention the band A-Ha to a person, they will make reference to this video.