A-Ha | Real World Meets Pencil Sketch Animation! | Take On Me Reaction

[@orlandoquaranta577]

The animation technique is called rotoscoping. Basically they filmed both the real life parts and the comic parts with actors. They then draw over the parts that are supposed to be comic... frame by frame. That's why it can merge the two worlds seamlessly.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

That's so cool

[@misterprickly]

Rotoscope was made by the Fleischer brothers in 1915. It's what allowed Superman, popeye and Betty Boop to have more realistic movements! The process is still used today.

[@eurekayess]

@@misterprickly And it all makes sense.

[@adenauerlemos7926]

@@orlandoquaranta577 Yes, that's crazy! I saw a documentary about how this video was made and I was impressed.

[@markwebster7435]

Closing in on 2 billion views. It is the most viewed music video from the 80’s

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Which is an awesome thing to have

[@omaramador4669]

@@AceofBadeReactsAs you said when this song came out (1985 i bought the cassette 🫢) nothing sounded like that at that time. Was the time when the music industry started to move your pieces and shook the Heavy Metal music to falling on the ground. It was the year when all kinds of music 🎶 blended In 1986 the Heavy Metal wasn’t the same, the Glam took his place. The Heavy Metal started to have too many followers around the world, now (40 years later)I could think that it was a global political worry from the governments than anything else with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest as a lit 🔥 I………. remember very well those years. Sadly the good music declined

[@carlop.7182]

The animation--everything was hand-drawn, can't say for the rest, but for the 1980's, it was impressive. I never saw something like this back in the day, was impressed when I saw it for the first time on MTV.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It still holds up today too

[@phillipschwoerke8374]

It's still impressive to this day!

[@Cta2006]

A-ha has released 11 albums and has sold around 100 million albums and singles worldwide. Their most recent tour and album was in 2022.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Thank you for the information

[@rayvanhorn1534]

The smile & sheer joy Nikki had .. that's the 80s. Im a classic rock guy, but you can't ignore how catchy this song is & appreciate not only the music & outstanding vocals but the technical nature if this video. Nice one y'all,...& any 70s - 80s song, the video is a must because it is part of the story. (Give us more!😎🤘🔥)

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It really was a blast to check this one out. We'll do more in the future

[@adenauerlemos7926]

The animations were all done by hand. Remember at this time computer graphics was in its infancy. Which makes the video even more incredible.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It's just incredible what they were able to do

[@dorrit_rosen]

Thank you for your reaction. I remember when this video came out, it was unique and caused a sensation. I loved the song itself (and still do).

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It still holds up today I feel like

[@BoxerRick]

This was a nice experience watching this..Watching Nikkis face was priceless. She was gone when the guy in the comic winked. I knew shed have took the risk. 😂😂😂

[@manueldeabreu1980]

Technically the 3rd version of the song. A-Ha is a Swedish group. Their Hunting High and Low album was the product of a US producer discovering them. They re-arranged the song. The Sun Always Shines on TV is the sequel to this video but not as much animation. The 80's had a LOT of European bands that had big albums but then never charted in the US again but did very well back in Europe. A-Ha is still together today.

[@STYLISH_OLDTAKU83]

"Chris, what happened?" "I! DON'T! KNOW!!!!!!!" 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@AceofBadeReacts]

One of the best cutaways in Family Guy

[@EtherealForever]

A-ha is amazing and it's worth going down this rabbit hole. They are insanely talented on all fronts. 🌹🕊

[@johnferguson6686]

Everyone forgets that he was in a motorcycle race at the start and the guys chasing them at the end were his rivals from the race. They were "evil eyeing" him just before the starting gun fires. He went on to win and they were a little upset, to say to least.

[@threekidzmom04]

This video was mind-blowing back in 1985! I lived for it to appear on MTV!

[@AceofBadeReacts]

I think it still holds up too

[@threekidzmom04]

@@AceofBadeReacts it really does.

[@Tbcycoji]

A-ha - hunting high and low is another great song.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It has been added to the list

[@ahkkariq7406]

This was the time to launch music and new artists using music videos. If the record company had great faith in the artist/song, they were willing to put a lot of money on the table. The video was created using a technique called Rotoscoping. There is no green screen involved. The film was first filmed on 35 mm, before the artist drew over the frames by hand and connected real images and drawings. The total number of drawings used in the video is said to be 3,000, and it took two artists (a lead artist, Michael Patterson, and his wife, who took care of frames and layout) 16 weeks to draw the entire video. The band's members have said in several interviews that the song was actually a flop, partly due to the wrong producer, but also due to a lack of marketing. Fortunately, the band was able to get a second chance. A well-known Norwegian music journalist stated about "Take on me" that "it didn't sound like a world hit" before the song began its climb to the top of Billboard. A-ha's music was so different from everything people had heard before, so it took time to get used to it, which the video gave the audience. Later, the song has been played 350 times a day for 35 years+ on radio in the US, so there is no doubt that it stands very well on its own. The band has also been an inspiration for several other world artists, such as Coldplay, U2, Keane and Kanye West. Inspiration for the video was Patterson's student animation Communter, which was later used in the video for a-ha's third single, Train of Thought. You should check it out.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

oh wow. Thank you for the information. That is really cool and interesting how they went about it. And over 3,000? That's insane. I'll add that song to the list

[@ahkkariq7406]

@@AceofBadeReacts Absolutely insane number of drawings. The artist could hardly hold his pen at the end. It would otherwise be on radio 350 times a day in the US. I have added that information.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

@@ahkkariq7406 that's also a lot of plays in a day. Also yeah I can imagine someone's hand would want to fall off after that

[@Tony1771-yj8mc]

Well they also redid the musical elements for this version. The 84 version is fairly different. The synthesizer theme has a different quality sound to the notes, etc. I believe reworking the instrumentation helped a lot as well. Like what happened to "Valerie" by Steve Winwood. The first version kind of flopped. They added some extra musical elements which helped it become a hit on its second release. They weren't bad necessarily, but just kind of sound slightly more plain in comparison to their later versions.

[@jonnor6883]

Actually are the 85 version closer to the demo tape from 82, which got them the record contract in the first place. I remember hearing them for the first time in 84, not great, but ok. Then, they released the new version together with this video in 85. Rest is history

[@robynhurley5119]

Came out fall of 1985!! My freshman year in college!! This was worldwide epic!!!!!!❤❤❤❤❤

[@stevenmiller184]

The guys chasing were riding Motorcycle 13 in the race.. they lost to the hero and were not happy about it. The video was using a Rotoscope to overlay hand drawings over video... months of work. .. thousands of hand drawings. No computer. The lyric is neat: take a chance.. I was bothered by the "I'll be gone in a day or two" wondering if he meant he'd dump her in "a day or two" until I realized he's describing a window of opportunity not to be lost.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Oh ok I see now

[@jonnor6883]

Check out the MTV unplugged version from 2017. Gives the lyrics a new meaning

[@keithexum7312]

I remember when the first video came out in 1984 and then Warner Bros re shot it with rotoscope and the song took off! the 80's were so RAD!!!

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It was definitely a great move to do that too

[@jcortese3300]

If you search "making of take on me" on KZbin, you'll find a few videos that together are a modern documentary and retrospective of this music video. The actors, singers, and artists are all older now and are so charmingly pleased with the longevity of this song and video. The woman who plays the young girl actually brought the dress and coat with her that for the interview that she wore in the music video -- she still has them and kept them all this time! They belong in some European rock/pop hall of fame!

[@AceofBadeReacts]

That is so cool. Even the effects hold up today, which is impressive

[@Elena-in6uw]

a-ha are great talented Artists 💎💎💎

[@AceofBadeReacts]

100%

[@craigfowler7098]

I was very lucky ro meet Morten way back in late 90s at my local pub in Hampshire, UK when he lived nearby. Spent an hour with him and his entourage. Nice but shy guy.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

That is so cool. He seems like he would be pretty chill

[@eurekayess]

You aced it with this video! One of my favs. Another cool video is Come Into My World by Kylie Minogue, not animated but obviously using computer technology, which becomes more complex as scenes are layered, along with precision coreography needed to reconcile with the complexity, in addition to being another cool song in itself.

[@EShelby2127]

"A-ha’s 1985 music video for ‘Take On Me’ has hit 1 billion views on KZbin. An iconic example of rotoscoped animation, the video was directed by Steve Barron and animated by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger (who won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects in a Video for this work). It involved roto’ing around 3,000 frames over 16 weeks after the reference live-action scenes had been shot." - Watch the movie "Waking Life" (2001), which uses "Interpolative Rotoscoping" from mini DV camera footage.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

They did some really cool stuff for this video for sure. They did a great job

[@EShelby2127]

@@AceofBadeReacts - This is a really cool segment from the director of "Take On Me" and many 80s videos, talking about how videos for MTV changed movies, forcing quicker cuts etc... "Electric Dreams" 1984 is a movie that had a bunch of great music... kzbin.info/www/bejne/f2a7eY1rqrhgjJo

[@danielnovak4284]

Thanks for sharing! God bless you both!

[@Elena-in6uw]

Great band, great Voice 💎 This was the beginning of their (and mine) musical adventure ❤ I also love their videos: Hunting High and low, Manhattan Skyline, Analogue, Butterfly Butterfly, Minor Earth Major Sky, Forever not yours,Lifelines, Under the Makeup, As if...great songs ❤❤❤

[@timothydeweese6931]

If you have music experts rank the greatest music videos of all time, this will still make the top 10.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Oh i don't doubt it

[@TheRatsCast]

Back then, we had blue screen, not green. Green screen wouldn't come until a decade or so later. The end was based on a movie called Altered States, a William Hurt film from 1980. This was so amazing when it first debut on MTV.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Other than the color of the screen, what is the difference between a blue and green screen?

[@stephensmith1307]

CGI? Green screen? None of that existed. This was pure sketch and time .

[@rickthoma6428]

That was fun!

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It was a blast

[@GuillermoQuezada]

The 80's were cool.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

I bet they were

[@phillipbwanali8507]

The song so catchy and l still love it

[@thomask6681]

He won the motorbike race and they were the losers from the race.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

oooh ok. I see now

[@floriangrogoll5206]

MTV Video of the Year..

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Well deserved

[@jr.resendes7373]

Even though the first "commercial use" PC was introduced in 1981, this video was created without the use of computers. Green screen technology had yet to be invented.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

I don't know about that. There's some green screen stuff that was used years before. The Pink Floyd Echoes reaction I did has some green screen usage and it's from 1971

[@goblinqueen4991]

@@AceofBadeReacts Not green screen. Back then it was either Chroma Key or blue screen.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

@@goblinqueen4991 What is the difference between green and blue screens?

[@gbulmer]

@@AceofBadeReacts "Green screen" is just a synonym for chroma key. @jr.resendes7373 is mistaken, green screen technology had been invented decades earlier. Similarly @goblinqueen4991 is mistaken, it's the same core technology. Best Wishes. ☮

[@4211234]

that music video is impressive still in 2024

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Oh 100% I think it's a timeless video

[@danrumble74]

No green screen. Done, painstakingly, by hand.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It's just incredible

[@Tim-Sherer]

Gravity is on the left side of my screen. Much encouragement, ma'am.

[@oinkerdapig6293]

YEAH!, I love this song so much, it’s even on my list of songs I want to see in GTA VI

[@AceofBadeReacts]

It's such a banger. And the acoustic version just sounds like a completely different song altogether

[@gbulmer]

I taught electronic graphics at a UK University in the 80s. We could do rotoscoping on a PC, with added external graphics hardware. It cost IIRC, about £10k/workstation plus a frame-store to grab a frame (≅ £25k) plus 'single frame video recorder' to create the output video stream (≅ £10k) at the low-cost end of available equipment. A better piece of equipment was Quantel's Paintbox at about £80k plus £60k+ for a film recorder (it could produced 35mm still image or cinema film). Those are 1980 £, GBP, so 10k then would be about £31.5k now, according to The Bank of England (who should have a pretty good idea of inflation). It still took a lot of human artists time to do the rotoscoping work. Software to automate rotoscoping wasn't available to us in 1984. All that equipment only mechanised the 'uploading' of video or film to a computer graphics workstation, and the conversion of the computer-screen image back into video or film, not the rotoscoping conversion of live action to the 'animated' pencil drawing. Another comment claims it took 16 weeks of two animators working on film. They were likely cheaper than hiring the equipment for the time and cost it'd save because it still took artists to do the rotoscoping. To put us into context, we were the first University in the UK to teach _all_ Graphic Design, Fine Art, and Industrial Design undergraduates (120+/year) in our Art Faculty to use electronic painting, computer animation, across all 3 years (3 year degree). We also created and ran the first MA in Electronic Graphics in Europe. Some of our students did rotoscoping in black & white, about 5 seconds at 12½ frames/second is 65 frames (UK/Europe TV is 50 fields/second, unlike USA's NTSC at 60 fields/second). Probably more interesting to Nikki: A London Art College employed the British animator Bob Godfrey as a visiting lecturer. He was an incredibly creative, fun, brilliant guy. He took his students to London's Soho, where a lot of British movies were edited. They raided the trash cans of editing studios to 'obtain' exposed and developed strips of 35mm movie film, which has a black surface on a transparent film. He taught the students to 'scratch' their animations directly onto the film; scratching removes the exposed, developed black to allow the white projector light to shine through. So they saved the time consuming process of converting their individual frames back into a continuous piece of film, and their materials were free. Best Wishes. ☮

[@AceofBadeReacts]

That is crazy awesome

[@gbulmer]

@@AceofBadeReacts Thank you for taking the time and effort to reply. I was hoping to put in context how much work went into making the Music Video. It was a beautiful piece of work, by talented animators. It still looks pretty good almost 40 years later. Best Wishes. ☮

[@AceofBadeReacts]

@@gbulmer so much goes into it. It's an insane amount of work and it has a great final product

[@kaleemdin7963]

It is Rotoscoping

[@EShelby2127]

Speaking of the Family Guy homage, notice the "ICE COLD MILK" sign in the cafe window? Then, flash to the adventure of Chris, as he is told by his mom Lois, to get milk from the back of the cooler, which draws him into the video... Chris is then MISSING! Where do (did, in the 80s), you see pictures of missing children? On the back of milk cartons!

[@EShelby2127]

Family Guy - Take on Me: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4ioo5mXf8-Ze5Y

[@AceofBadeReacts]

They really do some good attention to detail on Family Guy

[@timwinter13]

Nice reaction. Also, the first time I see a female not mentioning his looks😊 Fun fact: They became a couple in real life, too. And just to clearify: the bad guys took part in the bike race, and were simply angry with him because he won.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

I think we were just so focused on the song itself

[@00wheelie00]

Teen me had such a crush on Bunty Bailey ❤

[@volkanyoruc]

Benim favori a-ha şarkısı "Living a Boy's Adventure Tale" Tavsiye ederim, muhteşemdir ❤

[@jorgelangaricaespinoza1317]

Lo mejor de los 80tas!

[@striderhiryu2]

Rotoscopy created by the fleischers.

[@robynhurley5119]

1985!!!😊

[@MrAegisfan1]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZ23eX2AjZyEjLc there are 2 more parts about the making

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Oh that's really cool

[@Fairplayer43]

Crazy idea for your consideration: Have you thought to put your camara more into eye level. For some reason you looking upward seems a little awkward. (It makes you look smaller with all that head room.) I used to work in television and your framing is odd(if not wrong). Just a thought. 😊❤

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Thank you for the constructive criticism. I have taken it into consideration. Starting with December reactions the camera position is going to change (I'm 6 weeks ahead on reactions, so changes can take a while to implement, but I'm trying it out).

[@meticulousgeek]

Girl in the video was the GF of the singer at time IIRC.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Ah ok that makes sense

[@last_warrior_999]

두 주인공이 다시 이별하는 영상도 있습니다.

[@BoB-th8wm]

Perfect female reaction.

[@jericoba]

There is a _part two,_ you know...

[@AceofBadeReacts]

The Sun Always Shines on Tv, right?

[@jericoba]

@@AceofBadeReacts Correct.

[@miamicool666]

We feel that the girl really doesn't give a damn...

[@AceofBadeReacts]

Really? She looked pretty happy that he was able to escape to the real world

[@miamicool666]

@@AceofBadeReacts If that makes you happy, then good for you.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

@@miamicool666 what?

[@jeannieschmidt2217]

She was clearly attracted to him - and at the end was happy to see him - but very distressed to see him hurting himself trying to escape from inside the book. She smiled when he was finally out and she could go to him. There's nothing to indicate that she didn't care.

[@AceofBadeReacts]

@@jeannieschmidt2217 that's what I thought