The pencil-sketch animation technique used in the A-ha video "Take On Me" was known as what?

Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, animators projected photographed live-action movie images onto a glass panel and traced over the image. Rotoscoping has often been used as a tool for visual effects in live-action movies. By tracing an object, the moviemaker creates a silhouette (called a matte) that can be used to extract that object from a scene for use on a different background. While blue- and green-screen techniques have made the process of layering subjects in scenes easier, rotoscoping still plays a large role in the production of visual effects imagery.

Rotoscoping was used in three of A-ha's music videos, "Take On Me" (1985), "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." (1985), and "Train of Thought" (1986).

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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Shelley Welch Dunivan

Check out the video. It's very clever!

jack clevengerchief

The answer onion skinning brought tears to my eyes!

billyboy915

Approximately 3,000 frames were rotoscoped, which took 16 weeks to complete by USC professor Michael Patterson and his wife, fellow USC professor Candace Reckinger. They were instrumental in the creation of one of the most popular and innovative music videos of all time: A-ha's “Take On Me.” They were the animation directors, with Michael doing all the drawings while Candace co-directed the animation.

William Laughlin

Pat Salloum, Where were you in 1984 and 1985? A 1985 release charted in September 1985, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart in October. In the United States in October 1985, the single topped Billboard's Hot 100, bolstered by the wide exposure on MTV of director Steve Barron's innovative music video featuring the band in a live-action pencil-sketch animation sequence. The video won six awards and was nominated for two others at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. It remained on Billboard's Hot 100 chart for twenty-seven weeks, and ranked tenth in the 1985 year-end chart. In Norway, A-ha's native country, "Take On Me" re-entered the VG-lista singles chart, reaching a new peak of number one, a year after it was first released. The single was largely successful elsewhere, reaching the top of the Eurochart Hot 100 for nine weeks, topping the singles charts in 26 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and reaching the top three in France and number two in Ireland.