Textual Analysis - Take on Me

'Take on me' by 'A-Ha', which you can watch here, has similar conventions to what I want for my music video, in that it has 'another world' and people going from one to the other, exploring the new world, falling in love etc.

The video begins as a scratchy, pencil drawn black & white animation. A fast paced montage of close up images are shown, which builds tension, and although the images are very close up it becomes clear that the story is of 2 motorbike drivers about to race.

As the vocals come into the song, the video switches from animation to real life and we see that the animations were in a comic book, being read by a woman in a cafe. The first shot of her is a medium close up, which establishes her as the main female protagonist, as no other characters but her and the racer in the comic book get this kind of attention. We get close ups of her face to show her amused reaction to the comic. This then switches to a shot of the bottom square in the comic, which is of the male protagonist, who fans of A-Ha would recognise as the lead singer (if people don't recognise him we assume here that he is a protagonist anyway because of connotations like him holding a champagne bottle which means he has won his race). The supposedly still-frame animation then moves, to show that the man in the comic book may not just be an animation.

We are shown the woman's confused reaction. She then turns the page and we see a shot of the mans face, then hers, then extreme close ups of both of their eyes. This is a commonly used shot style for romance, as if to point out that the two characters are looking intently at each other. He winks and her eyes widen, which confirms the audiences suspicions of romance.

Next we see a medium long shot of the woman at the table, as a hand reaches out of the comic book. A close up of her face shows the audience that she is apprehensive, and then we switch to a shot of his face, and then the extreme close up of his eyes used earlier. This familiar shot reminds the audience of the 'moment' that they shared and reassures both her & the audience that she should take his hand. Her face softens, as if to agree to go with him (using facial expressions to portray emotions where words would suffice in normal situations is common in music videos) and we see a medium close up of their hands touching. This portrays romance again.

Next we are back in the animated world, and both of the characters are there. There is a comic strip panel which the male protagonist goes behind and is made real. This panel is used as a sort of portal for the characters to switch between the real world, and the cartoon one.