Textual Analysis: Take On Me

Take on me- A-ah

Take on me was originally introduced to the music corparation in the 1980's written by a norwiegen band. The single hit the top 10's in both the USA and UK and was a huge a sucsses.


The video is set in several different enviroments. The opening scene shows several characters who seem to beging a race. The shots are fast paced and use the technique shot reverse shot on both close up's of the characters faces and body parts of the motor bikes.

Although the characters are shown as real people their portrayed to look as if their re-telling a black and white comic book. There is hardly any moving camera shots when the charaters are in the "comic book" and is shot with lots of different single still photographs which gives the story line and video itself a fast paced feel to it. This is one of the main reasons why we chose to use this particular video, having a fast paced video gives us the oppotunity to gain high marks in our own music video. Other camera shots that are regually used throughout the music video are such techniques like the zooming in and out. This shows detailed facial features and the emotion the specific character is feeling, for example when the female actress notices the moving picture in the cartoon magazine her eyes widen and an extreme close up shot is taken to emphasise her facial emotions.

Nearer the end of the music video the main male character throws himself into walls to sway the cartoon effect off himself. The camera emphasise the power the main male character slaming against the wall when it cuts on match on action. Without the cuts it would not give the same effect it dose at the moment.

The way all the characters are dressed is very 1980's (especially in the diner when the woman is sitting) which is not that suprising as the video was set in the 1980's.

Another media technique used frequently throught out the video is the amout of transitions used. A first example is the amount of fades, it was used to link reality between the cartoon magazine world. The fade also indicates a period of time has passed which adds more emotion to the character. Another common transition that cropped up was the straight cut, the fast paced pictures link well with the chosen transition, if it were to be another such as fade then it would not have the same up beat pulsing rythm that the video originally has.