Steve Barron, who directed the truly outstanding Take On Me for A-ha back in the mid 80s, gets to work with the Norwegian popstrels again on their latest single. The award-winning and celebrated director had this to say about the shoot:

“It was really nice to work with A-ha again, especially as I had not made a music video for such a long time. When Magne got in contact he said it was about completing the circle, and as ‘Take On Me’ had been the start for them. this really felt like just that.

“I wanted to create a really emotional film to accompany the sentiments of the track. To hopefully bring a tear to the eye from, especially, the fans. We shot under a fly-over near Brighton that had three roads leading off in different directions and I asked Morten, Pal and Mags to embrace, get close, almost uncomfortable and then silently say goodbye. It was certainly very powerful on the day. It seemed to sum up how much they had been through together and still stayed as one.

“We intercut some of the old videos I had made for A-ha in the eighties, and to give a contemporary feel we tracked some of the sketchy images onto the concrete wall that then looked almost Banksy-esque. We used the contra zoom to get the atmosphere, also the physical sense of the band’s movement away from each other.

“The stop frame animation towards the end was done by a young talented animator Stefan Ramirez, who’s student film I had spotted on the web. He worked really hard to achieve what we wanted on a comparatively low budget. So, too, did all the team at Mrs Grey who produced the video, especially my son Oliver Barron, who was poignantly a one-year-old when we made ‘Take on Me’”.

A-ha
Butterfly Butterly The Last Hurrah (Warner Music)
Director: Steve Barron
Production Company: Mrs Grey
Producer: Oliver Barron
Line Producer: James Youngs
Executive Producer: Richard A. Moore
2nd Unit Director: Mike Simpson
Production Manager: Harry Serjeant
DP: Trevor Forrest
2nd Unit DoP: Nick Pitt
1st A.D: Ben Burt
Art Director: Aaron Bevan-Bailey
Stylist: Clementine Charity
Hair & Make Up: Sarah Cherry
Post Supervisor: Alexandra Houillon
Colourist: David Yardley
VFX/Compositor: La Maison
3D/Maya: Stephan Ramirez
VFX: Eve @ La Maison
Offline/Editor: David Yardley
Representation: Debs @ Y-I London
Commissioner: Hermione Ross

Watch: Quicktime Movie