Legendary pop video director Vaughan Arnell returns to the medium and reunites with Take That - who he first worked with three decades ago - proceeding to subvert all expectations with the veteran 'boy band': he turns them into a rock 'n roll power trio, and then into animated versions of themselves.

In the video for Sweet July, Take That stride onto a film stage to perform, as an old-school rock combo: Gary on vocals, Mark on guitar, Howard on drums. If that's the first surprise, the second is when their animated performance becomes properly animated - in several different animation styles, each one a bit more 'rock 'n roll' than the last.

A minute into the video, the performance becomes an animated rendition of the performance, in the style of a black and white comic book. And that's just the start as its followed by further transformations into other comic book styles and textures.

Drawing inspiration from some iconic music videos - including Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer and a-ha's Take On Me - alongside four decades of comic-book illustration, Arnell worked with independent artist-led VFX studio Rohtau to make this happen in the video. Three artists, based in different parts of Europe, developed each animation style under the auspices of Rohtau's Jordi Bares. The traditional methods of animation were then turbo-charged in their delivery by AI-assisted workflows.

Rohtau worked closely alongside Arnell and the Merman team throughout the live action shoot of the band's performance. Once an edit of the live action footage was completed, the film was divided into individual sequences and assigned to the specialist artists. 

French comic-book specialist Sébastien Daniel handled the water-ink, darker ink, and colour comic-book sections, maintaining both the timeline and the visual flow; Hungary-based Zed Zara brought his expertise in textured, gritty comic-book imagery and added depth; and Linus Konetschnigin from Switzerland drew on his background in comic books, collage, paper craft, and stop-motion to help shape the more tactile, layered sections.

Take That are so instantly recognisable, preserving their likeness while embracing bold graphic styles was central to the creative process. And some of the most exciting moments came from happy accidents including the large studio doors opening to cast beautiful shadows that translated into rich line-art textures across the floor.

"The video was inspired by the iconic videos of INXS, Peter Gabriel and a-ha - but we wanted to re-interpret that style through a contemporary AI lens," explains Arnell.

"Rohtau were incredible at bringing the idea to life. We had three artists from across Europe each creating different sections of the film, all coordinated by Jordi at Rohtau, so it became this genuinely collaborative process.

"There were hand-drawn sketches, illustrations and painted elements, all blended with different AI platforms. It ended up feeling like a real fusion of traditional craft and modern mixed-media techniques, and we were thrilled with how it all came together."