These are four stills from the first track to air on MTV Europe. The 3D-rendered figures were quite novel and high-tech at the time. FWIW, I still enjoy their entire catalog.
They may be low-poly, but at least they’re high resolution now 🙂 Drawn using Affinity Designer on iPad.
In closing, I must admit to one thing that took me way too long to realise: that voice in the intro. That is Sting, basically singing new words over a variation of “Don’t stand so close to me”. If you too was unaware, I promise you will never not hear it from now on.
Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair created the animation, using a Bosch FGS-4000 CGI system and a Quantel Paintbox system. The animators went on to found computer animation studio Mainframe Entertainment (today Mainframe Studios), according to Wikipedia.
