This recent news story comes from Australia, and it was so weird and funny I decided to animate it. Here is the original picture and story:

And here is my animated version:

Animated gifs have been floating around the web for a long time. They are basically a series of images played one after another in a single graphics file. To create the illusion of motion, each “frame” shows an object in a slightly different place than the previous one. There are a number of tools and methods used to create animated gifs; my personal favorite is Adobe Photoshop, as it has the animation tools built in, and I’ve used it for years. I know that Gimp can also make these animated images, but I don’t personally know how with that program.

Process
The process I used in Photoshop is pretty straight forward. I cut the boy out with a selection, and pasted him into a new layer. I also cut out the claw part of the machine and put it into it’s own layer. I had to do some cloning with the clone tool to recreate the parts of his body that were missing. I also cloned in the back wall blue and green colors that were behind the boy and the claw I cut out, as well as added in some of the toys and candy in the machine. I had to cut out the foreground parts of the machine and the kids outside of the machine, and put them in a layer in front of the boy inside, to give the correct 3-D appearance.

With my separated layers – background, boy, claw, and foreground, I was able to do my animation work. Using the animation panel, I created a new frame with a .1 second pause, and moved the claw several pixels over. I repeated this process about 15 times. After doing this for a while, I noticed a “tween” button on the animation panel. I discovered with this tool, I could create a beginning and ending frame, then specify how many steps the computer should put in be”tween.” So after doing it the hard way, frame by frame, to get the claw moved over the boy’s head, I was able to tween the same number of steps returning the claw and boy to the beginning, saving a lot of time and trouble.

Once all of the frames were created, I saved the project as a gif. I downsized it to 400 pixels wide, to keep the file size down and so it would fit in this blog post. That’s pretty much it for the process. I realize this isn’t exactly pop culture, but it is a current event, so I’m submitting it.

When I first heard the distant sirens of ds106, it was just an amusing buzz, and easily ignored. But each time they came back, they grew louder and more alluring. Soon I began to search for them, to make them stop the distracting noises, or so I thought.  After I found them though, I began to follow them around – through their blogs and tweets and youtubes, I found them everywhere. I tried to play with them, and they just smiled and began their insane chanting “#4life, #4life, #4life…”

I had noticed early on, that the object known as the ‘animated gif’ held a position of high esteem and great awe among the ds106 aristocracy. If I could just learn this arcane craft maybe they would be appeased and go away. A simple offering perhaps.

I started my search in the dusty stacks of impawards.com. Once I found what I needed, I hid myself in the land of gimp and set to work. I labored late into the night, then another night and another. What other work was I neglecting? I could not think of that, I was driven by a singleness of mind I have not known before.

I emerged at last, with my offering in hand. Yes, it was simple, but hopefully enough. I took it to the blog and carefully administered to all the incantations. And I waited. There was silence for a moment, but then, barely perceptibly it started again.  ” #4life, #4life, #4life…”

Make it stop! Make it stop!

That’s my story. Any questions?