The first assignment I decided to do for the course was the “Subtitle GIF” assignment. I’ve seen tons of subtitled GIFs on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, pretty much everywhere. Some of them are good, some of them aren’t. The first thought I had when I saw this particular assignment was, “Oh, I’ve seen that lots of times. I can do that easy.” But as I thought about it for a minute, I realized my favorite subtitled GIFs are the clever or funny ones, and that it’s actually pretty amazing that a GIF can convey something we normally need to hear actors saying in order to appreciate. As I was doing the assignment, I figured out the only way to really make that work is through timing. Insert a line of dialogue a little too early or a little too late, and it’s no longer witty or funny – it’s a bit like stepping on an actor’s lines or being off on the timing of a joke. I’m proud to say I think this one actually worked pretty well:

The first thing I need was use GIPHY‘s GIF maker to create a gif from a YouTube video. In this case, I used a section from a sort of “greatest moments’ video of BBC’s Sherlock (one of my favorite shows). There are a LOT of awesome moments of dialogue between characters, especially between Sherlock and his arch-nemesis Moriarty. Choosing a moment from all 4 seasons was hard for me, but I remembered this subtle one, and some other Sherlock fans might have too (and will hopefully get the joke in the title of this post).

One of the harder aspects of this assignment was actually inserting the dialogue into the GIF. GIPHY has a pretty cool subtitle tool, but it only works if you want your text to be seen throughout the entire length of the GIF (this would be useful for animated memes, for example). What I needed was a tool that let me insert dialogue at different points in the video, preferably with different colors, as if you were watching a movie. Enter GifNText. So, I used the .gif link from GIPHY and inserted it into the GifNText tool, trimmed the length of the subtitles here and there, and viola. Like GIPHY, GifNText gives you the option of copying HTML or a .gif link for embedding. I especially liked this one because Sherlock, while not specifically spy-themed, does include a lot espionage and subterfuge, and with that, a lot of tropes from the spy genre. Really, go watch it if you haven’t.

For my last assignment I choose from the animated G.I.F. category and furthermore picked to do the first thing I saw when I clicked the category. The result was the assignment called “Subtitle GIF” which basically wanted me to create a GIF and add subtitles by adding subtitles in either from the original lines or make your own. I decided to incorporate the secret agent theme for my GIF. I already had background with making GIF because my friend and I used to start a GIF war and send each other silly ones.

So I went to YouTube  and copied the url from the  a James Bond Movie ” 007 Spectre” trailer  went to the GIF site that I always use “Giphy”.

Giphy is relatively easy because all you had to do is copy the URL and move the cursor to the scene you wanted to repeat and add subtitles and you would have made a GIF! I choose a random scene by just moving until I got a scene where I can add subtitles I wanted. I don’t know what the women said originally so I made my own subtitles and it actually looked like that would be the line she said in the movie.

And I finally made my GIF.  I would probably will make more GIFS in the future since it is so much fun to create and I cannot find myself to stop.

Enjoy!

The assignment was Subtitle a GIF worth 4 stars. I took a short video of Yub the Ewok with my Sony Camcorder jumping and then added the video to Windows Movie Maker. I then clicked the caption button (under home) to add my subtitle. The text tools you see here allow you to change your font, the text animation and so much more.

I saved my video as a WMV and used http://ezgif.com/video-to-gif to take my video and convert it into a GIF.

The original GIF was an 8MB file! Thankfully the site above has a resize option which shrunk the file down to only a little over 2MB. It also has many other cool effects and best of all it is free.

For my second GIF assignment this week, I did the subtitle GIF. I was able to take a video off of youtube and make it into a GIF adding subtitles along the way.

Inspiration from this clip came from my love of the TV show Friends. My aunt introduced me to Friends when I was around 13 and she let me borrow all 10 seasons from her. This was back before I had a Netflix account, meaning I had to get up and change the disc every 4 or 5 episodes instead of being able to lay in one spot for hours on end. Now we are all so thankful we have Netflix and there is no need to get up! As I began to watch, I understood why everyone that watches Friends loves the show. It is such an easy show to follow and understand and always provides enough laughs. I highly recommend it to anyone who has not seen it. Since then, I have completed the series again on Netflix. The clip I chose for this GIF is from Season 3 of Friends. An interesting fact about this episode is that the who episode only took place in the setting of their apartment. There was no scene that wasn’t just in the apartment. They made the episode so you would never even notice that they never leave unless you knew this fact prior to watching. For my assignment, I decided to make my own subtitles instead of using the exact one from the show. I used a better interpretation when you only see this one scene from the episode.

To make this GIF I found a great tutorial from the assignment page linked here.

I was able to go to youtube and find a clip of Friends that I wanted to use for this assignment. Next, I opened QuickTime player in order to record the screen of the video I chose.

Before recording, I selected the area of the screen of the video only. Once I finished, the recording was saved to my desktop from QuickTime player. I opened iMovie to import the video.

Once open in iMovie, I clipped the video further to use the exact clip I wanted for my GIF. I was able to stop a scene and add a subtitle when I wanted.

For a subtitle, you want to choose one that is in the lower third of the video. There is a whole selection of different options.

Next, I was able to drag the title I chose on top of the clip and add the text on the main image in the top right.

You are then able to share the iMovie and save it to your computer. The next step is to export the video to a GIF creator website. I used Giphy.com.

Click create in the top right corner and upload your video.

Credit for Youtube clip here.

500 Days of Summer is one of my favorite movies…even though it does employ one of the worst feminine tropes: the manic pixie dream girl. But, I think that if you look closely enough it is kind of critiquing this trope and poking holes in it. I picked 500 Days for this assignment to piece together one of my favorite moments from the movie. So, lets talk about these gifs shall we?

The scene in this movie I chose to use for my gif story was from their parody scene of New Wave French movies. As a fan of Godard and so on, I found this scene hilarious. So, that is why I had to make more than one gif to demonstrate exactly what makes this scene so subtle but hilarious. If you don’t know anything about New Wave French films of the 1950’s and 60’s, you should know one thing: they are so overdramatic and slightly nihilistic. Everything is despair and suffering, as the actual subtitle (straight from the movie) dictates.

I actually learned how to make these gifs from a tutorial I found on the assignment page by a lovely lady named Abigail. Her tutorial uses QuickTime to capture the video, iMovie to cut it, and then Giphy to turn the clip into an actual gif. So, short and simple, that is how I made all four of my gifs.

This scene really captures the New Wave French feeling, with the subtitle: His only friend is grief. If you’ve seen any of these classic French New Wave films, you will know what I mean about nihilistic vibes. Definitely a lot of gloom and doom and the dialogue is usually straight to the point of what is attempting to be conveyed. That is basically what this part is trying to make fun of. The tragic looking clown releasing his beloved balloon makes the perfect punchline. And then, in the final, gif: his priceless reaction. I mean come on, man! Never take a man’s balloon. Smh.

I had a lot of fun with this assignment and this was my first time creating gifs. I didn’t know they were this easy to make. I will totally be making more in the future. Everyone needs more reactions gifs in their life.

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