VisualAssignments2 – Assignment Bank

Creating my First GIF

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I’m just going to say it right now that creating a Gif was the hardest thing I did this week. I did a lot of research on how to do this and downloaded a ton of different software to figure it out. First thing I saw before I even started thinking about how to make my own gif was Martha’s twitter post about first UMW student (I believe the student’s name was Alex Spangler). So I clicked on the link to the blog and read a little about how his made his gif. I also found the tutorial on the DS106 website that I found very helpful: http://ds106.us/handbook/tools/creating-animated-gifs-open-source-software/ The software I downloaded that I actually used was Fastest Youtube downloader, and MPEG Streamclip. What I found most difficult at first was figuring out how to download youtube videos. That’s when I read about Fastest Youtube downloader on the tutorial site. After that it was really easy for me to search for a youtube video to download. After the video downloaded and I saved it I opened up the MPEG Streamclip. I followed the directions on the tutorial to shorten the clip to the part I wanted. I had trouble at first figuring out how to trim, and select in and out of the movie clip, but I finally got it. I then followed the directions on the tutorial on changing it to other formats. I changed the format to different screen shots and then I uploaded them to the website http://makeagif.com/ and then it created my gif for me. It felt really good to me that I figured it out.

So after saying all about the process of how I made my gif and frustrations I had I’m now going to talk about why I chose it. This scene is from the movie The Hunger Games. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/ In a short summary there are 12 districts that every year they offer up one boy and one girl from each district to fight to the death. I won’t tell too much for those of you who have not seen the movie. I chose it because it was one of my favorite parts of the movie. It is when Katniss is saluting district 11, and it is one of the main turning points in the movie that will start a rebellion in the future. I am very happy about how this gif turned out.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

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Flash Gordon Approaching

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About 15 years ago, my uncle introduced me to my favorite “its so bad its good” movie. The movie was Flash Gordon (1980 version). I liked it so much as a kid that my uncle eventually gave me my own VHS copy to wear out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080745/

This .gif I made is from one of the final scenes in the movie in which our hero, Flash, joins forces with Prince Vultan and his Hawkmen in a final assault on Emperor Ming’s palace. During the attack you can hear pieces of the Flash Gordon theme song by Queen.

I found the process of making the .gif to be extremely easy. Following Jim Groom’s directions I completed this in about ten minutes. I made a larger one but decided a 5 meg .gif was too large so I took it down a few frames to decrease the file size.

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Kong’s Off!

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Peter Purg via Kubrick 4 DeL 2012

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Animated GIFs Galore!

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I came into DS 106 rather late, so I’m playing catch-up and will be posting the bootcamp content out of order. Just for fun, I thought I would start with the animated GIF project (Say It Like The Peanut Butter).

I decided to create a GIF from my favorite movie, American Beauty. The film is rife with shots and moments that would lend themselves well to this medium. The famous footage of the plastic bag floating down the street would probably be the most obvious choice, as well as the most overdone, so I decided to go with the brief but important scene when Lester Burnham catches his wife Carolyn in her affair when she stops at the fast food chain where he works. The dialogue is sharp, the situation is characteristic of the film, and Jeanine’s interjections into what could be a very dramatic scene solidifies the element of irreverence that runs throughout the film.

This particular shot is of Lester’s look of approval to Jeanine and her authoritative dismissal of Carolyn, demonstrating that through this misstep Carolyn has lost her position of control.

Video Source: http://youtu.be/LYmO9oXsTF8

Software Used: PwnYouTube, MPEG Streamclip, Adobe Photoshop CS5

I had a lot of fun using the Animate feature in Photoshop, so I decided to also create a GIF of the full version of the Kurt Vonnegut quote that I use as my blog header:

Quotation Source: Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country

Software Used: PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop CS5

Note: For some reason the GIFs aren’t playing in the published version of the blog post, but if you click on the image it will open in a new window and play. Still trying to figure out why this is happening…

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I love the smell of GIFs in the morning

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I decided to start off the week in a productive fashion by knocking out one of the harder assignments for the week. Before I start, I should mention that I love GIFs. I find them hilarious, but I’ve never tried to make my own. That was an ordeal to say the least. I learned that the MPEG Streaming software doesn’t allow for a large amount of frames, so I had to compress my clip down a whole lot more than I would have liked. From there it was fairly easy to import into GIMP and create it into a gif.

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Woot, Look at that! I made a GIF!

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My Favorite Movie? Pan’s Labyrinth.
My Favorite Scene? The Pale Man; aka: The Baby Eater.

Isn’t he just adorable?!

I had never in my life made a GIF before, The tutorial made by Jim Groom helped so much. I downloaded GIMP (which I have used previously for photography) and StreamClip. I found both easy to use as I navigated my way through Mr. Groom’s tutorial. I will say, my Tumblr will be home to all sorts of new GIFs with this newfound knowledge.

Why did I choose Pan’s Labyrinth? Pan’s Labyrinth is absolutely one of the most intriguing movies I have ever watched. I could go on for hours about my love for Guillermo Del Toro (the director) and his awesome skills. Pan’s Labyrinth is a movie that is spoken in all Spanish with English subtitles. Del Toro wrote the subtitles himself to make the words flow as easily as they did in his head. A simplified version of the movie is as follows: Girl (Ofelia) loves fairy tales. Girl is also slightly delusional (workings of a small child’s imagination). Girl meets Fawn, Fawn says “BY GOLLY, YOU’RE A PRINCESS!”. She believes him. He explains that she must complete three tasks to prove that she is the lost princess Moana. She must, 1. Get the key from the belly of the toad. 2. Enter the lair of the Pale Man and retrieve the dagger, making sure as to not eat anything from the wonderful feast, and 3. She must shed the blood of an innocent. First task, no problem. Second task, not so much. Ofelia enters the lair of the Pale Man. She walks past a gigantic feast set out before this waxy looking creature. She sees wonderful pictures on the wall of the Pale Man eating babies. YUM. She uses the key that she retrieved from the belly of the toad to get the dagger. On her way out she spots some delicious grapes. Having skipped dinner, she grabs a couple. OH NO, she’s awoken the Pale Man. His eyeballs are on a plate in front of him, he has to physically insert them into his hands before placing his hands on his face to see. Even then his eyesight is spotty. Ofelia escapes the lair after a close encounter with the Pale Man. Task 3…. Well I can’t tell you that much more or it will ruin the end of the movie! It is a fantastic flick. I generally don’t like foreign films with subtitles, they sound very mechanical and fake. This movie however… flows. It’s fantastic. I would recommend it to anyone.

Here’s a link to the IMDB page for Pan’s Labyrinth: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/

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Lydia got an A, so I made a Gif

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So, I made a Gif. I didn’t even know what a Gif was really. But after many hours of frustration and trial and error I made a gif and know what one is. But that seems to be what ds106 is about, learning by trial and error to create something that is interesting as well as a reflection of your unique style.

So this week our assignment was to make a Gif of a scene from our favorite or least favorite movie. I chose the final scene from Beetlejuice where everyone is happy and getting along and Lydia gets to dance and float. Its my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies, I always wished I could dance and float whenever I got an A on a test. I definitely would’ve gotten more As with an incentive like that. I also thought it would make a pretty nice Gif.

I had originally planned to make a Gif from my favorite movie, Drop Dead Gorgeous, but both the DVD and YouTube methods weren’t working for me. Soo I switched to Beetlejuice, my next favorite movie. Jim Groom’s Creating an Animated Gif tutorial helped me A LOT. I ended up using YTD Video Downloader to get the video off of YouTube because doing it from DVD took much longer than I was wanting to spend. Once the video was downloaded I also used the YTD downloader to convert the file to an MPEG mp 4 file.

Once I had my video converted I opened it with MPEG streamclip and followed Jim’s tutorial at that point. When I got to the point in the video where I wanted to start my GIf I did selectin and then selectout where I wanted my gif to end, clicked trim, and I was almost done. Finally I used Gimp to layer them all together and BAM, I had my gif.

*One thing to note, if you are using Gimp one thing that kind of threw me was open the first image that you want for your gif first. When it appears in its own Gimp window go to file, open layers and then select the rest of the images you want to use and it will layer them all together for you.

Although the process was infuriating at times, the final product made up for it. I am pretty proud of my first Gif and may be addicted to making them now. From what I’ve hear its kind of like childbirth, you go through hell to produce it but once its here you forget all the bad stuff because its awesome.

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my somewhat gif (hopefully)

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I did two because I found the process a lot more fun than I thought I would. Jim Groom’s guide was beyond helpful to me. I downloaded mpeg streamclip and gimp and after the first time of following the directions, I was able to guide myself through the second one. I am not sure how to get the quality better in the top one (it looks kind of more like a painting with all the shading going on) but I will try to troubleshoot it this weekend.

I chose Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban because I love that movie and, because this movie really is the turning point in the whole series. Sirius is able to finally meet Harry again. This particular scene is where Buckbeak has been sentenced to death and Malfoy is behind it. Obviously, Hermione is not very pleased by this and takes matters into her own hands, first threatening Malfoy with a wand, backing off and then punching him.

For my second GIF, I did one from one of my all time favorite movies, Clue. Back in middle school, I could watch Clue over and over again for days on end. (what’s weird is how much I hate the game!). Anyway, there’s this scene where Mrs. White talks about how much she hated this woman, and describes it as “flames, flames, on the side of my face”. As an immature middle schooler, my friends and I would say that very line any chance we got. So, it was a no-brainer that this be one I used.

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Frustrations Resolved…somewhat

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Making a gif proved to be one of the most frustrating things for me. For some reason or another I cannot grasp how to make one. I tried many online sources and all proved to fail me. I tried to find photoshop, but wasn’t willing to spend the money on it. I finally came across the tutorial (HERE) to make one. It took a few tries and after hours of work I thought I had finally gotten it down. Turns out, I can’t figure out how to make it move on this post, but if you click on the picture it will take you to my gif. I can’t seem to get it down perfectly, but I can say it definitely is not due to lack of effort on this project. If I can figure out how to make the perfect gif definitely expect an update!

On a happier note, I love the content of my gif!! Finding Neemo is possibly one of my favorite movies. It never gets old to me! I love the under-the-sea content of it. I feel every time I watch this movie I see something new! It’s such a colorful movie. The sea turtles are all time favorite characters. And it could be due to the fact that sea turtles are some of my favorite creatures or they make me laugh every time. Whatever it is I think they make a great gif!

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Say it like Tequila

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I see another round of DS106 has started, I have too many balls in the air at the moment to do more than watch it flow through my reader. Then I saw Week 2: Bootcamping It:

This week, we’re also going to ask you to do your very first digital storytelling assignment from the ds106 Assignment Repository. The Repository is a Web site filled with new media assignments that we’ll be using extensively this semester. Your first assignment is “Say it Like the Peanut Butter,” in which you’ll be creating an animated gif of a clip from your favorite (or least favorite) movie. You must also follow the instructions on the assignment page to ensure that your contribution shows up on the Assignment Repository site.

So I though I’d do a wee gif just for fun.

This is from Betty Blue, when this movie came out (1986) I just loved it, didn’t like the 2005 directors cut which added far too much nonsense.
I’ve not dared watch the movie again in case my old brain doesn’t like it so much.
In this scene Zorg and a friend are making and drinking tequila slammers, tequila rapido, and laughing like manics. As I remember the movie, this went on for quite a while.
I downloaded the flv from youtube, opened in in Quicktime and copied a wee section. Opened this saved movie in Fireworks 8 and deleted some frames. I also auto levelled the images as it is a fairly dark scene. I am guessing I’ve added something to a plain QuickTime install to allow it to open flv files.