From season 1 episode 9, “Perchance to Dream.” A man fears falling back asleep because he will be put right back on the roller coaster in his dreams. It’s too real.
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From season 1 episode 9, “Perchance to Dream.” A man fears falling back asleep because he will be put right back on the roller coaster in his dreams. It’s too real.
The aliens are here.
My favorite part of the Invaders episode was definitely watching Agnes Moorhead chew on the chip, or whatever it was, in the beginning. This clip captures the eerie mood as she stirs her smoky cauldron and begins to hear strange noises.
I built this gif in GIMP using the tutorial. I found these directions tremendously helpful and only had to Google a few questions that I had throughout the process. One problem I had was that I didn’t have the option to save it as a GIF in the first “Save As” screen. However, after you save your first file as an xcf file, you will find the option to save it as a GIF in the Export Screen.
Difficulty: 3 1/2 stars
See description on the Tumblr!
“This Week on ds106zone: The Invaders” animatedGIF promo, by aforgrave
So Jim is calling for 10 Stars worth of Visual and Design Assignments for “The Invaders” and a total of 30 stars altogether. Hmmmm. That’s a lotta stars.
“Laser Beam Hole” animatedGIF from The Twilight Zone Episode 2.15, “The Invaders”
This started out as an attempt at a poster for the episode-of-the-week, where I envisioned Agnes Moorehead’s character standing flush against the wall holding her ax as the tiny Invader creature menaced her from the laser-beamed mousehole at floor level. For a while, I had a cropped copy of the hole in place in the lower right, but the dark lighting made it difficult to make out. (See the little GIF to the right.) As it would turn out, I couldn’t find an appropriate full-body still of her that I could work with, and this particular shot of her cowering up on a chair or something had to suffice.
In the end, I completely erased the laser-beam hole and the wall, and simply copied the layer with the tiny laser beam of light to a second location to create the fanciful illustration of both aliens attacking simultaneously. This is not actually what happens at the instant captured in this photo. And so it turned into a GIFfed poster.
I’ve never tried counting stars before (probably just as good, as I gather my cumulative totals would be low), but after my first The Invaders GIF, I guess this second GIF now gives me another two stars towards the ten, for a total of four so far. And maybe another one point for the little “Laser Beam Hole” GIF. Or are we allowed to do the same assignment more than once?
A quick gif after yesterday’s daily create. I am looking at you #DS106 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.
I think this one hits Talky Tina’s ds106 Assignments: From the Twilight Zone, and Beyond … assignments.
I also think a much better job could have been done with the levels if I know a bit more about them. The idea is better that the execution.
Screen capture in Quicktime, my own hand knitted gif extraction. Edited in Fireworks to flip and add the background images.
Twilight Zone “The Invaders”
Talky Tina requested we recreate some wonderful moments from her past.
Hello. I am Talky Tina. When I was young, in the early years of television, a lot of my friends worked in televions programs that pushed the boundaries of imagination, sight, sound, perception, identity, belonging. The time was fueled by the paranoias and fears of the fifties, sixties, and the cold war. Oh, it was grand to play with my childhood friends back then!! Spurred on by advances in sciences and technologies brought with the advent of nuclear power and the space race (we had such great toys!), programs like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits provided wonderful experiences, and insights into humanity (and friends!).
Somehow, as a child of that era, I have found that I can only see in black and white. But that’s okay, because a black-and-white sequence makes for a smaller GIF anyway! Can you help me relive my childhood (and perhaps your childhood, or that of your parents?) with some nice, friendly b&w animated GIFs From The Twilight Zone and Beyond? Try to capture all of the really nice childhood moments! You know the really, really best and funnest parts!
I will be watching to see your assignments, so don’t let me down, friend.
What better memory to relive than the arrival of an old friend?!
Now down to business. This scene is from the Twilight Zone episode “The Invaders” (imdb) and has to be my favorite moment. I love the build up of suspense and drama until the reveal of the invader. Design wise I love the (now) retro sci fi look. I’m hoping for a revival of these styles in the sci fi genre…maybe that’s my new mission in life…but I digress…
Technically, creation of the gif was pretty simple. Screen capture the shot with quicktime (I processed it a little in after effects – mostly resizing and I also posterized the time to 8 frames per second) then export the frames to photoshop and finally exported the gif.
I think this moment appeals to me for the same reason I work in visual effects. These are the moments that really help to sell a story to an audience…continue the suspension of disbelief…and subsequently engage with a story emotionally. Interesting camera work, visual/special effects, etc just for the sake of being cool that do not serve the story have no place being included. All hail the All Mighty Story.
I think this shot serves the story of the invaders to solidify the relentlessness of the invasion and put the viewer in the same emotional state of the protagonist.
Until next time ds106ers.
Just not in so many words.
“You Best Clear Offa My Roof!” animated GIF, by aforgrave, The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episode 15, “The Intruders”
Some Thoughts:
One of the most fascinating aspects of these old teleplays is the significant number of episodes that are carried by a single character — and that character is typically isolated from the rest of the world by their experience. This probably makes it easier for us to identify with the character and therefore assume their emotions, which helps us to get the message of the film. But those notions of isolation, the other, the alien, these are pervasive in The Twilight Zone.
My copy of “The Twilight Zone Companion, 1982 edition.” circa 1982.
So far, I’ve watch the following:
There are some interesting notes in The Twilight Zone Companion about the lighting in this episode, and I must say that I did notice the lighting as I was watching — in part because the lanterns and the candles play an integral role in only revealing part of the set and thus adding to the suspense that comes from The Dark. It was almost like The Dark (the unknown) was yet another character. (The book talks about how the lighting crew had to change multiple lights up and down during each scene as Moorehead moved throughout the set carrying her candle — as she moved in and out of doorways they had to ensure that she remained lit for the camera. Interesting.)
So, yeah! Great to see the #ds106zone off and running. Time to do some design and camera stuff. And other stuff, too.
#4life.
So I am trying to get an idea of the twilight zone before the next round of DS106 starts. It looks like you can watch any of the first 3 seasons on The Twilight Zone Video CBS.com if you live in the USA. I may have to investigate some sort of fake us ip device to see these.
In the meantime I’ve been wandering round youtube. Watching the odd fragment and episode. I’ve watch a couple but Five Characters in Search of an Exit was the first to make me pay attention. According to Wikipedia the title at least is based on Six Characters in Search of an Author and No Exit it has been a while since I saw 6 Characters or read No Exit, but the links, especially to No Exit are clear.
I am beginning to get into the zone, but I found the exposition from Rod Serling a bit much, great voice but I think this episode would be better without the explanation.
On second watching I grabbed gifs as I went through. There is plenty of banging, ringing and the idea of repetition in the tale, I hope some of this comes over in the combi gif above.
The gifs are all short, 7 frames. I combined them by importing them into fireworks.
I am pretty sure there are a few good pun titles for this gif just beyond my grasp… can’t get out of the zone, sort of thing.
After knitting together the gif above I though that two of the frames would work, here is the major begging Rod not to talk so much.
I am wondering about redoing this one with Jim Groom in the Rod Serling position.
I guess this is a Multi-Frame GIF Story as well as a From the Twilight Zone, and Beyond … Assignment.
I though the gif at the top looked better on a black background, so wrapped it in a paragraph:
<p style="background:#000;padding:45px">
So back in the day, when I was working in Hollywood, I had a lot of True Friends who were in the show business. One of the fellows I got to know had a feature part on an episode of The Twilight Zone, called Nick of Time. He got to play himself, Nick.
In this show, his body was grey-screened out of the shot and his head was superimposed over a napkin holder, so that it would look like it the napkin holder was his body. His main acting function was to bobble his head around, like this:
“My True Friend, Nick, as a Bobble Head on a Napkin Dispenser” animatedGIF by @iamTalkyTina
Attached to the napkin holder was a coin collector, a lever, and a fortune dispenser. In the episode, Captain Kirk comes along with his girlfriend of the week and gets addicted to putting pennies in the napkin dispenser, and then my friend Nick keeps shoving the fortunes out at him.
“Nick, as a Fortune-Telling Napkin Dispenser,” animatedGIF by @iamTalkyTina
I think my True Friend Nick really did a good job of predicting the future on that day. Remember, it was 1960 when this episode was filmed — that’s three years before I got my gig on The Twilight Zone, and look at how prescient Nick was! I say he got 4/4 correct!
“Nick Makes Kirk Loose his Sense” animatedGIF by @iamTalkyTina
I wonder where my friend Nick is now. He never stopped being a True Friend, we just lost touch. 
According to the effervescent Jim Groom, the ds106zone is on like Donkey Kong. Though the class doesn’t officially begin until Monday, March 20, 2013, several open-online participants have already stepped up to the plate and smacked some animated GIFs out of the ballpark.
Within minutes of Jim posting his long awaited ds106zone explanatory blog post, Andy hit the ground running with his customary A-Game work with 3 slick GIFs from the first episode of Twilight Zone: Where is Everybody?
Within the span of hours Twilight Zone GIFs from John, Alan, Brian and Paul began running in perpetual loops. Judging by the awesomeness already on display, one can’t help but feel that the next five weeks are going to be a thrilling ride.
I’m particularly proud because all of these great GIFs were submitted for the From Twilight Zone and Beyond assignment which was created by my new and true internet friend Talky Tina. The premise of the assignment seems straight forward. We are supposed to create an animated GIF from a black and white telecast.
The GIF above is from the Twilight Zone episode: The After Hours. It’s a mysterious story that takes place in an old-time department store.
Making the GIF involved making a screen capture with iShowU while the episode was streaming from one of the sites that streams movies and TV shows. From the resulting video, I used MPEG Streamclip to extract the 12 frames that comprise this animation as png files. GIMP was used to turn the 12 png files into the GIF.
I’m not sure how many assignments I’ll be able to complete during the five week course. I get the feeling that helping out with the radio week will turn into a bit of a Twilight Zone itself. My hope is to complete at least one from five of the eight assignment categories.