this assignment was pretty straight-forward, and i didn’t have to edit any photos! giphy? much more user-friendly than gimp! the goal of this assignment was to make a gif out of something pop culture. I decided to do this one because what better way to incorporate our theme of 80s pop culture than with a gif! I decided to gif a music video, so I did some basic research and came across this article, which detailed some of the best 80s music videos. Although I wasn’t born in the 80s, the song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was a huge part of my childhood, so I watched that one (because I had never actually seen the music video).

I immediately decided I wanted to gif Cyndi bopping along the street dancing, because mood. And its just really iconic, and seems like something that would be meme-d if it came out in today. So as well as being an iconic 80s song, its also now an iconic reaction/personality gif! ur welcome.

The process for this assignment was pretty straightforward. Research some iconic 80’s music videos, watch some iconic 80’s music videos (I also considered Thriller, Walk this Way, and Take on Me). Once I decided on my video and gif segment, I logged onto Giphy & put in the link to the music video for Giphy to find. Once they found the video, I used two different sliders to format the gif, one to determine the length (2.7 seconds) and one to determine the start time.

Like I said earlier, I chose Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” because it is an iconic 80’s song, and a Little Bit nostalgic for me. Additionally, the segment of her walking along is just big vibes and I love it! Also, her style as she going along feels like an accurate, not Extreme-ized representation of 80’s fashion, which is Cool.

have fun out there! -liz

On my computer, I have a program I use to take screencaps called Gyazo. Gyazo also has a function where you can screengrab GIFs, and I had never tried it before. This assignment seemed like the perfect time to try it out.

Making the gif was pretty simple. I brought up a video on Youtube, clicked the Gyazo icon (shown below; to capture a GIF you need the one on the left), and captured six seconds of the video to make a GIF.

The video I chose was one of my favorite lip syncs from Ru Paul’s Drag Race, a show that has gained a foothold in pop culture and continues to rise in popularity. I’ve also enjoyed watching the show with my friends, and the lip sync between Alyssa Edwards and Tatiana is seriously amazing, so I wanted to capture one of my favorite moments in GIF form. This was the end result:

(If it’s not working, then just click the picture and it should take you to the GIF.)

Using Gyazo was an interesting way to true and make a GIF. However, although it was quick and easy, I didn’t really have control over what the end result looked like, or how many frames were used. I’m definitely planning to try out other ways to make GIFs this week.

Guidelines for this assignment can be found here.

Pop Culture .GIF – “Make an animated .gif of something pop-culture centric. This could be animating a celebrity, part of a music video, or a TV show/movie. It doesn’t even have to be from today… head back into the annals of history and pull out something that used to be pop culture back in its day.”

Tutorial:

1. Figure out what you want to make a GIF of
2. Find it on YouTube
3. Go to your favorite GIF maker (mine is https://makeagif.com/ )
4. Click on Create GIF and make a GIF from YouTube
5. Paste in URL from video you want
6. Move sliding bar where you want GIF to start and the second bar to how long you want the GIF
7. Click CREATE GIF and DONE! SAVE! Make sure it opens and moves on your website!

So I personally believe Miyazaki has created some of the most beautiful animation from this time. This film (Spirited Away) was probably one of my favorites that I just so happened to catch on Cartoon Network. I considered myself lucky to have randomly caught this one TV. What amazing themes about saving our world! What beautiful colors and animation! What creativity! And because of these reasons I have picked this hilarious scene from Spirited Away, where Chihiro falls down the steps and breaks out into a run just to smash into a wall. Brilliant work.

So you see this girl running. What is she running from, and to where? I’ll tell you a different version from what a few of you may be acquainted with. This is Chihiro, a homeless beggar girl from town. She just stole the clothes on her back and now she is on the run! Running for her life actually, because that is the price to be paid in her town. If only she had been more cautious. Behind her, at the top of the stairs, is an angry man with a loaded hunting rifle. Below her, at the end of the stairs, ends up being under construction. Her only hope to get away is to jump into the river and try to hide or swim away. Swim Away. A much better name for the story behind this GIF than Spirited Away. Here, there are no spirits. Only thieves and angry men with guns.  Much more realistic. You would be angry too if someone stole from you. But then again you would steal clothes for your back too if you had nothing to exchange them for. It’s all about placing yourself in the shoes of someone else. But in this story, I wouldn’t want to be in her soon-to-be-soggy shoes.

For this week, we could complete two gif assignments in place of our design assignments. This is the pop culture assignment that is two points.

Development:
I have had previous experience making gifs. I took the Intro to Digital Storytelling class that had module were
students had to create certain digital content on different media. During my groups project, we made multiple gifs. I mostly used websites to convert pictures and videos to gifs. Most website that are available for gif making have a website watermark that is placed in the bottom right hand corner. That can be annoying at times and make the gif less professional. In my search through website and the struggle I had with Gimp, I can across a website called makeagif.com. If you sign up for the website, it takes the watermark off of the gifs that you make. The gifs aren’t optimal quality but if you want to create something fast to get the point across, the website is a good option.

Background:

We were supposed to make a gif with pop culture elements in it. I choose the Shia LaBeouf meme. Rob Cantor created a song using Shia LaBeouf’s name because he thought that it sounded funny when whispered. The song got lots of praise and Rob Cantor made a video with Shia LeBeouf on October 21, 2014.

The choose on seen in the video were the most things are happening. Rob Cantor added an extra verse to his song and has a chorus and dancers that are all performing together. This is the part when most of the people are seen.

Side Note: Clicking on the picture of the gif brings you to the gif