Section2RulesBootcamp – Assignment Bank

GIF created by the one and only!!!

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When I saw that we had to create a GIF I had to find out what exactly a GIF was.

Being the inquisitive person that I am I had to research and find out what it was before I could figure out how to create one. From doing my research I found out that GIF stands for graphics interchange format. I know I know this does not mean too much without a definition if you are new to digital world (trust me I am right there with you!) In simple terms it’s an animated image.

I would have to say when I was presented with this assignment I put it on the back burner because I figured it would require too much of my time. Lately I have not even found enough time to get more than 3 hours of sleep so I knew that in order for me to figure out how to create one and to enjoy this assignment I had to do it when I had nothing else scheduled and I am proud to present to you a GIF created by me from a scene from my favorite movie. (if you have not figured it out it’s the Temptations!!!!)

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Woman In Black

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The Woman in Black, the 2012 version not the 1980′s one, was probably the worst movie I have ever seen. I shouldn’t have expected anything else with the horrible commercials advertising it, though I couldn’t find the video of the one I always saw (the audience reaction one which was basically just short clips from the movie that told you nothing and long scenes of people screaming in a movie theater and interview of them saying how scary it was) though the trailers I could find actually made it seem like a really good and scary movie. The scares were tacky and cheap, mostly going for more of a startle than an actual scare. The .gif above was inspired by these cheap scares which is basically the only scare they ever tried, the woman screaming at Harry Po-… I mean Arthur who was the main character. The story was under developed or at least not very well portrayed in this rendition, I haven’t seen the original so I can’t say that the story was bad in the 80′s version.The gif was actually quite an intimidating task for me, luckily my ever so handy boyfriend blogs all the time and makes gifs so he showed me how to do it. I think it captures the essence of the movie quite well. I think this movie could be a really creepy thing if it were actually happening to me but it was not a horror movie at all.

*This received my vote for Crazies post of the Semester so far on the fact that it was so frustrating to complete that I felt so accomplished after it was finally embedding correctly*

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Mean girls make GIFs…

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Voila! This is my GIF from the lovely movie “Mean Girls”. It is when Regina George gets hit by the bus. I choose this movie because it is honestly one of those movies that you can just quote and everyone would know where that quote came from (“You go, Glen Coco!”) I choose this scene specifically because the first time you watch it, it shocks you. To get this scene I went to Youtube and searched “Mean Girls”. I found a clip labeled “The Best of Regina George” and knew this would be in there. I downloaded it using MPEG Streamclip, as the tutorial on the DS106 page says to do, and clipped it using “select in” and “select out”. Then I saved it and took it to GIMP to edit it (I actually added a motion blur to this GIF). Honestly, the toughest part was downloading the software and figuring out how to make it “move” in my blog! For the I googled how to embed images in WordPress blogs and found the answer (you have to keep it full sized). And there it is!

Link to clip:

Link to tutorial:

http://ds106.us/wiki/index.php?title=Creating_Animated_GIFs_with_MPEG_Streamclip_and_GIMP

Link to WordPress on how to embed GIFs:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/

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DumbleDead

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Scene: Dumbledore falling after Snape Kills him.
Movie: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

First off, I’d like to thank Jim Groom for his awesome tutorial which made the process of making a GIF go ever so smoothly. It was step-by-step with screenshots and links to all the cool software(Fastest Youtube Downloader, MPEG Streamclip, GIMP) to use. I would recommend everyone to check it out, whether you’re in DS106 or just making GIFs for fun!

As for my clip, not only is this one of my favorite movies, but it is from my favorite SERIES of movies. Harry Potter has been a part of my life since 1999 when The Prisoner of Azkaban book was released. As a young kid, I was drawn to the cool looking covers on J.K. Rowling’s novels and decided I should read the first book of the series, The Sorcerer’s Stone, before starting the third book! Well, who knew that 13 years later I would have read all 7 books in the series and watched the 8 movies hundreds of times? If you’re reading this, chances are, you are a part of the generation that has grown up with Harry Potter. If you haven’t read or seen the movies(like my parents), go ask a friend or go to your local library and check them out!

A short summary of the clip: Dumbledore is the Headmaster at Hogwarts(Principal of a magical school) and is the only thing standing in the way of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters (the antagonist in the series and his followers) from killing off all non-magical beings in the World. Voldemort is weak(literally and figuratively) and assigns one of his followers, Draco Malfoy, to kill Dumbledore. When he chickens out, Professor Snape follows through with Voldemort’s orders and kills Dumbledore.

You’ll notice, I didn’t mention Harry Potter once in that summary. Want to know why the series has his name in the title? Go find out for yourself like I did! It will hopefully take you on an exciting adventure and encourage you to read/watch the whole series over and over again!

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WTF is a GIF? Annie wants to show you!

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I had no clue what a GIF was before this assignment. At first I found this assignment extremely intimidating, but once reading Jim Groom’s tutorial on how to make a GIF a few times I felt like I was ready to give it a try. The first thing I did was download all the software I needed. I used YTD video downloader to download the clip from youtube. Then I used MPEG Streamclip to trim down the clip and provide a sequence of images. Finally I used GIMP to create my GIF by layering all of the images together.

“I’m not drunk!’

This week’s digital storytelling assignment was to create a GIF from our favorite movie. At the moment, my favorite movie is Bridesmaids. The GIF above is the scene where Annie gets pulled over and does a little dance for the cop to prove she is not drunk. I thought it was kind of funny that instead of just doing his sobriety test she choose to dance for him and it actually worked.

The process of creating GIFs is pretty easy once you get the hang of it especially when you have a handy dandy tutorial to help you out along the way. After I made one I went straight back to make more!

Like this one!

“I’m ready to party!”

This is the scene on the airplane on the way to Las Vegas. The evil Helen gives scared to death of flying, Annie an “anxiety pill” that gives Annie a ton of energy and she obnoxiously announces that she is ready to party. Annie outburst gets them kicked off the plane.

Annie is ready to party and now that I have made my GIFs, so am I!!

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LLAMA FACE

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Our assignment this week was to create an animated gif image that showcased part of a favorite (or least favorite) movie. If this works, I’m going to build MYSELF a summer home on top of an ancient Peruvian village.

HOLY LLAMA FACE BATMAN, IT LIVES! IT LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!

And now I know how to make animated gifs. Aahaha. AAHAHAHA. AHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!

Beware, ds106. You have unleashed a monster.

I chose this particular scene from “The Emperor’s New Groove” because it perfectly sums up Kuzco’s character–self-absorbed, a little bit ridiculous and convinced he’s the coolest thing out there. Doot-doot-doodle-doodle-doot-doot-doo-doo, KUZCOTOPIA!

Below the gif I wanted to make originally. I used Jim Groom’s excellent gif-making tutorial for both of these. I had to cut this one down a bit because, for whatever reason, MPEG Streamclip gets all ornery if you try to export a clip that pushes the 1MG mark, at least on my laptop. Laaaaame. Still, I managed to create this wonderful gif from the iconic movie “The Iron Giant.” Meet Dean McCoppin, sexiest and most long-suffering animated character of the late 90′s:

Again, it sums up his character pretty nicely. Chill, down-to-earth, and completely unprepared for the barrage of insanity that’s about to overtake his life. If you grew up in the 90′s didn’t see “The Iron Giant” as a kid you had a deprived childhood. Deprived! Do yourself a favor and go see it. Just make sure you bring tissues for the last part of the film–it’s one of those “Oh God, where did these FEELINGS come from?!” movies.

This assignment was both more difficult and significantly easier than I’d at first assumed. The process itself was way simpler than I thought it would be, but again, I had some serious technical difficulties. Like I said earlier, MPEGStreamClip decided to get annoying on me and crashed a couple of times, and then outright refused to export the entire set of images I needed for the whole gif I wanted to create. I did really enjoy the fiddly bits though–finding the perfect moments to start and stop my gif, getting the timing right, fixing the size of the first one in GIMP. Those little details are things I could spend hours on–and did, actually! But it’s incredibly frustrating when the tools you’re working with aren’t reliable, which is proving to be the biggest issue with my ds106 work so far.

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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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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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Handy Set of Guns

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Nicolas Winding Refn’s avant garde movie Bronson is a semi-biographical account of Britain’s self proclaimed “most violent inmate.” This movie was a real step forward in the now renown movie star Tom Hardy (Bane). The flick has TONS of fighting, mumbling British accents, and great ’80s music. The gif below is a loop of Bronson showing of his “skills” that made him famous, something that he very much desired.

To make this gif I had to download two different–but free–types of software. MPEG Streamclip to download youtube videos (its important to get the beta version) and GIMP to compress all the image sequences. There is also a VERY help full video, that walks you through step by step. Here it is:

Hope this helps