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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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Lydia got an A, so I made a Gif

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.

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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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

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My First GIF!

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The Avengers! If you haven’t seen this movie, it’s amazing. I loved it and laughed so hard when I saw this scene.

So, we were given this assignment. I’ve never created a .gif before and had to do a little bit of digging before I finally figured out how to make one. I don’t have photoshop, so I had to resort to a website called MakeAGIF which is actually REALLY handy. I hope that we are aloud to use this site to create our work? I had the video file that I wanted, and I took screenshots with VLC and then uploaded them and then it created this gif!

I really enjoy this particular clip because it is funny but at the same time makes me think of how I felt when I was first told to create an animated gif. My brain felt like Loki’s body at first. These sorts of things are a bit daunting to me when I have to do some research and figure out how to do something that I’ve never done before and then create it. I’m really glad that I got it done though because I thought it was a fun process! I’m sure I’ll find an easier and more efficient way to produce a gif as the semester progresses.

So far, every assignment that I have done for this course has been one that I enjoyed in the end. I can definitely see though how people say that it takes time and to not procrastinate. I’m trying to get everything done as early as I can so I can go back and edit it later on in the week if I need to before I actually submit the assignment.