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Writer's pictureJiaxin [Lydia] Wang

GIFs: First Animated GIF Self-portrait

Updated: May 8, 2018


Since I have this idea (‘Edit My Face’ from 'last week blog') about my GIF self-portrait, I am raring to practice it as soon as possible. Here is the final product.



Step 1: Shooting


In order to shoot it at home by myself, I bought a Neewer monitor for my Canon 5D Mark II. After doing several individual project, I do recommend filmmaking beginners and vloggers to buy a camera with flip screen. Whilst the Neewer monitor is too heavy to let a small steadicam keep balance, it performs well with a tripod and its focus mode. This mode is fantastic for my nearsighted eyes. When my eyes turn red in the monitor, I can ensure my face is completely focused though I stand far away.



Neewer NW759 and Amazon light tripod

The original shot, as you can see below, is not blurred but a little bit shaky. It’ll be solved with Adobe Photoshop in the following steps.




Step 2: Screen Recording


To create the effect of removing my pimple, I applied one frame as a picture to the Adobe Photoshop to edit, capturing the process by Bandicam, a screenshot PC software.




Step 3: Composition


I then imported it into Adobe Premiere, masking out my eyes as a layer and putting another layer, my screen record below so that only my eyes and the Patch Tool are moving in the GIF.




Step 4: Aesthetic adjustments


I brightened up the whole GIF slightly and adjusted its saturation because when Adobe Photoshop is compressing the GIF, more detailed shadow will cause a worse skin quality of my face. I do wish my GIF do not need to be compressed while the file size of the GIF exported by Adobe Premiere is always up to 15 Mb. However, for mobile users, the waiting time will be so long so I have to keep the balance between the picture quality and the file size.


After due consideration, my final product is the one shown at the beginning.




Bibliography:


Bandicam - Screen Recording Software: capture PC screen, game or webcam (2018) Available at: https://www.bandicam.com/ (Accessed: 28 April 2018)


Vfxmaker (2016) NW759 - Monitor Neewer, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlQ6_i04QUI (Accessed: 28 April 2018)


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