The development of digital media is participating a general societal trend toward shallower, more fragmented, and less concentrated reading (Levy, 1997). As most people prefer using less time to get more information, the microblog substitutes the diary then texts and pictures are replaced with videos, and finally, GIF shortens the video becoming one of the popular formats for showing people’s lives.
Loop
The best part of the GIF is its loop. Infinite loops in the GIF like a magic making the dream of perpetual motion machine come true. In terms of this part, 'Micaël Reynaud', one of my favourite GIF artists, has explored a lot by using slit-scanning, time-lapse, and various forms of masking. Examples of Micaël’s work can be seen below. As you can see, the loop is the KING of the GIF. Regardless of some subtle imperfections, if the loop is smooth, it will still be a perfect GIF. To make a smooth loop, the movement between the last frame and the first one should be slight. The key part of the picture (eyes, nose and sunglasses…) must keep still or its location have to be fixed.
First Trial
My first GIF attempt is to make an advertisement for Ocean Studio exhibition. The loop is what I used to worry about because I have forgotten my posture in the first frame so the key part cannot be fixed in one direction. Fortunately, it is fixed by adjusting the rate of the GIF as the audience will ignore the shaky frames when image sequence is showing at a fast rate.
Cinemagraph
During the trial, I found the best way to avoid the slight shake in the GIF is to let part of the subject is perceived as a repeating motion with the stillness of the rest of the image. Keeping everything simple in the GIF. In an academic way, it is defined as a ‘cinemagraph’. The cinemagraph is an almost completely still GIF image in which, nonetheless, one or more animated details are present, repeating themselves indefinitely in a ‘subtle’, sometimes almost imperceptible, circular movement. (Chiarini, 2016)
After researching on the cinemagraph, artworks from 'Rebecca Mock' is my favourite. She is a freelance illustrator so all of her GIFs are comic style.
Concept Decision
Therefore, for my portfolio, I intend to emphasize my editing skill, and the GIF (shown below) made by 'Chris Phillips' has caught my eyes. It helps me spark an idea of ‘Edit My Face’. Since I have been bothered by the pimple for several years, it even has become a symbol of myself. Every time I need to edit my photo to remove my pimples. It is my unique experience so I think it will be a great way to show myself.
Bibliography:
Chiarini, A. (2016) The Multiplicity of the Loop: The Dialectics of Stillness and Movement in the Cinemagraph, Comunicazioni sociali, 38(1), pp.87-92.
Jobson, C. (2014) Award-Winning GIFs by Micaël Reynaud Warp Space and Time, Available at: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/06/award-winning-gifs-by-micael-reynaud-warp-space-and-time/ (Accessed: 26 April 2018)
Levy, D.M. (1997). I read the news today, oh boy: reading and attention in digital libraries. In Proceedings of the second ACM international conference on Digital libraries, (pp. 202-211), ACM.
Machine of the Ocean (2018) Available at: https://www.machineoftheocean.com/the-exhibition (Accessed: 26 April 2018)
Mock , R. (2018) Rebecca Mock Illustrates, Available at: http://rebeccamock.tumblr.com/ (Accessed: 26 April 2018)
Phillips, C. (2018) Crispe, Available at: http://www.crispe.net/info/ (Accessed: 26 April 2018)
Reynaud, M. (2018) Micaël Reynaud - Google+, Available at: https://plus.google.com/+micaelreynaud (Accessed: 26 April 2018)
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