2 min read

Adventures in GIF Land

I’ve been fascinated with the recent explosion of cinemagraphs (the new and improved animated GIFs), and goaded by this decided to try making my own. While they may not be worthy of the If We Don’t, Remember Me blog just yet, they were a lot of fun to make.

Photoshopping It

I was inspired by an article showing how you can make cinemagraphs using Photoshop (and later found another more streamlined one), so had a go with a few:

Tom Hiddleston dancing was a good start as the movement is easy to loop…

Tom Hiddleston dancing

Then, I experimented with more out there expressions….

John Lithgow

The seat scene in Manhattan:

New York bridge and seat in Manhattan

And then, finally, the balcony scene from Annie Hall

Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) and Alvie Singer (Woody Allen) on balcony

Final Cut

However, to try and get more nuanced interaction (I wanted to get both Alvie and Annie moving) I moved to Final Cut Pro and spliced up the layers.

Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) and Alvie Singer (Woody Allen) on balcony

Funnily enough, in some ways I actually prefer the one with only Annie moving (Alvie’s head nod is probably a bit fast).
Here’s one from when she first meets Alvie:

Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) nodding

[EDIT: I also couldn’t resist trying out some from the Doctor Who movie]

The 9th doctor (Paul McGann) as the Doctor
The 9th doctor (Paul McGann) as the Doctor

Just for Fun

That said, sometimes a good old animated GIF without any looping is more fun:

John Lithgow making a face
John Lithgow banging people's heads together