GIF
Brief: Create 6 gifs based on the following subjects:
- Personal hero/idol
- Favourite piece of architecture
- Favourite book
- Favourite travel destination
- Favourite song
- What makes me angry
A gif is a graphic image on a web page that moves. For example, a twirling icon or a banner with a hand that waves or letters that magically get larger. In particular, an animated GIF is a file in the Graphics Interchange Format that contains within the single file a set of images that are presented in a specified order. An animated GIF can loop endlessly or it can present one or a few sequences and then stop the animation. It is commonly used for advertisement, and alternatively people create there own to use on social media platforms.
I began my project by listing out subjects based on the themes above that I would base my gifs upon. After much debate I came to the conclusion of the following:
1. Personal hero/idol: Pharrell Williams.
2. Favourite piece of architecture: Sydney Opera House.
3. Favourite book: The Wooden Horse.
4. Favourite travel destination: America.
5. Favourite song: Inner City Blues.
6. What make me angry: War.
Before I started making my gifs, I wanted to establish a format and style that I could base all six gifs around. This would in turn create continuity between the six different gifs, but ultimately display the gifs as a unit, suggesting a polished and finalised look to the gifs. For this I looked at the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, his pure expressive imprint on the page, and his colourful use of line accompanied by child like mark making, in turn produces a visually exciting and emotional pieces of work. Its that raw emotion and and visual excitement that I wanted to include into my gifs, to attract and draw in the viewers attention. In addition Basquiats traditional oil pastel lines interested me in terms of mixing it with animation and digital techniques, to combine modern and traditional methods was a feature to be explored and experimented with. In addition to Basquiat I wanted to incorporate elements of collage into the gifs, so I looked at the works of Kenny Scharf, who's raw and powerful collages display similar emotions and characteristics to Basquiats paintings, and his use of mixing mediums was an interesting aspect to gain inspiration from.
Since I hadn't created a gif before, it took me a while to understand the techniques and process's, yet after reading and watching tutorials I gained enough information to begin making my gifs. I started by drawing out the backgrounds for each gif, inspired by Basquiat I used oil pastels to highlight the subjects, plus personal thoughts, messages and beliefs I had on themes and subjects. After drawing out each background I scanned them into Photoshop edited the contrast and saturation just to uplift the images slightly, and present them with more depth and brightness, which in turn reinforces the visual interest and excitement to the gifs. I then sourced images for each different theme, and cut them out using the cut tool and placed them on top of my drawn backgrounds. From there I began to animate both the collage and background until I was happy with the feel and look of the gif, and ultimately that it highlighted visual exciting and displayed raw emotions similar to Basquiat and Scharf.
Overall I am very happy with the final gifs. They display the intensity and raw emotions and characteristics that I wanted to capture. I really like the child like imagery that has fallen from the expressive use of oil pastels, which were inspired by Basquiat. To add that the combination of digital found imagery and traditional drawn elements, produces a visual balance of modern and old, but also reinforces the interest and excitement to the gifs. If theres one thing I would change, I would slow down the animations slightly just so the viewer captures the understanding behind each piece a little better. Ultimately the gifs are a vibrant, colourful and bold collection of work that highlight some of my personal thoughts, beliefs and interests.
