For this first project, the goal was to make a GIF that explores a habit. I chose to explore the habit of always checking a phone. My concept was to have a static character or head filled with empty space lift up his phone. As this character lifted the phone his body would fill with some sort of activity. I used stock images and after effects to create the action of the GIF, then transferred it over to Photoshop to export as a GIF file.

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This character begins the GIF as a blank black form, filled with emptiness. As he lift’s his phone to his view, his body becomes awash with a blue tinged rain. Perhaps he is lonely or sad. His phone screen glows with mist in his face. Then he brings his phone down in bitter disappointment. At least this is how I interpret my piece, other’s may get a different message. I guess I was a bit inspired by my habit of often checking my phone hoping for attention and there is nothing there. But maybe it’s a brief distraction from life as well, when one is feeling empty inside. I half considered filling his body with busy meaningless things, but I decided I like the simple nature of how it turned out instead. 

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On a technical level, this 96 frame gif was designed using After Effects. I figured out that running at 24 frames a second, I could get about 100 frames in 4 seconds. I used masks to cut out what I wanted of the image and make things barely resemble the original. I used rotation to make the arm move. I used a plugin called Saber to generate the light behind the characters black form to separate him from the background. I used the same plugin to make the misty glow of the phone. Then I used manipulated stock images luma masked over the characters original image to create the blue rainy effect. The rest was a simple matter of opacity manipulation. I was heavily inspired to use after effects after a project a few terms ago that had me exploring similar manipulations in the creation of a lyric video. I really enjoy making new environments and creations from heavy manipulation of both still and moving images