For my first Mash-Up/Remix assigment (ever!) I used the DS106 Remix Machine to generate a random remixed assignment. On my first go, I got an assignment (5 stars) that I was really interested in doing! The remixer wanted me to create an animated magazine cover, but introduce a character that was strange or unexpected (like your Uncle Bob!). In many of my posts/assignments I’ve raved about my niece, Cassryn Jane, who’s about to turn 2 years old this January (they grow up so fast!). However, I never mentioned that I also have a nephew, Gabriel Vincent or “Gavin”, that was born this past August. He’s getting to be a big boy!
Using a video of Cassryn putting stickers on her little brother, I created my magazine cover. First, I trimmed the video down to a good part using MPEG Streamclip, then exported the image sequence (at 10fps) to a folder. I then opened the image sequence, which consisted of 33 frames, onto GIMP as layers. To create the magazine text and add a barcode to mimic a real magazine cover, I created a new transparent layer and created all the text. I then merged the text onto a single layer which I duplicated 33 times for each frame. When all the frames were positioned correctly, I used the “Merge Down” tool to bind each text layer to a video frame. When this was finished I optimized the animation for GIF, exported the file as a GIF, and bam… I was done.
