Week 5: Visual Assignment #3
For my last visual assignment this week, I chose to GIF animate my day like Ben. I used my iPhone to capture videos that told the story of my day well, however I made the mistake of not reading the directions thoroughly. This assignment called for infinite loop GIF images, but luckily, I captured a few that would suffice as infinite loops. After creating GIF images for the The Wire in the first weeks of DS106, I became addicted to creating GIFs. Sometimes it’s an easy process, and other times it can be quite messy. I chose this assignment because I love making GIFs and thought it would be interesting to GIF animate my own content.
Creating the GIFs
Rather than animating everything I did in one day, I decided to capture several events prior to the start of the weekend. Starting Thursday, I captured videos of my morning meal, doing homework, playing with my dog, and Skyping with my niece Cassryn. I then downloaded these videos on my computer, then used MPEG Streamclip to trim and export the trimmed clips as image sequences. I opened each image sequence in GIMP and made sure to “Optimize them for GIF” before exporting each as a GIF animation. Below are the GIF animations of my day followed by a short description:
9:00 AM – Have I mentioned Fruity Pebbles are my favorite cereal ever? When I’m craving it for breakfast, I pour myself a hefty bowl of Fruity Pebbles to demolish before my 10:00 AM class. I rarely find tasty gluten-free cereals, but when I found out they started making Fruity Pebbles gluten-free, I nearly lost it. Eating this cereal with a little light almond milk is heaven in my mouth.
12:00 PM – Coffee for me is the elixir of life (because I feel like death right before I drink it). After my classes are over and I’ve picked up lunch, I brew myself a strong pot of Folgers and fill my mug up to the brim. A big cup o’ joe is always a good (and much needed) pre-homework pick-me-up!
5:00 PM – Before dinner my dad will FaceTime or Skype me so that I can see my niece Cassryn (who’s all the way in Mississippi). For an almost 2-year old, she’s the smartest cookie I’ve ever met! This little girl knows how to navigate an iPad or iPhone better than my mother. I love watching her grow up and learn new things. Whenever I say goodbye to her on Skype, she always gives me a “flying kiss.”
9:00 PM – On Thursday I participated in a live Wire106 Radio tweet session of Season 2 Episode 8… without sound! It was an interesting experience trying to figure out what the characters were saying and what was going on using only visuals. I enjoyed sharing ideas with other DS106ers, Jim Groom, and Paul Bond during this live tweet session.
Friday Afternoon – Apologies for the jump in time! This Friday I went home to Lorton for the day to see my family and attend my sister’s birthday dinner. I’m so excited I got to see my chunky chihuahua nugget! Even though he can be sassy at times, I absolutely adore him. Here he is shaking my hand.
Saturday Morning – The drive back to school is always both stressful and relaxing. The stressful part of it includes packing, loading my car, and dealing with traffic, but once that’s over and done and I’m driving at a steady speed, I crank up some tunes and enjoy the rest of the ride. It takes me about 40 minutes to get from Lorton to Fredericksburg, and I love watching all the scenery along the way.
