Anything But TV Challenge....

[catko]

...so I picked music! Three of my favorite songs/performers. The challenge at universe_the was to spend three hours. My personal challenge was to learn how to do those tumblr-style graphics with a gif embedded in a background. Also with lyrics. Interesting experiment. Kinda fun, actually.

Not sure the gifs were the most effective; hard to find appropriate clips, and I had trouble with the text layers, obviously.

But anyway...Bruce Springsteen is probably my favorite performer of all time, in that I found him at a most impressionable time in my life, and this line from Badlands--that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive--is so meaningful to me in our guilty, scared, judgmental society. It's true, people!



Prince is a genius, and I really wanted to keep with the "glad you're alive" theme and do Let's Go Crazy, but I couldn't find a good clip, and I didn't want to pretend that the Little Red Corvette clip below was anything besides what it is, one of the best performances in any video, ever.


Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) is actually my most favorite song, and that's saying a lot. It's lovely; look it up. Exactly my idea of romance....


Time Spent:
Selecting songs and finding videos: 30 minutes
Researching how to do the layout in photoshop: 30 minutes
Downloading videos and making screencaps: 30 minutes x 3 = 90 minutes
Making gif #1, coloring and inserting background, adding lyric layer: 45 minutes
Making gif #2, coloring and inserting background, adding lyric layer: 30 minutes
Making gif #3, coloring and inserting background, adding lyric layer: 30 minutes
TOTAL: 4 hours, 15 minutes

Comments

[facethestrange]

These are really cool, and I love the first quote!

I also use these timed challenges to learn new things, this time I learned to do tumblr gifsets. The type graphics you made still remains a mystery to me, but I want to learn to make them too. :D

[catko]

Oooh, tumblr gifsets, someday.

These are easier than they look, and contrary to a lot of the complicated tutorials I found. Make your gif, size it to what you want, change the canvas size to the total size you want, put your background layer as the very bottom layer, be sure it's turned on to "show all layers" (or something like that, mine just worked automatically). Make the type layer right above the background, then if you want the type on top of the gif, either duplicate it and move it up to the top, or just move it to the top. Hope this makes sense! I had some probs with the type layers, I think I moved it around afterwards and it...well, I can't explain it, but it happens.... Thanks for the comment!

[dance-thrulife.livejournal.com]

Wow, these are absolutely awesome. I've never been able to make one, and am impressed with the time you put in! Also major major love for the Bruce one. I LOVE HIM!

[catko]

Heh, thanks, and see above for my description of how easy it actually is. I know, Bruuuuuce.

[dance-thrulife.livejournal.com]

I'm still a pretty big novice at photoshop so the stuff makes me all antsy, lol.

I'm going to see him later this month and I'm soooo excited!

[edgyauthor.livejournal.com]

These gifs are amazing! I especially love the look of the third one. Gifs this complicated always take me hours to make, so the fact that it took you four hours to do not just one, but three, majorly impresses me!

[catko]

Well, thanks. I think it would take more time to perfect them, but I just didn't. It was fun to try them out, anyway.