The theme selected for the animated gif project presented is “Changing Lives” and initially I will present an essay providing the meaning of the chosen theme as it relates to the reading presented in Reading 4, “Who am we?” (Turkle, S 1996). Secondly, I will detail why the theme has been presented in the shape, colour and form of the animated gif. The tasks undergone to perform and complete the assignment will be presented along with the length of time taken to complete the project and associated difficulties encountered. Ultimately, the extent of learning achieved through the process of completion of the web page and animated gif project will be presented, concluding with my assessment of the ability for this project to meet the criteria of being a useful learning exercise.
The animated gif “Changing Lives” represents the ever-changing lives of gender swapping in the average ‘man or woman on the street’ when meeting with a cyberspace community such as a chat room as discussed in Reading 4 pages 10 and 11. In the cyberspace community where gender swapping is accepted and not denigrated the shoes represent a transition between male and female characters. The average daily life images of shoes are transported to an animated gif with a transitional yellow and white stripe background. The audience has an opportunity to venture into the unknown from the mere self in the cyberspace world and this animated gif provides a simple representation of that transition without adding a complex sexual nature. The accepted images of shoes represent a conspicuous representation of male and female accepted visual images as can be seen in any number of modern magazines. Magazines such as ‘Vogue’ and ‘Womens Weekly’ highlight these representative images. The red stiletto shoes are representative of a female’s entry to a cyberspace chat room site and are followed by a moment of transition through each stage to heavily coloured black men’s shows, allowing that entrant to take on the secretive aura of another. This representation can be viewed as a sexual transition from female to male or vice versa.
The animation was presented using firm background imaging with the structured format of yellow and white lines. This representation was utilised to provide structure and format, similar to the daily lives of those who attend a chat room and provide the background layer. The image is broken into thirds rather than quarters allowing a more fervent and effective presentation of movement both left to right and right to left. The images of shoes were chosen due to their firm representational aspect as associated with daily living. Movement in the images was chosen to represent the cyberspace community and the anonymity that it provides to those who enter a chat room. The colours themselves are solid and bold evoking a feeling of reality rather than a dreamlike nature through the greater use of evocative prime colours crossing into contrasting black and white.
The tasks undertaken to complete the animated image were the creation of a document measuring 468 x 60 pixels in Adobe Photoshop 6.0 where a white background layer was fixed. A yellow swatch colour was chosen and applied to the layer with an airbrush, commencing with a thick yellow vertical line created on the screen. The ruler assisted in presenting crisp straight vertical lines over calculated areas decreasing by half the width of the line, in sections a third in size, on the background layer. This was duplicated over multiple layers and gradually decreased in size. The multi-layered document had all layers merged and was saved at a resolution of 70 so as to provide the background layer with a lower property size. This document was copied and the words “Changing Lives…..” added to the document in Gills Sans MT font style 30 pt in size with the dots lowering in point size.
Following this, five individual documents measuring 60 x 60 pixels were created with a transparent background. The airbrush tool was chosen to sketch an initial image for each shoe. A new layer was added and the polygon lasso tool chosen to form the shoe. The image had solid colours introduced to give form to each of the shoes and stroke line fixed to the image to enhance the image. Also some shadow was applied to the images.
Each one of the five photoshop documents has the layers fully merged along with the pixelation decreased to a resolution of 70 allowing smaller file sizes to then be imported to individual layers above the background layer and the layers named red shoes, red brown shoes, mid shoes, brown black shoes and black shoes. The entire document was saved and Adobe ImageReady 3.0 was opened and used to generate each of the layers in an animated form. Individual layers present the shoes at varying places across the screen right to left over the background layer, which is represented in a rigid left to right form. Following the introduction of initial framed areas, all frames were chosen and an image transition time of .25 seconds fixed. The middle set of shoes give the image of short sharp movements through the placement of those shoes at slightly different positions on each of the layers. In this way visual movement was achieved. The choice of the forever looping option ensures that movement is maintained throughout the animation. The project was than tested through the Internet Preview session of Internet Explorer and optimised as a gif file.
The written portion of the assignment was prepared in Microsoft Word as this program enabled efficient saving of changes associated with ideas and programming code for html documents. The entire of the document including all code detail was copied and saved in Notepad.
Preparation for this assignment was broken down into the allocation of different time periods for individual processes or tasks. The allocation of time was one hour for reading of Reading 4, 17 hours preparation time of multiple files in Adobe Photoshop, 8 hours preparation time for animated gif in Adobe ImageReady and insertion of individual files as layers in this program. Following this, 3 hours was allocated to coding and writing of assignment in Notepad. A period of 1 hour was allocated to setting up WS-FTP shareware, opening an area of document space for web page files through www.angelfire.com and completion of the upload. In all, a total of 30 hours was required to complete the assignment. This time does not include the period of contemplation associated with the choice of animation for the reading and how to relate it to the animated gif.
The difficulties experienced with the completion of this assignment were my acquiring of skills in Photoshop as my skills are very limited in this program. I also experienced difficulties with Adobe ImageReady as the intention was to provide a smoother transition between the layers. However, to do this meant that the file size became too large for the purpose of meeting the assignment’s file size properties. Generally, I am pleased with the skills that I have acquired. However, these skills can always achieve greater enhancement through continued training and development of visual recognition associated with cultural perspectives along with training.
In conclusion, this assignment provided an opportunity to learn new skills associated with all aspects of image preparation, file management properties and the use of computer shareware to complete the tasks allocated. This valuable experience certainly enhances the study process and overall learned techniques for the course itself. The simplistic nature in which I have presented this assignment is capable of receiving optimised image change and this can be associated with the varying requirements of any task.Bibliography
Adobe Photoshop 6.0, 2000, Classroom in a book, Adobe Systems Incorporated, California.
http:home.earthlink.net, 19 July 2003.
