I’m just going to say it right now that creating a Gif was the hardest thing I did this week.  I did a lot of research on how to do this and downloaded a ton of different software to figure it out.  First thing I saw before I even started thinking about how to make my own gif was Martha’s twitter post about first UMW student (I believe the student’s name was Alex Spangler).  So I clicked on the link to the blog and read a little about how his made his gif.  I also found the tutorial on the DS106 website that I found very helpful: http://ds106.us/handbook/tools/creating-animated-gifs-open-source-software/  The software I downloaded that I actually used was Fastest Youtube downloader, and MPEG Streamclip.  What I found most difficult at first was figuring out how to download youtube videos.  That’s when I read about Fastest Youtube downloader on the tutorial site.  After that it was really easy for me to search for a youtube video to download.  After the video downloaded and I saved it I opened up the MPEG Streamclip.  I followed the directions on the tutorial to shorten the clip to the part I wanted.  I had trouble at first figuring out how to trim, and select in and out of the movie clip, but I finally got it.  I then followed the directions on the tutorial on changing it to other formats.  I changed the format to different screen shots and then I uploaded them to the website http://makeagif.com/ and then it created my gif for me.  It felt really good to me that I figured it out.

So after saying all about the process of how I made my gif and frustrations I had I’m now going to talk about why I chose it.  This scene is from the movie The Hunger Games.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/ In a short summary there are 12 districts that every year they offer up one boy and one girl from each district to fight to the death.  I won’t tell too much for those of you who have not seen the movie. I chose it because it was one of my favorite parts of the movie.  It is when Katniss is saluting district 11, and it is one of the main turning points in the movie that will start a rebellion in the future. I am very happy about how this gif turned out.