Here they come!

Twilight Twilight Zone

This is my first and second animated GIF. It’s just a beginning…

This gif is taken from a scene in The Twilight Zone “The Invaders” where Agnes Moorehead discovers someone or something coming down the ramp from the flying saucer on her roof. I wanted to bring out the anticipation and make a hook for the viewer to want more. The final layer is actually the final frame of this scene, and we don’t actually see the occupant of the spacecraft.

After initial difficulties downloading the episode from the UMW Media Library, I worked directly from my file. I think I could have just worked from the online video. Using MPEG Streamclip Beta, as recommended by Jim Groom’s tutorial, I selected the section of the video I wanted. Then, using Gimp, I created the layers from just six of the frames. The final layer is enhanced with a color flash effect that I put in using the Filters tab, I think it was Light and Shadow and Gradient Flare. I tweaked the settings to get what looked nice. I was also playing around with a few of the other Filters selections and see that there is quite a lot that can be done, both subtle and gross effects.

Once the animation was put together, in the process of exporting it, I selected 900 milliseconds between layers. The default of 100 ms was just too fast. This slower rate was actually closer to the original video, since I had eliminated several frames between each one I used. I think it is effective in building tension, without being too slow.

Anyway, it was quite a learning experience, taking a bit of time. But now I have some concept of what to do, and I can move on from here.