Cinemagraphs - Making Pictures Stop Moving and then Doing the Opposite
Eight drafts to go, FLYING SPAGHETTI LORD PLEASE GIVE ME STRENGTH. I don't pray to you for nothing. Actually I don't pray to you at all, but we can pretend you exist and that you care.
In one of my last posts, I wrote a short tutorial on how to make a cinemagraph in Photoshop using the Timeline window. I'm sure you can find more detailed tutorials on YouTube, in fact I half-heartedly Googled it just now and there's like, five good-looking tutorials already, so use that. I've also discussed vanishing points, which were not featured in the final artwork but it was there, briefly.
Anyway, a surreal cinemagraph. And what better way to do so than to create a bizzare scene?
I tried to create a room opening up into the sky using Vanishing Point, but the composition just looked weird so I ditched it.
I also tried to incorporate this awesome UFO-looking-lamp into the clock, but screw that, it looked horrible. But you gotta try to make sure.
And then, since it's a cinemagraph, I wanted to use this animated Van Gogh's Starry Night video for the background. Here's the original video, by MrTsibi:
To insert a video like this into an already-existing image, drag the video into the window, already equipped with a Timeline panel. Then, go in with your Polygonal Lasso tools and Brushes to clean up the edges of the image, parts where you want the video to show through.
Now, I made this cinemagraph twice---the first time, I didn't crop the video at all, and it wouldn't save because the file was too big. The second time, I cropped the video in Final Cut Pro down to five seconds or something, but it still wouldn't save. So I guess you'd have to satisfy yourself with this non-gif:
This was the "before" shot, when the background was just a normal image and not a video:
Some process screenshots of me cleaning up the edges:
And my futile attempts at saving it:
Even though I had already submitted the .psd files to the lecturer, I'm still a bit upset. What makes it annoying is I don't know what went wrong---was it the RAM? That can't be because I tried saving it both in the school iMac and my own computer, both with pretty decent RAMs (I mean, I can open Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Preview, InDesign, and a few other windows without crashing). Was the file just too large? Even cropping the video back to five seconds and decreasing the file size still wouldn't allow it to work. Maybe it was the combination of video + high res images. So, that kinda stumped me, but oh well.
Also, you'd notice that the original video had audio in it---maybe that's what caused it to go haywire? Perhaps I could remove the audio in Final Cut Pro but I'm not sure how much that would help, and frankly, right now I'm sick of it and I've got better things to do. Regardless, this is potentially worth a try someday.
Overall, interesting experience (then again, I label everything as "interesting" so I don't know how relevant that comment is). If only to see the limits of Photoshop's saving skills. I really like the composition and the idea behind it, though looking back now some parts could be a little more clean-cut.
Th-th-th-th-th-that's all for now, f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-olks!