If we don't, remember me.

November 6, 2010 7:18 PM

Moments from classic films, in animated GIF form.
posted by zamboni (67 comments total)

Wow. The Charade and Once Upon a Time in the West are particularly impressive.
posted by Marty Marx at 7:28 PM on November 6, 2010

A little "Fargo"-heavy, but great.
posted by ColdChef at 7:29 PM on November 6, 2010

These are fucking awesome. Thank you, good sir or lady.
posted by smoke at 7:29 PM on November 6, 2010

Some of them have an almost 3-D quality.
posted by drezdn at 7:30 PM on November 6, 2010

A breath of fresh air compared to the extremely poor quality gifs that are so prevalent these days.
posted by Lorin at 7:38 PM on November 6, 2010

This one from The Shining is hilarious. They're all pretty fun though. Thanks!
posted by good in a vacuum at 7:41 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yes! I came across a couple of the Shining ones on ffffound, and I'm so glad that you've illuminated the source. These are so good.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 7:44 PM on November 6, 2010

I prefer the pacing of Three Frames.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:45 PM on November 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

I really, really like the ones that are still, and then come ever-so-slightly alive.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 7:50 PM on November 6, 2010 [7 favorites]

I enjoy this. Along with Gawker's recent posting of various GIF memes, I now have a repository of short clips that I'll never, ever have a use for!

bless the internet
posted by Askiba at 7:53 PM on November 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

i saw the shining ones, was looking for more, so i could post it to metafilter :)

Good job.
posted by empath at 7:55 PM on November 6, 2010

I was just going to say it reminded me of Three Frames, but more favorably.

I got more of the 3D/VariVu vibe from Three Frames.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:03 PM on November 6, 2010

It's even better with music on.
posted by parmanparman at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2010

Yipes! Thanks.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2010

I've been seeing a bunch of these gifs around lately. I'm glad someone's pointed out the source.
posted by immlass at 8:11 PM on November 6, 2010

Okay, maybe I'm being way to touchy here, but normally when you make an animated gif you just make every frame in the video a frame in the

take this example (from Jezbel's Comprehensive gif glossary)

Now look at the background. It doesn't move very much, but you can see the pixels moving around as the dithering pattern changes in each frame.

Now on the other hand, take a close look at some of the gifs on this page. this one The pixels in the background are frozen. In fact, the entire image is frozen exept for the eyes. In this one everything but the finger and the leg are frozen. Or in this one or this one where everything except finger, TV and steam are frozen.

I first noticed it in the Dr. Strangelove gif, where only Dr. Strangelove moves. But actually all the gifs are like that. Only a few parts are actually animated, and the rest is static.

I'm sure it cuts down on the size of the gif, but it drives me nuts. I hope this compression method doesn't catch on. It absolutely sucks.

And because of that I hate this blog and I hope it dies in a fire.
posted by delmoi at 8:22 PM on November 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

I kind of like the effect in this one, though. I'll admit it's a bit janky in the others, but otherwise I think this is just for the effect of it.

No need for fire dying. Yet.
posted by Askiba at 8:27 PM on November 6, 2010

Jeez, delmoi, that's exactly what makes them brilliant in my opinion. Seriously. These are like what the Harry Potter world photos should have looked like - they're pictures, with just that little eerie bit of life in them.

Fantastic!
posted by Michael Roberts at 8:34 PM on November 6, 2010 [40 favorites]

2nding Michael Roberts. The minimalism of the animation is what makes these so much better than the hyperactive forum profile pics everywhere. Delmoi, you crazy.
posted by benzenedream at 8:39 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Nevver's pictures don't move, but we get a song that goes along for each one.
posted by squalor at 8:46 PM on November 6, 2010

I going to meet you halfway on this one, delmoi. I definitely agree that on some of them, this "technique" is a little jarring, and not in a good way. But in many of the others it's really quite a nice effect.
posted by jnrussell at 8:48 PM on November 6, 2010

OK. The one that angered me the most was the one of Jake and Elroy in the elevator. The whole... freaking... point... of that scene was their patient stoicism. To so profoundly not get that... man, this guy really hates movies.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:53 PM on November 6, 2010

The Royal Tenenbaums is a classic movie?
posted by octothorpe at 8:54 PM on November 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

You know when people ask what they should do with those digital picture frames?
This. Loop each GIF about 3 times, then stitch a bunch of these loops end-to-end as some sort of playable .mov file or something, and let your digital frame play that.
posted by blueberry at 8:56 PM on November 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

It would take quite a few minutes in photoshop/fireworks to do that effect, but it makes the motion stand out more, and it makes the gifs loop nearly seamlessly. I like it.
posted by kzin602 at 8:57 PM on November 6, 2010

The creepiness of the close-up ones is a little inescapable. It works with Jack Torrance. It doesn't work with Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot.
posted by blucevalo at 9:01 PM on November 6, 2010

What delmoi points out is what makes these art. These are not simply cycling movie frames, these are remixes of moments.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 9:09 PM on November 6, 2010 [9 favorites]

Yeah, I'm almost completely sure it's a stylistic effect and not a "type of compression," delmoi.
posted by flatluigi at 9:10 PM on November 6, 2010

What a breathtaking beauty Monica Vitti was.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:13 PM on November 6, 2010

If folks are wondering about the title quote, I believe it's from Kiss Me Deadly. (apologies for the lousy sound in this clip.)
posted by zamboni at 9:34 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

There are apparently a lot of French movies I have never seen, or heard of.

Needs more "Fargo".
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:38 PM on November 6, 2010

In fact, wouldn't that scene where she's interrogating the two prostitutes and all three of them are bobbing their heads going "Ya? Oh, ya! Ya? Oh, ya!" make a GREAT animated gif?
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:48 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

This one from Se7en was particularly effective.
posted by Ndwright at 9:50 PM on November 6, 2010

I liked these very much, but I agree, it would have been nicer to have a wider variety of movies. Thanks so much for making this post so I could see them.
posted by crunchland at 9:51 PM on November 6, 2010

The Royal Tenenbaums is a classic movie?

YES. (Dammit.)
posted by webmutant at 9:54 PM on November 6, 2010 [7 favorites]

Suddenly I am inspired to make animated GIF's.
Some of these are so simple but quite powerful
posted by quazichimp at 10:01 PM on November 6, 2010

Any excuse to see Anna Karina is a good one.
posted by Wolof at 10:05 PM on November 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

The Royal Tenenbaums is a classic movie?

No -- but you see, it will be.

In my state, films cannot apply for classic plates until 25 years from release.
posted by dhartung at 10:32 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

@delmoi, I think the effect you're describing: that only part of the image is animated, is intended and is exactly what make these GIFs unique and powerful. We've all seen isolation done with just the eyes (blinking for example), but this is something new to me. the artist seems to be very carefully isolating parts (backgrounds) of the clips with masking. Would love to know the software/workflow is.
posted by rmmcclay at 10:33 PM on November 6, 2010

Yup. Any Royal Tenenbaums animated gif that does not involve Gene Hackman being stabbed with a swiss army knife isn't worth the viewing.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:34 PM on November 6, 2010

loved these!

I hope this compression method doesn't catch on

I'm very certain that it's not a compression method - it's a stylistic choice - the person that made these was really careful to only cycle through frames in areas that they wanted movement - I think that the effect would have been ruined if you could see the film grain repeating in the still areas of the image.

It would take quite a few minutes in photoshop/fireworks I think that you'd actually need a compositing program - you need to be able to isolate, stabilize and edit the moving parts of the image.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 10:42 PM on November 6, 2010

Here's a bit longer one from Catception.
posted by blueberry at 11:23 PM on November 6, 2010

You've always been the caretaker made me look up Perhaps they need a good talking to.
posted by joost de vries at 11:29 PM on November 6, 2010

Sublime. The background lack of motion was a little unnerving - particularly with the closeups that are just people blinking - but I think it makes these better than just looped video. Particular segments of motion are selected, emphasized by the artist, to convey something important. Of course, the looping is exquisite, about as perfectly done as can be done.

Imagine the Mona Lisa blinking once in a while.
posted by Xoebe at 11:43 PM on November 6, 2010

I like that these are seemlessly looped, unlike a lot of gifs around the web.

I automatically start thinking about appropriate forum discussions to paste them into, perhaps to make some very nuanced point.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:47 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yeah, these are pretty great.
posted by maxwelton at 12:11 AM on November 7, 2010

Reminds me of Martin Arnold.
posted by phrontist at 12:15 AM on November 7, 2010

Theoretically speaking, all of the original films could have been done as animated gifs.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:14 AM on November 7, 2010

Yes, choosing which parts of the frame moves is what makes these ones far superior to the Three Frames site - the GIF artist has made a choice here. Sure, the Three Frames guy has made choices, too - but he's constrained by what happens in the whole frame.

Nice find, zamboni.
posted by crossoverman at 2:27 AM on November 7, 2010

My inner movie nerd was annoyed that the quotes and the shots appear to be from wildly different parts of the film
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:47 AM on November 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

(Well the Blues Brothers at least)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:48 AM on November 7, 2010

I'm inspired by this tumblr blog "If We Don't, Remember Me". I saw one of the GIFs a few days ago via fffound.

I worked with animated GIFs 15 years ago...pre-Flash, and even "Future Splash". Did a few stills with eyes moving, but this person took it a new level. Using movie footage. Keeping the movie aspect ratio. Very cool and fun!.

These GIFs are so interesting. Most are very simple loops. Like 24 frames or so. But the timing, scene selection and masking are obviously very well thought out. I really commend this artist...and am happy to have a new little hobby to play around with.

Here's a few I just made, and all pale in comparison to If We Don't, Remember Me creations, I'm not competing, just exploring the process...

I used VirtualDub and Photoshop CS3 to create these. VirtualDub to grab the clips and Photoshop to process the animations...

They Died With Their Boots On - 1941
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/582/boots1.gif

Fear is the Key - 1972
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/1593/fearisthekey1.gif

The Last Picture Show - 1971
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/9591/lastpicture1.gif

Mother Night - 1996
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/5482/mothernight1.gif

Are these any good?
posted by rmmcclay at 4:33 AM on November 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

Great find indeed. And yes, the static background is part of the greatness. Also, bonus points for not limiting the concept of "movies" to US box office hits.
posted by elgilito at 4:46 AM on November 7, 2010

My inner movie nerd was annoyed that the quotes and the shots appear to be from wildly different parts of the film

(Well the Blues Brothers at least)

Le Mépris, too.
posted by ersatz at 4:57 AM on November 7, 2010

These are cool.
My beanplate special with these are that the scenes that have been animated don't, generally, match-up with the quotes. Which is the "classic moment"? The quote? Or the visual?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:03 AM on November 7, 2010

By 2010 I fully expected animated GIFs, PowerPoint and the Ford Ranger to be gone.
posted by punkfloyd at 5:44 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I like these a lot. It reminds me of the old colour-cycling technique (previously) in that the artist has to select only a certain element of the image to be animated.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 6:26 AM on November 7, 2010

delmoi, what bugs me about your comment is not just that you've completely missed the point, it's your arrogant tone. I don't normally care about points being missed, but coupled with your certainty that this guy doesn't know what he's doing and you do, it seems to grate. These animated gifs aren't just animated gifs, they're art.
posted by The Discredited Ape at 6:28 AM on November 7, 2010 [5 favorites]

was going to try to make some, but got really frustrated trying to find a Mac dvd player that would allow frame advance and screen capture.
posted by TrialByMedia at 6:31 AM on November 7, 2010

Does VLC Player have frame advance?
posted by Joe Beese at 7:41 AM on November 7, 2010

i tried VLC. I didn't see any way to do it.
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:48 AM on November 7, 2010

I think as of VLC 1.0.0 you can pause the movie and hit E to advance a frame.

I'm amazed by how high quality these gifs look, compared to the usual super compressed clips of the latest funny thing off YouTube. The care that must have gone into them is impressive.
They remind me of something, but I'm not quite sure what. Theme park animatronics maybe?
posted by lucidium at 12:57 PM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Chiming in that I couldn't disagree with delmoi more. The execution of these is clearly deliberate, and in many cases exquisite.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:53 PM on November 7, 2010

lucidium - they remind me a lot of Robert Wilson's VOOM portraits (mefi post).
posted by benzenedream at 5:14 PM on November 7, 2010

Interesting. I find myself wondering how this would work with a cartoon - part of the dramatic tension of a lot of these pieces is that the image is "dead", that is, that it holds still enough for long enough that your brain stops reading it as "something that is not currently moving" and starts reading it as "a photograph" or "a drawing". This is something to be devoutly avoided in animation, of course, since the very name of the craft is about the act of providing the illusion of life to inanimate drawings*. A tiny motion every 1.5 seconds can keep a drawing alive; usually the simplest thing to do is a blink. But these pieces, when they go perfectly still, tend to hold it long enough for the image to die, right there on the screen. It's an uncanny feeling, when you catch it happening. And then it resurrects, because when the motion does happen it's a full, complex motion, with all the little subtleties of reality.

What this person is doing is kind of the same thing people like UPA did: they're heavily stylizing the motion. Doing this with cartoons created "limited animation", which, despite its reputation now as a tool for crapping out tons of footage at high speed***, was originally a tool of the Pretentious Artist. This is... limited reality, I suppose.

It's fascinating, and it tickles my brain, and I kinda want to approach this from the animator's side of things and do some loops that deliberately go quite completely dead before erupting into sensuously full animation, but arrgh I have this deadline at the end of the month that sure as hell doesn't leave me time to do any animation.

* or models, or 3D computer renderings, or collages, or sand paintings, or Lego minifigs, or whatever other crazy stuff you feel like painstakingly stitching together ten or so frames** a second of into a film/video sequence.
** in my experience 10fps is the bare minimum for the brain to stitch things together into "motion" rather than "a series of still images" but this threshold does seem to vary for different people.
*** as refined by Hanna-Barbera and Filmation in the 1970s in a bunch of hideous drek churned out largely by people who could barely draw.
posted by egypturnash at 9:25 PM on November 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

Also this makes me think of the similar tight focus on one little motion of Daniel Martinco's Khan. Especially the ones with just one motion run back and forth, like this slurp cycle from Pulp Fiction or this match-waving from Charade.
posted by egypturnash at 9:34 PM on November 7, 2010

Maru the cat is mesmerizing in this style of limited motion animation.
posted by KS at 5:48 AM on November 13, 2010