The other day I was showing my bff some of the stuff I made with ps and while he was very enthusiastic about it, he also said something that made me think:
“Is this hard to do though? I have no idea how photoshop works, so I don’t know if this takes a lot of time and skills or if it’s something that anyone could do in five minutes.”
I snorted pretty hard at the “five minutes” part, cause I wish, but then it occurred to me that most people are probably like my best friend, and having no idea how we do what we do, take for granted our gifsets (which are indeed not made through witchcraft, though I’m convinced some of us must have sold their soul to the devil).
I’ll forever remember that one person that commented under a colour porn gifset of mine “wow, I didn’t remember this movie was so bright and colourful!”
… That’s cause it wasn’t. I made it that way. Everytime you see a gifset, someone made it that way.Bright, dark, very pink, very red (or in my case very cyan), very colourful.
And it’s not just a matter of choosing all the scenes to gif (and consequently capture all those screencaps, decide where to crop them, resize them and, only after that, beginning the adventure that is colouring).
There’s a huge difference in what a movie/video looks like before we get our hands on it and after, and I think that’s probably one of the things that people who don’t make gifs tend not to realize.
Let me show you!
This is a gif of a scene taken from Iron Man 2. The only thing I did was resize it to 500pixels. This is what the actual movie looks like:
this is the exact same scene after I coloured it and applied my sharpening settings:
Now what you may think is “you just made it bright!”
It took me 12 layers of careful adjustments to just make it bright (which is not all that I did, btw) while trying not to bring out pixels (impossible with a scene as dark as this one) while at the same time trying my best to keep it under the 2mb limit (over which you can’t upload your gif on tumblr or it won’t move), and trying not to whitewash Rhodey as I lighten everything else. Let me tell you, none of this is particularly easy. It’s not impossible, but it’s not something you learn in five minutes.
Here’s another example:
actual movie:
colour porn:
Now the point of this post is that I’m hoping that people will see and understand that there’s a lot of work and effort on our part to make these gifs, so that everyone can appreciate them. And yet we see that effort easily dismissed every day when our works are stolen and reposted and people have no qualms about rebloging them anyway, cause after all they’re just pretty pictures made with a computer, what’s the fuss.
It took me two years of almost daily practice to get where I’m at now (and I still have a lot to learn), and that kind of attitude hurts me as a person before it hurts me as a content maker.
Blocking reposters and spreading the word doesn’t help much if things like this keep happening and no one cares.
This website is mostly made of gifsets and graphics (that’s not to undermine the importance of art and fics, I’m just saying that you see more gifs and graphics and photos than those other kind of wonderful content) and it would be a dream come true to see a bit more respect and appreciation for our category.
Leave nice tags under someone’s gifset you really really liked. Tell them how much you loved how they used that particular song/quote on that particular character. How happy you are they’re making gifs about your favourite ship.
Encourage content makers, you’ll be rewarded with more content.
♛*stretches out on the couch* How I’ve missed answering questions for you darlings. Been nearly a month. Louis and I have been off the grid.
We’re back now, for the time being. He’s sitting beside me now rolling his eyes at your comment, but I’m defending you! His hair is absolutely – positively – amazingly beautiful, although not as gorgeous as mine, of course. Mine is more of an experience than a simple physical material.
You know, now that I’m reflecting on it, his hair looks most sexy when it’s wet, either damp from the misty rain we get in New Orleans, or when it’s made almost liquid in some secluded pool rigged with lighting under the surface. He likes to swim under water, and when his head rises above the surface, the way his hair sweeps forward around his neck… it’s almost as if it moves under his command, as part of his own personal brand of witchcraft. Very sexy when it’s sticking in vein-shapes to his flesh from bloodsweat… *flicks at his fang* Now you’ve got me drooling. How embarrassing…
*Adjusts position, wipes at his chin, composes himself* Of course he lets me brush his hair! Louis prefers a wide-toothed comb or finger-combing. He dislikes the chemical fragrances of your usual modern haircare products, but every so often I earn the reward of sharing a steaming hot bath in which I am permitted to lather his hair up with organic shampoo and conditioner. Lately, he prefers these almond or mint scented.
I tend not to brush my hair often, as it separates the twists, but I do love to have it pulled when we are engaged in that special kind of heated debate… And fortunately for me, he loves to pull it.
To make this better, gonna take this as an excuse to bump some fanart, here are a few artists who draw LOTR and/or the Hobbit you should check out (in no particular order):
#yay!#I bet Louis loved Silmarillion most of all!#well in my head he did anyway#and I think Armand would be a fan of Melkor#as would Lestat if he bothered to read#feels#Lord of the Rings#J. R. R. Tolkien#Interview with the Vampire
@benevolentlyevil:
#awh#vampires#vc#armand#louis#lestat#armand and louis are my boys#…..#louis probably reads silm#he then got armand to read silm and oh my#GUESS WHO ARE FEANORIANS FANS#louis probs loves feanor#but not as much as he loves maedhros#louis likes the noble tragic ones right?#do you think louis and armand argues about elves?#like#elves are immortals but doesn’t drink blood and bound to arda until the end#louis probs also feel v empathetic with the whole world weary elves shebang#then he had a sad for months#good lord imagine louis reading silm#throw me your headcanons
^louis probs also feel v empathetic with the whole world weary elves shebang#then he had a sad for months
Louis knows the LOTR trilogy by heart and he’s read all the books. He likes to try to sneak quotes in when possible:
The whole coven agrees that they’re all beautiful films, they’re modern classics in a way. The LOTR movies are watched more often at coven gatherings than the Hobbit movies, but more because of the story and characters than the cinematography Louis has a not-so-secret crush on Aragorn that everyone likes to tease him about!
Louis knows all kinds of obscure trivia, and has debates about them with Armand, who has also read them all. Lestat, feeling left out of these discussions, tried to read the books and fell asleep repeatedly. He mispronounced the names of characters and places a few times and refuses to try to read them again for fear of further ridicule.
Armand is very into the hobbits themselves as creatures and has gone to New Zealand with Daniel more than once to check out Hobbiton.
This post feels like someone out of the blue bought me something I’d wanted for a long time but had no money for.
#two of my favorite things#this makes me feel so sentimental#like I’m choked up#the vampire chronicles#the lord of the rings
Part I: The Coven Master, owner of the Théâtre des Vampires (1700s)
“[…]I saw a small figure appear. Compact it was, the figure of a young boy, not a man. […] And the creature was not human. […] His face was shining white, and perfect, the countenance of a god it seemed, a Cupid out of Caravaggio, seductive yet ethereal, with auburn hair and dark brown eyes.”
