Final Evaluation: Zoetrope - sin city

After amending my zoetrope original idea slightly I have finally finished and saved it as a GIF file for viewing online.

The original background image I wanted was that of an advertising board but when I went to shoot it it had gone unfortunately. Undeterred I found a new backdrop - that of a black metal shed at the side of the canal near to where I live. I decided instead to use this as my background for the GIF and and my plan (using Photoshop) was to have the black metal doors open up the reveal the animated GIF inside.
For the image inside I found myself becoming more adventurous and used a toy figure from the film sin city of the character 'Gail' played by Rosario Dawson (fig1). I thought this would look much better that using someone in a skull mask to represent the painting by Edvard Munch's the scream. I have still taken inspiration from the PEN advertisement though by using a public space and then placing the animated images into in order to give it a base and background to work in.

(Fig 1 image courtesy of http://img2-1.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/100505/Rosario-Dawson-Sin-City_400.jpg)

The digital zoetrope was quite an undertaking as not only did I have to edit each movement of the Gail figure I also had to then place the figure into the background picture.





Fig 2 shows the background image I will be using for the zoetrope

Fig 2

Fig 3










Fig 3 shows one of the images I took of the figure. I took each shot on a plain white background and moved the figure slightly each time in order to give the illusion of movement when put together to form a GIF file.

Below is the finished GIF after saving it for web & devices in Photoshop.
I changed the resolution to 72 dpi from 300 so the images moved along faster creating the persistence of vision. Being a GIF it did not need all those colours as it would be viewed on a monitor and not printed out.
All together there are 36 images all layered on top of each other in order to create the GIF you see below.