“The ds106zone Banner” by aforgrave, on Flickr
The font is called Ringbearer (free on dafont.com). An alternative you might like is called twylite-zone (free on fontspace.com). I used a screen capture of the star field from the opening of The Twilight Zone television program as the background, and fiddled with a combination of upper and lower case (you get caps regardless, but varying sizes) as well as layering some letters individually and scaling them based solely on what I thought looked good.
This is a square version, mimicking the original layout of The Twilight Zone title.
“TheDS106zone Badge” by aforgrave, on Flickr
I’m going to tag this for the Visual Assignment 169: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges Badge” assignment.
And, just because Flickr has decided to fiddle around with its aesthetic today and is taking some serious flak for not consulting with its long-standing users in advance, …
“TheFlickrWeirdZone” by aforgrave, on Flickr
Just not in so many words.
“You Best Clear Offa My Roof!” animated GIF, by aforgrave, The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episode 15, “The Intruders”
Some Thoughts:
One of the most fascinating aspects of these old teleplays is the significant number of episodes that are carried by a single character — and that character is typically isolated from the rest of the world by their experience. This probably makes it easier for us to identify with the character and therefore assume their emotions, which helps us to get the message of the film. But those notions of isolation, the other, the alien, these are pervasive in The Twilight Zone.
My copy of “The Twilight Zone Companion, 1982 edition.” circa 1982.
So far, I’ve watch the following:
There are some interesting notes in The Twilight Zone Companion about the lighting in this episode, and I must say that I did notice the lighting as I was watching — in part because the lanterns and the candles play an integral role in only revealing part of the set and thus adding to the suspense that comes from The Dark. It was almost like The Dark (the unknown) was yet another character. (The book talks about how the lighting crew had to change multiple lights up and down during each scene as Moorehead moved throughout the set carrying her candle — as she moved in and out of doorways they had to ensure that she remained lit for the camera. Interesting.)
So, yeah! Great to see the #ds106zone off and running. Time to do some design and camera stuff. And other stuff, too.
#4life.
The opening scenes of Mario Bava‘s 1966 film, “Kill, Baby, Kill” feature several cuts of some pallbearers making their way to the cemetery.
First, they work their way through the streets ….
“The Pallbearers in the Streets” animated GIF, by aforgrave from Mario Bava’s “Kill, Baby, Kill!”
Then around a building …
“The Pallbearers Around the Building” animated GIF by aforgrave, from Mario Bava’s “Kill, Baby, Kill!”
And from there, out of town, and backlit across the horizon, towards the cemetery.
This next is a GIF recreation of what is two shorter, cut sequences from the film. In the film we only see them carrying the coffin for perhaps the middle half of the frame. I figured we needed to see them carry the coffin the all the way across the full frame. You know, so we could watch them all the way from one side to the other.
“The Pallbearers” animatedGIF, by aforgrave from Mario Bava’s “Kill, Baby, Kill!” (600x 376, 256 colours, 38 frames, 323 KB)
Somehow, the shots evoked memories of Terry Gilliam‘s wonderful animations from his Monty Python days. Which, of course, thus suggested the introduction of an element of play.
Consider their movements through the town, as part of a Gilliam animation. If Gilliam were animating this, I think he would have had them moving faster …
“The Pallbearers in the Street – Gilliamzied” animated GIF, by aforgrave from Mario Bava’s “Kill, Baby, Kill!”
Yeah, maybe that’s a little fast for the opening shot. But you play with the timing in a GIF for effect. In this case, a wait of 5 seconds on the first frame, and then a wait of only 0.02 for each of the subsequent frames. In the first one above, there is a wait of one second on the first frame, and then 0.15 on each of the rest, which looks pretty natural.
The Pallbearers around the Building would have less of a wait on the first (empty) frame. That way, it can look like they look like they’re racing around and around.
“The Pallbearers Around the Building – Gilliamized” animated GIF by aforgrave, from Mario Bava’s “Kill, Baby, Kill!”
By the time the Gilliam’s Pallbearers reached the flats, I bet they would be making odd mouth noises and grumbling as they went.
“The Pallbearers” animatedGIF, by aforgrave from Mario Bava’s “Kill, Baby, Kill!” – but faster!
I’ve also got a Photoshop file where they reach the upward slanting tree branch about a third of the way across, and they start to climb up it. The vision of having them get off the route by going up, and then pausing, and then down the smaller descending tree branch is there, in my mind, but as yet incomplete as a GIF.
Then there was some digging when they got to the cemetery. But unfortunately, Gilliam inspiration did not strike for that.
“The Gravediggers” animated GIF, by aforgrave
Post post inspiration: Maybe they need to gradually dig downwards out of sight? (Post post post-Paul commenting: I’ve started on the Gravediggers digging down. The background will be the challenge as they move downwards and reveal the non-existent cemetery behind them. Clone brush standing by.)
And what happens after the Gravediggers’ scene? I’ll have to get back to you on that! Certainly, most of the film.
Too many GIFs, too little time. At some point, one has to call it quits and just post. There are Twilight Zone GIFs to finish. But the finishing some of these Bava GIFs was calling. I have at least two more from this opening scene. But posted, I have.
So @cogdog is on a train, and he posts a cinegram movie from out his window. I wonder if he saw everything that was captured on the camera? He didn’t mention Fred.
“Fred in the Desert” animatedGIF by aforgrave, 64 colours (533 KB)
The jump in the cinegram loop, together with the seemingly prehistoric colour palette of the desert came together to remind me of the visible looping in the old Hanna Barbera cartoons. The looping became obvious as we got older as kids, and was most hilarious whenever a character like Fred Flintstone or Snagglepuss or Wally Gator or Yogi Bear happened to be running and running and running.
I intentionally added the forward-and-backward movement to Fred’s running within the loop, as it seems to be what I remember from those good ol’ days. That, and the sound of bongo drums.
So Brian Bennett (@bennettscience) sought out what Star Pulse ranks as the best episode of all The Twilight Zone series, A Kind of Stopwatch and proceeded to select a great moment from the episode to use as the basis for a GIF.
And as I looked at it, and studied it, in my mind’s eye it suddenly appeared as a two-panel GIF, and the challenge to RIFF-a-GIF was suddenly upon me.
I know that MBS has done some eloquent multi-panel GIF work with coordinated inter-panel timings — but before today, I’d not yet really risen to that challenge. The closest I’d come, I think, was the instance when I took two consecutive camera shots from This Island Earth, and put them together to create a synchronous GIF. Did I ever post it? (Looks like I didn’t. Along with most of my other GIFs from that movie. There’s another project I have to finish.)
As I got into this one, the nuances became more and more important. Like limiting the movement of the chopper body. Like having the appearance of the passing of time while the chopper blades weren’t moving. And then having the appearance of the same passage of time while they were moving. So pacing and rhythm became important. And then the clouds were moving with the rotors, so I worked to sort them out. And then making it look like Patrick McNulty was having a manic kind of fun messing with time. When all was said and done, I was happy.
Therefore, I submit for your consideration:
“Drive the Chopper Pilot Nuts,” synchronized two-panel animated GIF, by aforgrave, from “A Kind of Stopwatch.”
I think this fits into the @cogdog‘s Animated GIF Assignment 859: Riff-a-GIF assignment as well as @iamTalkyTina‘s Animated GIF Assignment 920: From the Twilight Zone, and Beyond …“
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