WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:01.599 --> 00:00:06.730 GIFs were established as a free and sort of like usable part of the web. 00:00:06.730 --> 00:00:08.309 GIFS are great because its 00:00:08.309 --> 00:00:11.239 a low barrier entry, anyone can play around, and it's fun. 00:00:11.239 --> 00:00:14.369 The animated GIF for us was just a photograph that can move 00:00:14.369 --> 00:00:18.489 and existed forever. This is a photograph that is still alive and so we were 00:00:18.489 --> 00:00:25.489 already thinking beyond the limitations of the file name. 00:00:28.829 --> 00:00:29.689 An animated GIF is 00:00:29.689 --> 00:00:35.390 an image that's been encoded using the graphics interchange format, where it has 00:00:35.390 --> 00:00:41.030 multiple frames encoded into a single image file and a web browser or other piece of software 00:00:41.030 --> 00:00:45.930 will play those images back in animated sequence automatically. The original GIF 00:00:45.930 --> 00:00:49.900 specification came out in 1987. Early example of GIFs that 00:00:49.900 --> 00:00:55.839 you see are flames, like flames are very popular, and the waving american flag is all 00:00:55.839 --> 00:00:59.619 over the place. Most notoriously is the under construction GIF. 00:00:59.619 --> 00:01:04.049 But then by the time you get to like '95/ '96, you get the release of the Netscape browser and these web browsers 00:01:04.049 --> 00:01:04.939 that can 00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:10.079 automatically animate them and all of a sudden you see this new spike in popularity. 00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:14.720 But, following that, there's a sudden division between the web 1.0 of the 00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:18.000 seventies and eighties and nineties and then web 2.0 of like the two 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:18.499 thousands 00:01:18.499 --> 00:01:24.429 moving forward. So the idea of using GIFs becomes way less fashionable. But, around 00:01:24.429 --> 00:01:28.560 2007/2008 popularity is swinging back up. People then start to 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:31.999 realize that you can use gifs for tons of different things. Like now that we're in 2011/ 00:01:31.999 --> 00:01:35.569 2012, there's more GIFs online but you also have 00:01:35.569 --> 00:01:39.659 way more places to put them; things like reddit and tumblr, wordpress. Even like 00:01:39.659 --> 00:01:43.299 twitter to a certain degree. So you're seeing actually this like post modern GIFs. 00:01:43.299 --> 00:01:50.299 And the tools for GIF creation are becoming more widespread. 00:01:52.460 --> 00:01:54.150 GIFs can be anything 00:01:54.150 --> 00:01:57.659 but what unites the GIFs is that they're short and 00:01:57.659 --> 00:02:02.189 they are something that most tumblr users can create themselves. People are sharing 00:02:02.189 --> 00:02:07.680 more and I think tumblr definitely has a part of that. Humans really like repetition, we feel comfortable with it. 00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:09.779 And sometimes just, the longer you watch something, 00:02:09.779 --> 00:02:15.639 the funnier it gets or it'll actually change meanings. You have the glitch art, you have pixel art, 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:18.619 TV, movies, and you have stuff that you can't even 00:02:18.619 --> 00:02:23.029 really categorize. I think it's mostly young people driving the form, definitely, because 00:02:23.029 --> 00:02:26.359 it enhances their online persona. Just being able to make some of those, 00:02:26.359 --> 00:02:29.819 makes you so cool. It's uncharted territory right now and 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:33.139 I think really anything has the possibility, the potential to be an art form 00:02:33.139 --> 00:02:35.519 but certainly, around animated GIFs, we've seen a 00:02:35.519 --> 00:02:38.909 transformation. We've seen them go from just people 00:02:38.909 --> 00:02:42.209 taking tv shows. We've seen people making original stuff with them. 00:02:42.209 --> 00:02:47.479 Mashups between videogames and movie characters and even tumblr memes. I think 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:49.059 there's other new 00:02:49.059 --> 00:02:51.029 art forms waiting to be discovered in there 00:02:51.029 --> 00:02:54.709 that we just haven't figured out yet. 00:02:57.409 --> 00:03:01.980 So we were doing fashion editorials and that's all at magazines and things like that and the 00:03:01.980 --> 00:03:06.079 fashion world really didn't latch on to the internet, so we wanted to push that. It 00:03:06.079 --> 00:03:10.329 makes sense that the web is there, why put a still picture online. The 00:03:10.329 --> 00:03:14.139 image can now move. So instead of making still pictures you would make 00:03:14.139 --> 00:03:19.129 animated pictures and they would just go on, infinitely, forever. Everyone always describes our 00:03:19.129 --> 00:03:19.980 work as 00:03:19.980 --> 00:03:26.980 creepy. What's creepy about it? But our work is very playful. So, I mean, I think the two 00:03:27.210 --> 00:03:31.990 biggest inspirations is, one, the web. We work off of memes and memes are in our work. 00:03:31.990 --> 00:03:35.620 That they're just a kid making something funny with their friends and tossing it up 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:38.249 online. That's where the best memes come from, you know. 00:03:38.249 --> 00:03:42.730 It's accidents. But besides that, video games. It lends itself to like video game 00:03:42.730 --> 00:03:47.230 culture, like playing a game and, you know, blowing people up on the moon and slaying 00:03:47.230 --> 00:03:51.529 dragons and things like that. It's just this idea that you could be anything and- 00:03:51.529 --> 00:03:56.569 you can become anyone, yeah -go anywhere. I mean, these are possible in games. We get 00:03:56.569 --> 00:04:00.819 bored really really quick and it's always about doing the next thing and 00:04:00.819 --> 00:04:03.559 technology and it used to be that art was 00:04:03.559 --> 00:04:08.430 in museums on walls and now, all of a sudden, with this thing of the web and art on 00:04:08.430 --> 00:04:14.169 screens, all of a sudden, you go to to the MOMA and there's a screen with art on it. So, 00:04:14.169 --> 00:04:20.319 we just want to be there. 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:21.789 I think there's opportunities with this kind of 00:04:21.789 --> 00:04:25.940 hybrid medium to show people something they've never seen before, to have these 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:30.639 moments that can just exist forever. It's just like this little magical warp of time. 00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:33.619 We can live within a moment within that moment, like to 00:04:33.619 --> 00:04:38.569 dream of something and then create it in a camera and share it with people and let them dream with you, 00:04:38.569 --> 00:04:41.500 just for a moment. It allows a moment to 00:04:41.500 --> 00:04:44.669 live on and there's something kind of fascinating about that. Whatever that 00:04:44.669 --> 00:04:48.060 one thing is that is alive is what your eye's gonna go to. 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:53.319 It sets the emotional impact of what the cinemagraph will be. It's a big creative decision for us, like 00:04:53.319 --> 00:04:57.830 what moment to focus on. We have a cinemagraph called "Anna Sees Everything." She's 00:04:57.830 --> 00:05:02.630 watching this show and it's kind of like a little portrait of her. This is what she does for a living. 00:05:02.630 --> 00:05:06.480 So like watching the footage of Bill Cunningham, he didn't take a picture of every model that 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:07.650 walks by. When he 00:05:07.650 --> 00:05:11.319 likes them and he likes it and he shoots it and when he doesn't, he doesn't and he doesn't even think about it. 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:13.389 So like we get to learn something in 00:05:13.389 --> 00:05:14.360 watching somebody 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:16.210 for hours on end while we work on it. 00:05:16.210 --> 00:05:17.469 We understand them. 00:05:17.469 --> 00:05:20.300 It's so voyeuristic. You look but then you feel 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:24.070 like you should look away but then you can watch it and so then you can watch it some more 00:05:24.070 --> 00:05:25.439 and it's like "ohh." 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:27.469 The simplicity of it, I feel, is 00:05:27.469 --> 00:05:28.899 really beautiful and 00:05:28.899 --> 00:05:31.729 we see it as an evolution of photography. 00:05:31.729 --> 00:05:35.509 If you think of all the ways that photography is displayed these are areas that we want to 00:05:35.509 --> 00:05:36.139 go into. 00:05:36.139 --> 00:05:41.349 There's the parts of it that are alive and you can choose to engage in depth into the art or you can 00:05:41.349 --> 00:05:44.479 choose to just glance at it and it's there as if it's a photograph. 00:05:44.479 --> 00:05:44.989 And, 00:05:44.989 --> 00:05:47.919 essentially something you've never seen before. 00:05:47.919 --> 00:05:52.779 Who is for people whom like they think in GIFs, or like they almost speak in GIFs and I think once you get 00:05:52.779 --> 00:05:54.340 to that point, yeah, sure, 00:05:54.340 --> 00:05:56.690 it's art. The idea of art has changed. 00:05:56.690 --> 00:06:01.690 And we've always seen what we could get away with. It's fun. When we started making these we were calling them 00:06:01.690 --> 00:06:03.069 animated GIFs but it 00:06:03.069 --> 00:06:07.949 was so much more than that. It's just too new and I love being a part of this at a time when 00:06:07.949 --> 00:06:14.949 we're just figuring it out. 00:06:22.459 --> 00:06:25.280 We should say "gif". It's not a "gif" it's a "jif". It's a "jif". 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:30.470 "Jif" is how I learned it first. The founder of the format of "jif", the compuserve guy- This is ancient 00:06:30.470 --> 00:06:34.139 internet history here. -he said, "choosy developers choose jif" like the peanut butter. 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.779 We can talk about why you should say "gif" because it doesn't sound like peanut butter. 00:06:38.489 --> 00:06:40.999 Let's find this guy. My understanding is that this guy 00:06:40.999 --> 00:06:45.339 prefers "jif". So you gotta represent, for the creator. I say we gotta go with the 00:06:45.339 --> 00:06:47.889 inventor of the format. Giraffics. 00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:49.469 Everyone says "gif". It's "jif".