GIF Assignment

For my GIF assignment I had a lot of trouble getting started. Picking a clip was made hard by the multitude of choices and styles. I chose a few clips and upon experimenting with them found that the backgrounds were an issue; either they panned far too much or didn't move enough that isolating movement in the clip would be redundant. 

In the end I chose my clip from the NBC Hannibal television show (original clip can be found in YouTube video titled "Hannibal Sick Realization") because I've found the show is full of subtle actions that convey a lot of meaning.

The scene takes place in the show's FBI morgue/lab while the lab techs examine a serial killer's latest victim and Will Graham (pictured), the FBI profiler after this killer, is in deep thought in an attempt to gain insight into the killer's actions. In the moment I chose Will is realizing the killer's cannibalistic nature right before the techs uncover evidence to back his theory. Without Will the techs may never have made the connection to cannibalism. Will is an empath, and can understand and empathize with just about anyone, he is used by the FBI because he is incredibly talented at riddling out the behaviour of killers. Before this killer emerged Will taught at the FBI academy because he was deemed to emotionally fragile for field work, I think this shot does a good job of emphasizing the mental toll chasing killers has on Will.

To show how Will was lost in thought I isolated his image and masked it so only the blurred people behind him move. I decided to do this because of the expression "frozen in thought". Then I colourized the layers, making Will greyer to make him look a little more ill and making the background bluer to show the depressing undertones of Will's thoughts.

For the quote I chose to go with my GIF is a line from this scene which pretty much sums up the entire episode and nearly the entire first season, "He's eating them." Will is the one who says it and at this point it's the only thing he can really think of to say. It's one of the first season's big reveals as before this cannibalism was heavily implied but not outrightly stated.

In my HTML assignment I made the background a pop-arty image of a stag because Will sees visions of a stag that represents the killer as he slowly loses his mind. I also attached an audio file of an eerie version of the song Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) because I thought the lyrics really fit, especially the line "some of them want to use you" because throughout the show Will is constantly manipulated by Hannibal Lecter and the FBI.