How to Make a storytelling gif

A Holistic Course on Storytelling and GIF making to Inspire your Creative Arsenal

Before we get started, you’ll first need a notebook, a yummy treat, a camera or photographs taken in succession, and Adobe Photoshop.

Chapter one

Amend the soil & plant seeds

The approach to intentional GIF creation takes place long before the actual photo session. I usually dream up a few ideas while collaborating with clients on our Creative Direction. Amending the creative soil is the key to planting seeds that bloom into authentic moments, holding space for the act of creating. Your pre photo session process is the most important aspect of the creative process because it nurtures a space for the creativity to flow and flourish through.

Many artists approach their creative process differently and I believe there are many unique and beautiful ways to prepare for our projects. This is how I engage in the creative act and I hope it inspires you to romanticize the preparation process and step into your own unique way of storytelling.

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After our discovery call, I send a questionnaire to my clients attached to their proposal. On the call I encourage them to set aside time to thoughtfully reflect on each prompt and fill out their answers together. I don’t want it to feel like homework, so I propose it in a way that feels like a moment of reflection. Like a cute dating game where they connect through evoking and sentimental questions.

After they send their completed questionnaire over, I read through it intently. For context, i’m the friend that brings out my noise canceling headphones, lays down with closed eyes, and feels deeply when someone sends me a song. I take the feelings in completely before I even respond, thinking about them, how they might relate to the lyrics or resonate with the feeling.. and this is how I approach my client questionnaires as well. I take in the feelings of their response and begin writing a story based off of their expression. My clients and I share a Pinterest board where they pin anything that evokes the feelings they wish to express in our session together. I have them share anything that signals a sensory experience they feel aligned with whether its visuals, scents, music, or poems — so I can see a deeper glimpse into their inner world.

At this time in the process, I create an Intention List of Composition. Not poses — but angles and scenes I want to create to convey their story. This allows me to give my clients freedom to express their personal autonomy and pay attention to the anatomy, lighting, and angles. In my Intention List, I also include which scenes I would love to photograph a succession of images in order to create a motion picture or GIF.

Of course while I’m shooting, lots of spontaneity occurs. And succession shooting sometimes happens on the fly because I see a moment of movement that inspires me. Whenever my brain transitions into “cinematographer mode” where I feel the urge to capture video, it’s a pretty big clue for me to shoot that moment in succession.

SOMATIC EXERCISE

I want you to gather a yummy treat or snack. It can be a bite of chocolate, a piece of fruit, or a sip of coffee. Anything you enjoy nearby.

Take a bite or sip of your treat. Close your eyes. And notice the sensations. What is happening as you bite or sip your treat? What does it feel like? What is the texture and flavor? Perhaps you notice saliva gathering in your mouth. Or maybe you feel happy, content, warm, or fuzzy. Notice the rest of your body. What sensations extend beyond your mouth? Your face? Your shoulders? And into your lower body? Just notice. Sustain your awareness here in this felt experience. Notice any sensations, emotions, feelings, or even visuals and stories that arise. See if you can observe it with mindfulness and curiosity.

Now how do these feelings want to be expressed? Is it a sway? A laugh? A smile? Without any rules or rationality, write down or draw your expression. You can draw a picture, shape, or symbol. And use colors to convey the feelings. You can put on a song that speaks your expression musically. You can move around with your body. Or you can write a story. However feels authentic, express the nature of these qualities you are connecting with.

WRITING EXERCISE

Once you’ve completed the previous exercise, grab a pen and write down your responses by hand in a notebook.

  1. List 3 words that describe the characteristics of the experience.

  2. As you explored different ways of expressing, did something become more refined or clear for you?

  3. On a scale of 1-10, how closely connected did you feel to the experience? Did it come natural to access the felt sense or did you find it challenging to explore the exercise with curiosity?

As you write down your answers, see if any new insights have come up for you. What have you learned about your felt experience? What intentions do you have in exploring this more deeply or regularly?

Chapter Two

the art of noticing

Which moments are storytelling GIF moments?

Any moments with movement. Depending on your storytelling session, some moments may be more obvious than others. Yet some of the most beautiful GIFs are made from the simple act of noticing. When we photograph mindfully and slow, we notice more. We stop creating from a place of scarcity or fear (of not getting the shot) and begin creating from abundance. We notice the small moments of movement whether its a hand tucking hair behind an ear, a nose scrunching up with joy, or a gentle caress of affection.

Couple’s sessions will often provide lots of opportunity for obvious movement. Such as running, dancing, spinning, kissing, laughing, and playing. Yet the art of noticing is when the inner artist comes out to play with the less obvious. In most of my portrait sessions I love to get creative with this. For example, how can stillness and movement be captured in one scene? GIFs give an incredible opportunity to capture a still scene while featuring small details of movement. Where it feels like a photograph that has come to life.

For example, a woman sitting in a field while reading a book — where the pages are flipping from the wind. Or a writer sitting at his desk writing by candlelight — where the flame dances and glows. There are lots of opportunity for movement, even in the smallest of details. Which is what makes animation such a creative and playful aspect of storytelling. It has an additional ability to draw the listener in to the very details you want them to notice. And these details often tell the story, they evoke the very feeling you are trying to communicate.

EXERCISE

Close your eyes and notice your interior landscape. What is alive within you? How does this information and the previous exercises make you feel? Perhaps you feel inspired and different creative ideas are activating. Or maybe you feel this is much more in depth than what you were expecting. Maybe that activates feelings that aren’t as comfortable. There is no wrong or right way to feel. Just notice what is alive within you and see if you can sustain your awareness. Breathe here and when you are ready, open your eyes.

Now I invite you to shift your awareness to your exterior landscape. Take in the room around you as if you’re noticing it for the first time. What are the qualities of this space? What does the room feel like? What is the vibe, the tone, the resonance of your space? What sounds are present? What does the room smell like? Are there certain objects or visuals that catch your attention? Notice the environment and any feelings that the sensory experience may activate.

Now see if you can draw the qualities of your space. It can be architectural or it can be abstract. Express the feelings. What is the rhythm of your space? What is the mood? Continue to explore how the lines, or use of color, or details portray what you see and feel. Now add words to your drawing. It can be what you see, symbolic, or words that represent the essence and aesthetic of your space. If there is a song that you feel represents the qualities of your space, write down the song, sing it, or put it on.

To close this practice, write down something inspiring from your space. Why does this inspires you? Maybe it’s a piece of art, light shining through the window, your cat, the music playing, or an object you’ve curated. How does this make you feel? How often do you notice this aspect of your space?

Chapter Three

a way of being — watering the seeds

In the previous chapters we explored both our inner and outer landscape. You may have noticed there were no right or wrong ways to complete the exercises. The intention behind this is subjectivity. Noticing our subjective experience and the way we perceive the world. This paves our path of being in the world. And the more we practice paying attention, the more we refine our sensitivity to tune into the subtle stories that are happening around us all of the time. We notice what draws us in with engagement and what disengages us as well. The act of creating and storytelling is when we are paying attention and letting the inputs of our experience emerge into our art form.

The more we practice the art of noticing, the more we allow our inner landscape to engage with the outer world. This is what strengthens our connection to our inner artist and to our creativity. It also strengthens our connection to each other — where we see ourselves in others. Like a mirror reflecting back what is within. This is how you recognize joy, romance, tenderness, love, safety, contentment, sadness, grief, and even anger in others — because it lives within. When we connect to our inner world by noticing our felt experience, we recognize the story unfolding in front of us. And tell our clients stories with rich depth and connection to the process. It’s a human to human connection that makes all of this possible.

EXERCISE

Take a walk in nature this week. It can be a beautiful garden, the forest, a lake, or beach. Wherever you desire. Practice the art of noticing. You can bring watercolors or pencils and play with your surroundings. Or you can simply be in the environment with presence.

Notice the colors. How many shades of blue or green exist in your surroundings? Notice the smells. The lighting. The animals. Notice how these surroundings make you feel. What pulls you in and perhaps, what repels you?

creative challenge

Next time you are in community, notice how fellow humans interact. Perhaps you’re with a couple. How do they engage with each other? How do they cozy up to one another or communicate through eye contact? What lights them up and evokes passion? What makes them feel safe? What harnesses connection? Practice the art of noticing. As if you’re walking around Earth’s museum observing the vast work of art.

See if this inspires you to create.

Chapter Four

playing — experimenting — trust the seeds you plant

As you designate more intention into the preparation, cultivating the soil, and planting the seeds, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed at times by the desire to create something great. At times this desire is closely related to the fear of not creating something great which can freeze us into a state of paralysis or overwhelm. But the truth is the seed has been planted. Only a seed. And there comes a time when moving on and trusting the seeds we are planting is appropriate to let nature do its work.

Our mind is nature. Observing how nature continues to grow and produce and create is a beautiful example to our natural state of being — if we don’t get in our own way. When we are young, our mind wanders with curiosity. We lose ourself in imagination and every state of being feels like an act of creating. As we grow older, this playful curiosity transitions into judgement, discerning, and analyzing. Art becomes objective versus subjective and even our perception of the world around us shifts as well.

It’s helpful to understand this is only an aspect of survival. When we are running from a bear in the woods, we don’t typically stop to play or plant a garden or experiment. We discern our closest bet of safety using our judgement and act from there. It’s a beautiful thing that we instinctively know how to survive — but it is not living. This is the precious aspect of connecting with our inner artist. He or she shines a mirror onto our life and beckons us to look inward and ask, “am I living or surviving? am I a human doing or a human being?”

If you’ve caught yourself in a survival mode or realize at times you may be surviving the artistic endeavor, operating from a place of fear — fear of failing, fear of judgement, fear of not making it, fear of rejection, then you can give yourself a hug and view this insight as a loving gift. A gift where art and the act of creating is asking you to come back home to your inherent creative nature. To play. To experiment. To notice. To be. To relate. To feel. To embody your felt experience and how it relates to the world. To nature. To fellow humanity. And to continue creating from this place. To storytell and connect from this place.

Before you create your first GIF, I invite you to sign off of the internet and play. Play with your child, your dog, your cat. Play with your family or friends. Play with paints, your pencils, your instruments, your boardgames. Linger in this space of playfulness — where there is no attachment to the end result. Where playing is the unique act of doing something just to do it. Watch your favorite cinemas and indie films. Go for a walk and listen to your favorite music. Notice the art of every living thing and see how these feelings inspire you.

Then when you have played, when you have lingered in a state of being, watering and trusting the seeds you have planted, pick up your camera and create from this place. Ask your friends if they’d like to create fun art with you. See how you can incorporate a storytelling GIF into your next photo session with clients. Or reflect on previous shoots and see if you have any photographs shot in succession that you can experiment with, perhaps with a fresh vision. Draw out multiple drawings and play with animating them. When we pick up other unfamiliar mediums, it challenges our brain to learn, observe the process, and play. And once you have your succession of images that light you up — meet me in Photoshop to create and play with your first GIF below.

post processing & gif making

Once you have your succession of photographs edited to your liking, export them out of Lightroom onto your drive.

And now we can create your GIF :)

  1. Open Adobe Photoshop

  2. Go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack

  3. Click on Browse and select your photographs. Select them all and then click “Open”

  4. Now you should see your files. Select “Sort By Name” and “Attempt To Automatically Align Source Images” only if your images have an aligned background.

    Photoshop will align the images so this is a great option for GIFS that have the same aligned background.

    Click “Ok”

  5. On the following screen go to Menu > Window > Timeline — make sure the checkmark is showing

  6. The Timeline should now be on the bottom of your screen. Select “Create Frame Animation”

  7. On the right of the Timeline you will see 3 little lines. Click and select “Make Frames From Layers”.

    You should see all of your frames at the bottom of your screen.

  8. The photographs have been auto aligned and you may have to crop the empty space around the image. Crop each image appropriately which will crop the rest of the GIF as well. Push the spacebar in order to see the GIF in action.

  9. After cropping your images, click the menu (3 little lines) and “Select All Frames”. Under the frames select 0 Sec > Other and change the time frame to a longer time selection. Feel free to play around and see what works for you. I typically set it from .13 - .2 depending on the moment.

  10. Push the spacebar to play the video and review how it looks. If you’re happy with the speed, then your GIF is ready for Export.

Export for Instagram

  1. File > Export > Render Video

    Enter your filename, select the export location, and choose the following — Format: H.264 | Size: 1080p | Frame Rate: 30 fps

    There are optional presets you can select as well according to where your GIF will be uploaded.

  2. Upload to PicTime and use the app to download your GIF onto your phone. Or airdrop if you have an iPhone.

You can post your GIF video file on instagram, even in the carousel posts. You won’t be able to add music to your post but the GIFs sprinkle in a special touch amongst the carousel of images. You can also incorporate the GIF video into your reels and stories.

Export for WEB | Client Galleries | Blog Posts

  1. File > Export > Save For Web (Legacy) > Preset : 128 Dithered

  2. For Web Optimization I usually export my GIFS anywhere from 1500 - 2500 px in Width.

  3. Select “Save” and enter your filename and export location, then “Save”

You can upload your GIF file to PicTime Galleries, PicTime Blog, and Squarespace. I love to sprinkle them into the client galleries and feature them in blog posts. GIFs are also fun elements to add into your website.

And there you have it. I hope you found this helpful and inspiring. If you feel inclined to share your GIF creations with me, I’d love to see them :) Tag me on socials or be my penpal.

Happy creating <3

xx Cece