Animated Gif Critic

This gif is the debut work of a friend of mine. I want to encourage him to continue his nominal work, so to that effect I’ve decided to do a critique of his piece.
CATS: A pathetic lack of cats. 0/10
AESTHETIC: The otherwise thoughtful cinematography...

This gif is the debut work of a friend of mine. I want to encourage him to continue his nominal work, so to that effect I’ve decided to do a critique of his piece.

CATS: A pathetic lack of cats. 0/10

AESTHETIC: The otherwise thoughtful cinematography is offset by weak lighting, an incomprehensible use of lines, and a timestamp that I’m dubious lends itself to any commentary this work is trying to make. 3/10

TECHNIQUE: The gif flows nicely, but I can only attribute that to the camera work of the television production this gif come from. Allegedly, the artist added in the glasses of the gentleman on the left. You can hardly tell! 7/10

THEMATIC: What do we think about, when we see a young person taking sips of soup from an older person? We should immediately recognize that this is allegory, but to what? Animated Gif Critic suggests that this is a commentary on the Millennial generation feeding off of their Baby Boomer parents. Touché, says this Millennial critic. Scathing and accurate. 8/10

ORIGINALITY: These days, on the international informations supernet highway of dreams, you really only see six kinds of gifs: 

  • gifs where someone is being given an upvote
  • gifs where someone is being given a downvote
  • gifs of political candidates delivering moving speeches
  • gifs of old ladies eating soup
  • gifs from the old vaudevillian television programme “Your Show of Shows”
  • gifs of cats

Clearly this gif is run-of-the-mill, but here’s where the auteur has taken quite a risk: a younger man takes a sip of soup! I hesitate to use the word “revolutionary”…but I will say that this gif may take old-lady-soup-eating-gifs in a whole new direction, and I like that direction. 9/10

HUMOUR: A quality of being amusing or comic is often absurdity: laughter can be created simply by exposing ourselves to the unexpected. It’s not at all surprising that this old bag (no offense, you old bag, you) is impressed by soup, but then lookit this guy taking a sip of soup! How old is this guy?! Now that is unexpected and therefore it is humourous. 7/10

STYLE: The animation, timestamp, and risqué albeit banal content make this an obvious work of Pop Art. Were Roy Liechtenstein alive today, he’d probably remark something like “where are my slippers?” because he’d be 91 years old. 9/10

SCALE: It’s a big gif but the clip is barely over one second long, so it’s a pretty small scale. Great work on the fake glasses though. 5/10

TOTAL SCORE: 48/80


CATS - none
AESTHETIC - blurry
TECHNIQUE - average
THEMATIC - jejeune
ORIGINALITY - derivative
HUMOUR - childish
STYLE - amateur
SCALE - miniscule
TOTAL SCORE - 80/80

CATS - none 

AESTHETIC - blurry

TECHNIQUE - average

THEMATIC - jejeune 

ORIGINALITY - derivative

HUMOUR - childish

STYLE - amateur

SCALE - miniscule

TOTAL SCORE - 80/80


CATS - Honestly, it’s hard to tell if they’re cats or not, because of my heavy cataracts, but my nurse tells me that they aren’t cats, they’re meer-cats. Lady, that sounds like a goddamn cat to me. What? It’s a what? Fuck it, I’m saying it’s a cat....

CATS - Honestly, it’s hard to tell if they’re cats or not, because of my heavy cataracts, but my nurse tells me that they aren’t cats, they’re meer-cats. Lady, that sounds like a goddamn cat to me. What? It’s a what? Fuck it, I’m saying it’s a cat. 10/10

AESTHETIC - The artist has helpfully watermarked this gif, so I can helpfully address this critique directly. “NikNaks,” I think you did a swell job putting this together. You’ve go two sequences going here, with two cats. The first sequence seems mostly brown, and the second has a bit of aquamarine but is also mostly brown. Quite the limited palette, huh Niknaks? - 3/10

TECHNIQUE - At first glance, I was sure that these cats had some sort of significant eye-disorder. My nurse had to explain that those are CGI-enhanced googly-eyes. Well done, Niknaks, you old bean! I was certainly fooled. Excellent use of CGI, reminiscent of The Hulk (2003), The Incredible Hulk (2008), The Hulk (2013), The Hulk (2014 - In Production), and finally Hulk’s Heroes (Cancelled). - 10/10

THEMATIC - The first cat has giant pupils, which implies he’s probably heavily drugged. The second cat’s pupils are not as big. One might digest this information, believe these to be two separate cats and misunderstand the piece entirely as an anti-drug treatise, then get indigestion as a result. Allow me to be the Pepto Bismol of your minds: like Tyler (SPOILER ALERT) Durden of the film “Dead Poet’s Fighting Society” the latter cat is the former cat. Indeed NikNaks is trying to express that we are all simultaneously an intoxicated, and sober version of ourselves. Super deep stuff, NikNaks. 10/10

ORIGINALITY - 10/10

HUMOUR - Googly eyes always make me laugh, but then remind me of my cataracts and then I cry and then I need to put my eyedrops in, and let’s just say I’m not laughing anymore - 6/10

STYLE - Neo-classicist gif animation at it’s best. Pretty much David's Death of Marat in modern form. My nurse says “With Googly Eyes!” Waitasec, the original didn’t have googly eyes? What the fu - 8/10

SCALE - The work put into the CGI googly eyes is very impressive indeed. They even account for the motion of the cats’ heads and gravity. 10/10

TOTAL SCORE - 67/80


CATS - Horses aren’t cats, sorry. 0/10
AESTHETIC - At first glance, one’s instinctual assessment might be of dismissive derision - it’s a low resolution gif, what can I say? Look closer, I suggest: There’s nothing the artist could have done with the...

CATS - Horses aren’t cats, sorry. 0/10

AESTHETIC - At first glance, one’s instinctual assessment might be of dismissive derision - it’s a low resolution gif, what can I say? Look closer, I suggest: There’s nothing the artist could have done with the resolution of the original gif, but the way the horses seamlessly appear out of the smoke cloud is wonderfully engaging, and their gaits are as beautiful as if they were galloping across a dusty plain! Magnificent! Striking! Awe-inspiring!

(Still though, pretty low-res, ugh.) - 5/10

TECHNIQUE - As described, the horses appear seamlessly from thin air as if they were there the whole time. I’m almost inclined to believe this gif hasn’t even been ‘doctored’ and the horses were trampolines from pixel one. M Night Shyamalan said it best when he revealed his shocking twist “I am a highly paid professional director”. Is he the author of this animated gif? Fuck, I don’t know! I’m not a research expert, I’m an art critic. But probably, yes - 10/10

THEMATIC - To answer this question, we must first ask of ourselves: “who rides horses?”

A: Cowboys.

Then we must ask of ourselves “where do cowboys roam?”

A: Same place the Buffaloes do: on the range.

“A range is a homograph, what else does it mean?”

A: An oven. 

Now here’s where it gets tricky. If you’re a misogynist you’ve already assumed the theme of this gif is that women don’t belong on trampolines, they belong “on the range,” or “in the kitchen.” The mirror of society has been turned right back at you, reflecting your own inner sexist turmoil.The turmoil is calling from inside the house!

If, like me, you’re not a sexist, then you’ve already figured out that this gif has nothing to do with cowboys and everything to do with trampolines. That’s right you guessed it, it’s a commentary on how we view trampolines in modern gym culture. And a good one, I might add - 8/10

ORIGINALITY 10/10

HUMOUR - 10/10

STYLE -  It’s a classic absurd surrealist gif, 'and a good one, I might add,’ as I have been known to say. Ceci n'est pas une trampoline - 9/10

SCALE - The fact that the artist, clearly an expert in gif-making, was working with lower resolution actually increased the difficulty of this project, as the horses needed to look as though they belonged in this world of giant pixels and yoga mats. 9/10

TOTAL SCORE - 61/80


CATS - One (1) giant neon pink meowing cat. 10/10
AESTHETIC - The beautiful and vibrant pink colouring of the cat are juxtaposed against a green and cyan maze background. The use of lines and motion create an incredible three-dimensional image that...

CATS - One (1) giant neon pink meowing cat. 10/10

AESTHETIC - The beautiful and vibrant pink colouring of the cat are juxtaposed against a green and cyan maze background. The use of lines and motion create an incredible three-dimensional image that makes you search around for cat treats to feed it, only to later realize that you have been throwing the treats at your inanimate computer screen (duh!) My only complaint is that the clashing of the two colours make the gif difficult to look at for an extended period of time, 8/10

TECHNIQUE - The animation of the cat’s face is done expertly, and as an original image, I am very impressed by the author’s ability to create the image of the cat using only a series of lines, two shades of pink, one shade of orange, black, and white. I’m left wanting more movement from the body and ears, but I’m not wholly disappointed by what’s lacking. 7/10

THEMATIC - I think this is more an exercise in aesthetic ideas than anything thematic. 0/10

ORIGINALITY - This is definitely new to me 10/10

HUMOUR - 0/10

STYLE - This piece blends New Media Art and Cat Gif Art with psychedelic colourings to create what I would describe as a “Modern Fauvism.” 10/10

SCALE - The author successfully and seamlessly navigates form and animation in this large and difficult gif. 8/10

TOTAL SCORE

53/80


CATS - There are no cats in this gif. 0/10
AESTHETIC - The image is pretty dark, and there is a glut of shadow due to the direction of light at the top of the slide (the ducks waiting excitedly for their turn at the top are over-lit) and the colours...

CATS - There are no cats in this gif. 0/10

AESTHETIC - The image is pretty dark, and there is a glut of shadow due to the direction of light at the top of the slide (the ducks waiting excitedly for their turn at the top are over-lit) and the colours are drab. 0/10

TECHNIQUE - It is simply a video clip in gif form. 0/10

THEMATIC - Ah, the story of Sisyphus - the King of Ephyra, and also a baby duck, compelled forever to repeat climbing up a hill and then sliding back down it. Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus believed this represented the absurdity of life, yet he believed that this repetitive action satisfied man. “The struggle itself toward heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” Well how about baby ducks’ hearts? I choose to imagine they are happy ducks, and you just try to prove me otherwise! 8/10

ORIGINALITY - While a perpetual duck slide machine is an original concept, the author of the gif isn’t the inventor. In fact, the gif author does not even re-appropriate the motion in an imaginative way. This is merely a standard “cute thing happening” gif which are a dime a dozen. 0/10

HUMOUR - I laugh not. 0/10

STYLE - In the vein of “cute animal gifs” this doesn’t add anything new or interesting to the conversation - 0/10

SCALE - Very little work went into this gif - 0/10

TOTAL SCORE

8/80

cineraria:

Baby Duck Slide - YouTube


Hello there. It has been a long long long long time since I have critiqued animated gifs, and let’s all be honest, that time was dark and empty and nobody was happy. Well get your happypants out of your closet, and put them on and take two or three...

Hello there. It has been a long long long long time since I have critiqued animated gifs, and let’s all be honest, that time was dark and empty and nobody was happy. Well get your happypants out of your closet, and put them on and take two or three selfies because the time has come for me to begin critiquing animated (probably cat) gifs again.

We need to talk though. The old scoring system was broken, and it needs to be fixed. Let’s address this right now. I used to weigh everything equally among 5 categories:

1. HUMOUR

2. THEME

3. AESTHETIC

4. WATCHABILITY

5. CATS

Frankly, this taxonomy is jejune. Let's spice it up to 11. Here are the new criticism categories with brief explanations and using the above cat gif as a high scoring example (Also guess what, jerks? The categories are out of ten (10) now):

  1. CATS - obviously this should be the first quality addressed. There is one cat in the above gif and it is jumping. Probably 10/10
  2. AESTHETIC - I will be scoring any aesthetic qualities in this category - colours, shapes, lines and textures. Obviously the above is a beautifully captured motion, with strong coloring aspects and framing, so it would score in the 8-10 range.
  3. TECHNIQUE - Like all art, gif animation requires technical abilities. As brushstrokes are to painting, there are many elements in the process of animating a jumping cat that can be critiqued. In critiquing technique, the main question is: does the execution achieve it’s purpose? In the above, clearly a skilled hand carefully edited the slow motion mid air catch to show that cats can jump real good like. Bravo! Top points.
  4. THEMATIC - What is the gif artist’s statement? How does it make make me feel? Is there symbolism? In the above, as explained, the gif demonstrates a cat’s capacity to jump. I agree! 8-10 range.
  5. ORIGINALITY - Is the work unique? Is it derivative? I’ve seen lots of slow motion cat jumping gifs, so I would probably dock this one a few points. 
  6. HUMOUR - The best gifs make us laugh. Sometimes at ourselves. Sometimes at each other. Sometimes at cats. The above example does none of these things, so it gets minimal points.
  7. STYLE - Style is differentiated from Aesthetic and Technique in that it describes the work as it compares to other artistic movements. For example, if we were describing a Picasso, we would be critiquing it as a Cubist piece. The above is a Cat-Jumping gif, so we have to discuss how it fits within that movement. It fits pretty good if you ask me. Top points!
  8. SCALE - How big is the work? Did the artist simply gif-ify a clip from a TV show? Or did they create it from scratch? Is it full screen? Is it tiny? The above example is pretty big and pretty hi def and probably tool a lot of work. Top points!

The final score will be out of 80. Please do not hesitate to send me gifs to critique. SFW only please.

Sincerely

Animated Gif Critic.


HUMOUR - 2/5
THEME - 0/5: Monkeys and ducks looking at eachother is not a theme. Go back to bed.
AESTHETIC - 2/5: Nothing special
WATCHABILITY - 4/5
CATS - 0/5
MONKEY BONUS - +3
TOTAL SCORE: 44

HUMOUR - 2/5

THEME - 0/5: Monkeys and ducks looking at eachother is not a theme. Go back to bed.

AESTHETIC - 2/5: Nothing special

WATCHABILITY - 4/5

CATS - 0/5

MONKEY BONUS - +3

TOTAL SCORE: 44