In Search of the Elusive Perfect GIF

So, I'm a little obsessive about silly things. Not so much that it derails my life but enough that it makes me waste time. Like creating "perfect" GIFs. I succeed very, very rarely, but when I do, I feel a sense of pride. Internal pride, that is. The only time I remember someone else actually mentioning it was the guy behind Bearhugger.net who featured my Derek Bolt elbow dropping Dax Carter GIF. Given pretty much no one actually cares about, why even mention it?

Well, I've actually created two recently that I consider "perfect", which made me decide to make this post. That and I didn't have a match to review. I'm still obsessed with Bull/Brendan (review here).

One person was enthralled with this GIF.

Why do I consider Bull elbow-dropping Brendan a "perfect" GIF? It's not just because the guys are perfect.

I love this perfect GIF.

What about Brad and Gabe? (It's okay not to care and only wanna look at hot moving images.)

Another perfect GIF. But why?

They're not the hottest GIFs or even from the hottest moments of the videos. What they are is virtually seamless. I love a GIF that just keeps going in perpetual motion with no obvious jump. Bull just keeps dropping that elbow on Brendan and getting up and he will for all time. Same with Derek on Dax, and Brad driving Gabe into the corner.

The biggest reason why these are rare is because the vast majority of wrestling moves don't start and end in the same place, so they can't ever be seamless. A body slam. A piledriver. A suplex. All these moves start and end very differently and won't resolve in 5 seconds.

Gorgeous guys. Big moment.
Never will it be a "perfect" GIF.

Another reason is more technical - handheld cameras move and guys getting beaten down (even in pro fantasy) move. It's just a fact of life, even if the movement is ever so slight. So you need three guys to basically all be in the same spot. How often does that happen? Not very.

So close, but the camera moves.

If you look at the hero, it's pretty good,
but if you look at the henchman, not so much.

In my pursuit for the "perfect" GIF, I have picked up a few tricks. Re-visiting Bull/ Brendan and Brad/Gabe, they both use the same technique. Where is the beginning and where is the end? Don't cheat by starting and stopping the thing. They're at the moment of impact - elbow to chest and head to turnbuckle respectively. In both cases, Bull and Brad repeated the move, which is a cue to me that a "perfect" GIF might be possible. The moment of impact is often the best cut.

From my very first GIF attempts, I have tried.

Even if there is a shift, you won't really notice it because you're focused on the elbow crashing down or the head slamming into the turnbuckle. This is my favorite way to get what I want. I discovered this trick accidentally to solve another problem - getting a good punching image. The GIFs my program makes are 30 still images flying by, like an old flip book. Too often, my punching, kicking and stomping GIFs will miss the moment of impact, making them unusable. I hate that.

To solve this problem, I started making the start and end a connection point where the fist or elbow or boot connect. This way, I was sure to get that key moment and not end up with something that looks like the guy whiffed by a mile. That led me to realize I could do that with all kinds of things that are repeated, like multiple punches, hands slapping the mat or, yes, elbow drops.

Punches are surprisingly hard for me to GIF right.

Racks with a squat usually come close,
but I don't think I've ever gotten to "perfect".

It's not "perfect" but I still love it.

The easiest way to get to "perfect" is actually if a place uses two cameras. When that happens, you get a natural cut from one angle to another. If you get lucky like that then you only need to find moments pre- and post-cut that look vaguely similar. The brain will fill in the rest. Rock Hard Wrestling was great for this and made my life so much easier.

Pretty good with the cuts happening
as Ethan goes in for the kill.

Not as good but it's Jake, so that makes it perfect,
just in a different way.

One where I cheated is one of my most popular GIFs ever - Cason kissing Cap's bicep. Technically, it's not "perfect" because I think the main seam is obvious but there's a second, hidden seam, too. This is a palindrome GIF with the inflection moment being the kiss. In reality, there's a bizarre cut that looked terrible. I couldn't not show the bicep kiss because it was soooo hot but I couldn't bring myself to show it as it happened.

I (obsessively) worried that it was deceptive, but obviously no one cared or noticed because no one ever mentioned it. On an interesting note, I now know when my GIF is used (versus someone else creating one that's similar, which does happen). Still, I try not to do things like this and I can't think of another moment where I did, but it felt interesting and on-topic for this post.

How my GIF plays versus ...

how it actually plays in the video.

Anyway, this is one of those reasons why blogging is harder for me than it should be. I spend way too much time when I have this opportunity, working in fractions of seconds for the best cut. When it doesn't pan out, that's a lot of time wasted.

Alex