Category: rollerblading

“Recently, I was exposed to reverse-animated GIFs. I must say, some are hilarious. Find a video clip, or shoot one of yourself, and then make it playback in reverse over and over again as a GIF. Try to find a situation that is absolutely mind-blowing when played backwards.”

Since my last GIF was of me rollerblading I thought I’d continue the trend and make a “FIG” of me rollerblading. This is a simple 360 but it looks pretty cool backwards. I wish I was that good at skating backwards in real life!

To make this GIF, I downloaded a simple video reversing app on my phone, which made the video run backwards. From there, I just put it into GIPHY, edited the length, and voilà! A FIG was born.

Figuring out how to do this was a little frustrating. I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it was in the end. I’m pleased with the result!

ds106assignment

“For this assignment, you will need one thing that everyone has. A home video! Choose a video that you have filmed yourself and create a gif from that video.”

Most of my “home video” footage is of rollerblading so I figured it’d be fun to make a GIF of a grind. This is a simple backside on a downrail. This clip is a few years old and I had just figured out how to do this trick comfortably. In this clip my boyfriend is probably the person doing the filming.

I tried a backside on that downrail for the first time during a game of SKATE. SKATE is like HORSE but with, you know, skating. I was 100% sure I wasn’t going to be able to do it, and was really scared I’d fall and hurt myself. I was amazed when I actually did it first try. It was a huge boost in my skating confidence at the time.

This is still one of my favorite tricks to do because it’s not very scary and it’s reminiscent of the kind of skiing I used to do when I was a kid. I liked skiing in parks and hitting flat rails. I wasn’t very fancy about it, but it was a lot of fun. It’s nice to be able to get some of the same feelings of fun without having to ski, because skiing is very expensive and time consuming (and cold). While skiing is more of a once-in-a-while activity now that I’m older, rollerblading has been a cheaper and more accessible way for me to recreate the wonderful skiing memories I have, just on pavement.

ds106assignment