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How to make a movie icon

I was asked if I knew how to make a movie-icon, so here is my second tutorial in a short while ^_^ .


We will be making this icon:

To make


I know this icon isn’t that pretty, but all the basics of movie-making are in it.
Just remember that all the settings I used are for this specific icon only. Every setting depends on the icon you want to make. So, you won’t be able to litteraly copy everything I have done to make your own movie icon, but at least you’ll get an idea on how it’s done!


Let’s get started!

TOOLS

  • Adobe Photoshop CS
  • Adobe ImageReady CS

I do not know how to translate this to other programs, so please, don’t ask!



Part 1: The Base
First you need to collect your caps. I make caps in BS Player.


Choosing a scene can be difficult, because lj has a restriction of 40Kb per icon. You can’t select endless scenes; they must be short. Ideal is a scene of more or less 1 second.


I chose a scene from the newest Supernatural episode, where Sam and Dean encounter a big frog.
I took a lot of caps of that particular scene and then selected 9 of them.



I opened the caps in Photoshop.
Then I opened a new document with the same dimensions as my caps.


Now I copied and pasted each cap in this new document. I made sure I pasted them in the right order and named the layers accordingly.


So in the end I had a new document with 9 layers.



I used the selection tool to select an area of the caps. I adjusted my selection tool so that it would select an area that had a width:height ratio of 1,4:1.

To see the settings, click the image on the right.


Once I had my area selected I cropped by going to Image –> Crop.



I resized the image to 70*50 pixels by going to Image –> Image Size…


I sharpened   each of the layers, so that the scene was better defined.


I went to Image –> Canvas Size and made my document 100*100 pixels. I made sure the anker was in the middle, so that my caps would stay in the center of the icon.

I added a new layer at the very bottom of the layer pallette and filled it with white. I named that layer BASE.

Above the BASE layer I created a new layer named STROKE.


I selected an area around the caps, some pixels broader then the actual movie-frame.



With that area selected I went to Edit –> Stroke…, and made a 1 pixel black border.

I selected my Eraser Tool; picked a big, round, soft brush and deleted the middle parts of each line of the frame.


Et voilà, the traditional movie-icon frame is created. Now I just changed the opacity of the STROKE layer to 30%




  
Next I made all layers, except the BASE and STROKE layer, invisible (click the little eye next to the layer).

I added a text layer all the way to the top of the layers palette.


Text: Yeah, you?re right. That?s completely normal
Font: Bellerose
Size: 16pt
Color: Black
Leading: 14pt
Tracking: 75
Variant: Small Caps


I changed the opacity of the text-layer to 80%.

So now I have 12 layers.
From bottom to top:



BASE
STROKE
Screencaps 9-1
Textlayer



All the necessairy layers are finished, so now I switch over to ImageReady



Part 2: Animating
My icon is now opened in ImageReady.
In the Animation palette I can see one frame.
I made the text layer invisible and made the first cap visible.


Then I make a new frame and in this frame I make the current cap invisible and make the next cap visible.


I continue this process until I have made a frame for every cap. The last frame I make is for the text-layer. As a result I have now ten frames.



Now I select Frame 1 and set the delay to 0,5 seconds.


I click the Tween button (see right).



Tweening is making the transition between frames smoother. It is often used for a fade-in or -out effect.


Here I chose to tween the first frame with the next frame by adding 2 new frames. I make sure I check every box .



When I look at the animation palette I can see that I now have 12 frames. The two extra frames are positioned between the first frame and the frame that used to be the second.

I set the delay of these two new frames to 0.1seconds.

I select frame 4 until 10 (Select frame 4, hold the shift key and click frame 10) and set their delay to 0.2 seconds

I select frame 11 and set its delay to 0.5 seconds.


With frame 11 still selected, I click the tween button.



I tween layer 11 with the next frame and add only 1 layer this time.

I set the delay of this new layer, that is now layer 12, to 0.1 seconds.

Then I delay the last frame (frame 13), which is the text frame, to 1 second.

This is my final animation palette:



Part 3: Saving
You can preview your icon by clicking the Preview Document icon or by pressing Y.
Once you verified for yourself that the icon looks good, press the Preview document icon or Y again.

When you look at your icon document you can see that above your icon there are 4 tabs:



Original
Optimized
2-Up
4-Up


Click the 4-Up tab.



Now you see your icon 4 times.
Top Left: The Original
Top Right: GIF with 100% dither and 256 colors. This is the same as the original.
Bottom Left: GIF with 100% dither and 128 colors.
Bottom Right: GIF with 0% dither and 256 colors.


Underneath each icon you can see how large your icon will be when you save it.


When you wish to upload your mini-movie as an icon on LJ, you have to make sure the size is bellow 40K.

Sometimes, more often then not, neither option will show you an icon that is small enough. Then your only option will be to delete some frames. If you have more then 20 frames, your icon will almost always be too large. So limit yourself.


If you want to use the image as something else, like lets say a moodtheme image, then you can add as much frames as you want, as there is not a 40K limit on those ^_^ .


Anyway, select one of the for icons in the 4-Up tab and click File –> Save Optimized As.


FINISHED!