Love it!

Thats a fun idea! I imagine a backwards zoom(?) from a person working in a gif-factory, only to zoom out on another character doing the same gif.

Do you want the even longer 20 hours directors cut version?

Yeah, the idea was that they get electrocuted from osha violations in the workplace, with some electrical cords poking out. But I can see that it’s not as clearly communicated as the original idea behind it.

There was supposed to be a bigger reaction to switching the lever. But it was reduced to only calming down the rumbling box that the bones fly out off. So the bones turn on the lever, box starts to rumble, and the guy turns it off.

I started with a really rough sketch on paper. Redrew it in procreate to clean up and plan a bit better what I wanted to do.

Then I started refining the background in illustrator. I created one layer of each continuous line of animation so I could overlap them later.

Once I had everything in place I made some really rough timing/ pacing tests in after effects. Character animation to see how fast each line or characters should go. I used 2/4/6/8 seconds as a framework for length, so I knew that could seamlessly loop everything. (If that didn’t make sense I can explain it better). Then I went to on to refine that part.

I created one cycle (one character going from start to end) and used an effect called echo to repeat it with a second between each. Since the characters are all the same, most animations only needed one second to loop, and create the illusion of endless repeats.

When all the loops were created I combined them in one image which became the finished result.

Its beautiful! I really like factory Looping animations

Did you make this?

Yes!

Though, I was actually influenced by the after effects shy button, which again seems to be a reference to that.

I don’t know if there’s any easy app to create animated loops. Maybe it’s possible to use some sort of video game software and insert your own sprites.

I started with a hand-drawn sketch of elements I wanted to include. Then I used adobe illustrator to draw all the elements. And put everything together and into motion with after effects.

I know there are free / cheap alternatives to illustrator, but not quite sure about alternatives to after effects, which is why I stick to it.

That being said, my background is in illustration and graphic design, so the jump into animation is shorter than for someone starting from scratch.

However, there’s a lot of methods to create animation. Even low tech. I recently saw these beautiful paper-doll animations that was done with sticks by hand, I’ll link it if I can find it.

Sorry for not giving a short and easy option for your question.