Skaijo's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Caveman Bowling]

Doh!

You're play button seriously rubs me the wrong way. >_< But this is a cute flash. I liked the joke and the animation ended on a high comedic point that was all you.

A higher frame rate for a short this short would have been appreciated. The movement seemed slow and awkward (especially while his arm was turning) and needed some sense of easing.

The shape tween you used on the bowling ball caught me off guard and made me smile. I've never seen that technique used that way and that grainy effect turned me on. I also enjoyed both the music and the animation. They really complimented each other.

Overall, I have some issues with your play button and your framerate (which comes off as a bit lazy for such a short animation), but other than that, this is a solid animation.

Bad-Atom responds:

Don't worry, my future Flashes will have more user-friendly buttons. :)

I used 24 fps on this short, but I understand what you mean about the movements. I'll keep trying to improve in that area.

And I'm going to use the grain effect on all my future animations. It's a simple, subtle effect, but it's unique and people will instantly know it's one of my cartoons they're watching. Glad you enjoyed it.

[Michael's Stand-Up]

Ha!

My review of Micheal's Stand-Up:

It's really promising to see a new genre take place in NG. I find this idea unique and it paid off quite well amoung some slight technical set backs.

Graphically, the movie was good, but only good. The main character was well drawn but not very well animated. For one thing, the movement was a bit on the jerky side. I'd suggest adding more frames in the main character movments as "inbetweens" so it won't seem like his arms are teleporting into different positions. I also suggest that you bump up the frame rate. That withstanding, the character still moves in a fashion that keeps me interested throughout the entire animation. I like the fact that his eyes are essentially his glasses--it's a very well likeble character.

The sound is unbelievable. I'm surprised that this isn't a 1 MB + animation. I guess with the amount of symbols your using, you can afford to optimize the audio to this quality. The use of sound effects was also very, very well done.

The buttons could use some work. They have color now but it's still apparent that your using the NG Preloader. I'd be nice to have buttons and a preloader that appear to be all your own. I feel bad mentioning such things on your first submission.

The humor was nice--not sure if it would have gotten you through an night at the Improv--but charming all the same. I appreciate the fact that you didn't force yourself to work blue or resort to toilet humor in order to gain some cheap laughs.

Overall, this certainly and truely is an exceptional first submission. You've got some small items you may want to work on a bit more, but you're on a promising track.

Bad-Atom responds:

Thanks,

Obviously you were a big help, teaching me the ropes and all those fancy techniques. :)

About the audio - what a lot of people didn't realize is that I mixed all that myself. Every little bit of laughter had to be timed exactly to my voice track. Lots of fun...

I'll definitely be keeping your opinions and advice in mind when I get to the next one. Thanks again.

[I Love You Ono]

I love you Ono

Nicely done, though I wouldn't consider youself new to flash. What is this, your sixth submitted animation? :P

I liked the movie. The character design was cute and it teemed with style. It reminded me of a Psychedelic British Posh fever dream. I loved your transitions that you used in the animation and thought that this was the cartoon's strongest point.

The characters themselves could have been animated a bit better. It would have been nice if you used the Free Transform tool to make them bounce a bit as the landed and jumped form scene to scene. Also, there wasn't much easing in there overall movement. Moreover, it would be nice if you could credit Stereo Total for making that song.

Nice animation overall, I'm really glad to see other female animators on NG. I hope this movie gets an award because it's certainly the most original thing I've seen today.

cheshirecat1582 responds:

Thank You sooo much!!! I never said i was new to flash but im still learning... lol yeah i do everything the hard way... i dont know how to do sooo much in it i consider my self still learning... i couldnt animate anything and make it look very real... but cartoons i do ok in... at the end i had some credits and said stereo total did the music... but i should really put it in the front of the flash... Any ways Thank you sooo much your advice is very help ful!!!! and a 9 wow!! thanks again!!
ashy

[FIFA world cup countries]

Quick review: Fifa world cup

I liked it. Nice style of animation. It was a bit on the short side, however. It would have been nice if you touched on other teams as well. Overall music use was nice, but the filesize was so small--you could have afforded to optimize the sound a bit. Nicely done, charming despite it's mild attempts at being controversal. Good one.

mackain responds:

thank you for your review. I'll keep that in mind =)

[Bunnycat 2]

Heheh. I'm liking it.

My review of "Bunnycat 2":

First of all, I have to say that I hate seeing good animations whenever I'm in the process of animating something myself. For some reason, (I blame my envious nature) it always depresses me. But your movie had me smiling throughout. I especially loved the Family Guy-esque flashback with the Macromedia attendent. It was just unique enough to be your own and it was just one of the many sublte jokes that really made me enjoy this movie.

I do feel that the movie looked great graphically, but could use some improvement. For example, though the use of tweens were smooth, sometimes I noticed bunnycat's eye's moving with disregard to the other (one eye moving faster than the other, one eye drifting a bit, and both of them not moving nearly fast enough). Also, I'd be nice to see the characters from other angles, that way the viewers can get more dynamic camera angles.

I also felt that the sound quality had a bit too much static and sometimes too forced, especially when the Ninja had to say "Beeyotch." It came off weak in my kick ass opinion.

Still, I had a great time watching this. I'd certainly be happy to see more in the future. You've made a great character, and NG would be privilidged to learn more about him and his world.

Wonchop responds:

my mic's a lil unpredictable when I get to the more lively characters.

[technoandstuff1]

Gah... blinded...

My review of "technoandstuff":

This movie needs some work. The first portion of the movie's bg is too vibrant to watch without burning retinas. The blue and red that you used should be switched to more complementary colors (perhaps, blue and green) so they don't contrast in such a gaudy fashion. Flashing black and white filters only make this movie seem more amateurish too. You may as well take them out and just add "!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!" to the end of your sentences since it pretty much says the same thing.

The pace of the movie needs work too. The credits in the second portion of the animation took to long, as well as the dancing blue man in the first portion of the animation took too long to show up. I literally thought I was just going to see a constantly changing bg for the entire animation, and was already preparing to blam.

There wasn't much in the movie that I did like, so in the end, I felt like I only got only 50% of the movie; as there was techno, but I couldn't bare to see anymore stuff.

Evil-Kat responds:

Ok.

Thanks for the fair review.

[Shadow Of The Colossus]

Loved it.

But you should learn to make a decent replay button rather than re-using the play button at the beginning. Also, that pink thing at the corner of the protagonist's eye ( the lacrimal duct) should have been on the other side of his eyeball and out of the shot.

I loved the comedic pratfall at the end though. That was really funny. It nearly summed up the game in a nutshell.

ViNCeNT-aSMoDeuS responds:

Danke.
Yeah, I fucked up big time on the eye scene... But it fits into 2MB so i'm happy.
=D

[Exploding Fungus (silent)]

Everyone has to start somewhere, nez pa?

But the fact that this movie has a score above 3 absolutely surprises me. Still, here's my objective review:

1. The movie sucks ass.

Heh, just kidding. Honastly, your first attempt at animation shows basic knowledge of the basic properties of Flash. You used tweens, mild frame-by-frame movement, and basic button use among other things. On a side note, the fact that were you were capable of doing this after 7 hours puts my efforts to shame. It took me nearly a day and a half to learn how to tween alone.

So why is it that I don't like this moive? Well:

1. You finished it in 7 hours.
2. The style was inconsistent and overall poor. By inconsistent, I'm referring to the color of the buttons. Nearly everything in the movie was a solid off-value of purple and moved through tweening. The blue linear buttons that were animated in a fbf manner through me off. Perhaps a large purple button that says play. At least then I would know for sure where the button even is and what it does. By poor, I'm referring to the graphical quality of the animation. If it was intentional, I would respect this style as a whole; however, the supporting attributes of the animation gave this .swf the appearance that the poor characters were drawn poorly due to lack of skill.

The overall interactivity was hindered due to poor button design. I honastly didn't even see the buttons until my mouse inadvertantly hovered over them. The poor execution of the flash as a whole failed to adequetly deliver the puchline in your joke.

I do love the fact that this flash lets me see how much you've improved. <3

Much love, Bez

Bezman responds:

This is probably the best review I have ever gotten.

I actually think a purple button with 'play' written on it would be a mistake. I'd like it to remain more abstract. I do concede though that I should have made it more obvious and clickable. At the time, I didn't know how hit-boxes worked.

Review of your review:

You start off, conceding the few 'good points' about this movie and that - yes - it did take /some/ effort (however little).

You then go on to eloquently state just a few of the problems with this movie.

constructive criticism/suggestions: 9
exposition of experience: 10
praise/encouragement: 11 (it's just incredibly so)


clarity of expression: 9
(had to e-mail to understand the phrase 'supporting attributes' and still don't 100% understand it)
elaboration & being specific: 10
coverage (how much): 9

overall: 10

[Badly Drawn Stickman]

Hey--that was a badly drawn stickman! I'm shocked.

Based on your author's comments, it sounded as if you tried to deliver a very deep complex idea. I can those what you were talking about in the animation. It clearly was a badly drawn stickman, that evolved and interacted with it's surroundings.

I can't say that your concept was executed well, however. The buttons were user-friendly and functional. However the movie fails artisticly. First of all, I don't mean artistically in terms of style. The style was constant so I respect that and your manner of drawing. What I mean in this case is that art is meant to convey meaning. In my humble and kick ass opinion, Badly Drawn Stickman did not convey the "evolution in artistic ability". What I saw was two stick men and a third in a pair of shoes. The amount of effort put into the flash did not match the depth of the message you were trying to give.

Constructive crit:

1. I'd suggest making the differences between the stickmen more evident. It wasn't until my fourth time viewing the movie that I realized that the first stick man failed due to the fact that he was drawn too poorly overall, the second due to his wobbly legs, and the third due to its lack of eyes.

2. The clothes on the walking stick man did not have proper tracking. During the brief fbf animation, the shoes had shoelaces, then didn't have shoelaces, had wavering depth, etc. Since the shoes were perhaps the most detailed part of the sticks body, it wouldn't have hurt to "clean them up" between frames and make their frames more consistent.

3. That 7 seven second gap at the end of the movie after the stick fades a way has got to go. It truely causes the movie to end on a very sour note.

Overall, the graphics were not used properly to convey your message to me. The style was consistent, however, the addition of sound wouldn't have hurt your style or movie. In terms of "Violence" I'm going to suggest that when you have stick man #3 walk into the apple, that the apple should at least show some sign that it has been hit. Perhaps a swaying of some sort. Overall that part of the animation was just too stiff. Hence, the attempt at humor was weak.

Bezman responds:

Thanks for all the kick-ass input.

Pretty much everything you say is true.

If I were to redo it, I'd probably change a lot, but you've given me food for thought for when I do return to the concept.

Specially the note about needing differentiation.

['Asteroids' music video]

Gosh...

I love those kind of flashes that make me feel warm inside.

Graphically, there there wasn't much to look at, the simplistic nature of the animations matched the simplistic nature of the song. In many cases, that type of realtion is so much more important than a mis-match between audio and visual attributes. I appreciated the fact that you used a 3-4 frame graphic for the purple figures at the beginning of the movie. That kind of Squigglevision is a key note that you were aware of the typical attention span of your audience.

There was no violence in the movie as none was really needed. Hence, your use (or in this case, non-use) of violence gets you a ten.

Here's my biggest complaint: the entire file size as a whole was less than 1 MB. That left plenty of room to optimize the quality of the sound clip that you used in the animation. I'm not sure if you were attempting to avoid an excessive loading time. However, I still found the quality of the sound much too low to really enjoy. An extra 24kbs wouldn't have hurt, but that's just my kick ass opinion.

Still, when the space man (*and space woman) came into the scene, the flash became magical to me. Maybe I'm just a sucker for cute people floating around astroids--but I certainly know what I like--and that was it.

So overall, the graphics were still were not too complex--yet the supporting attributes of this flash clearly showed me that you were going for a specific style. The song was a great choice--and perfect length as the the entirety of the animation ended on a crisp high note. I didn't necessarily laugh out loud, but there was an emotional feeling that came over me in this animation. That alone makes any cartoon great.

Bezman responds:

Thank you for so many wonderful reviews. I'm obviously glad you enjoyed this one and it means so much coming from you - as I've seen the brilliant stuff you yourself are capable of.

review of your review
=======================

In many cases, that type of realtion is so much more important than a mis-match between audio and visual attributes.

The above sentence is a little unclear. Did you mean to say that "that type of relationship" makes for a massive improvement?

Or by when you talk of a "mis-match" are you meaning the timing?

I understand you're... Korean? I don't know. But really, your English is great and I feel slightly bad pointing such things out. But where your meaning becomes unclear, it is a slight problem.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what 'Squigglevision' as you call intentionally wobbly gfx has to do with short attention spans...

The filesize/music quality issue: you're totally, totally right. To be honest, I'm not totally sure if I understood all the export quality options at the time. I may have been overly worried with making it bigger than necessary.

The part after the astronauts enter is my favourite too. :-)

I'm not at all sure what exactly you mean by 'supporting attributes'. I noticed you use this phrase a lot in the reviews. I'll maybe have to e-mail you regarding that.

overall:
========
constructive criticism/suggestions: 7 - Just the low quality audio.

exposition of experience: 8 - You really let me know how it made you feel. I'd have maybe liked to know whether you looked at the comments and whether you liked them or not, but that's no biggie.

praise/encouragement: 10 - Obviously easier in cases where you like the flash. But seriously, your review is great, ending on a high note, and it makes me want to animate a bit more than I did before.

clarity of expression: 6 - a few bits I didn't understand, but you do a better job than many native speakers of English.

elaboration & being specific: 10

coverage (how much): 9


overall: 9

I love the way that you focus on aspects of the 'artistry' which others don't often mention. You really seem to approach reviewing from your own angle and I really, really enjoyed reading this.

My only real complaint is the few parts that were unclear. I feel like a bit of a prick for saying that though, given that English isn't your first language.