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Slackman

52 Movie Reviews

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Not bad, but needs a little work

You get your point across pretty well, so I'm not going to give you any advice on how to improve your story telling. Your animation however, well pretty impressive, could use some work...

For example, you might want to experiment with easing your tweens. Pretty much everything here move at a constant rate, stopping and starting nearly immediately. The truck was a good example for this. If you eased it into its stopping, it would look more realistic, rather than just having it stop immediately. Experiment with it, it'll help you.

The other big problem I had with this is your awareness of the stage. Keep in mind that everything on the stage will be shown to your audience unless you are using a camera device (I can't remember what they're called). A lot of times, we can see the edges of things around the background. When we see the line of coats at the end, we can see the white behind them. Make sure that you're filling your stage. At some points, zooming in a bit would cover the animation mistakes (take a look at the guy when he peeks into the bushes, he doesn't have feet at first).

But you show a generous amount of skill in animation. The things that you hand animated looked really good and even your tweens looked relatively natural (with the exception of the easing). Your drawing style is good. You just need to clean things up a bit, then you'll get a higher score. Keep it up though, I'm excited to see what you come up with next.

Rovertarthead responds:

Wow thanks alot thats some great info for me. Yeah i was having a little trouble with the truck driving part motion tween and on my computer when i play a test movie SWF file it looks all good that you can't even see where the edges are in the corners of my scenes. Its just when i put it on Newgrounds it automatically changed the screen size!

PS: I love drawing.

I don't know much about sprites, but...

Here's what I can tell you about your animation. It's running too fast, turn down the frame rate or just put one picture every other frame. This will slow things down to a less ridiculous speed.

The sound is not synched because Flash has a flaw in it that causes that to happen. Place the sound inside of a movie clip and then place the movie clip wherever you had the sound, everything should sync up the way you want it.

On to the actual short. I have no idea who Vaati is supposed to be, and this short doesn't really have a plot. I don't know what a "rope" snake is either. If I wanted to see Link kill random creatures, I would play a Zelda game. You might want to consider coming up with a more complex plot or a way to use sprites that's more impressive than emulating the series of games from whence they came. Really, the entire short was pretty boring. Not all sprite movies have to be wacky comedies or anything like that, but you might want to take a look at some of the higher rated sprite movies and ask yourself why people like them so much. Take it from there.

globep responds:

DUDE ! READ THE DESCRIPTION SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO WASTE YOUR TIME WRITING THREE PARAGRAPHS ! Too bad ya don't read very much ! AND DUDE ! STOP ACTING LIKE A SMARTY PANTS AND GO ON WIKIPEDIA OR SOMETHING ! For the love of G-d and all that is HOLY >_< ! PLEASE GET A BRAIN !

Eh...

I give you points for creativity. I've never seen an online flame war turn into a pokemon battle before. That being said, there's some things you could work on.

For example, the beginning portion of the movie, when it's just a chat room is pretty boring. If you were making jokes, I wasn't getting them. It just came off as uninteresting dialogue. You should either spice it up a bit or shorten it, because it doesn't hold one's attention for that long.

The fight itself was a bit better. It was kind of clever and sorta funny. I wish you had put more effort into animating the attacks and made it visually more interesting, but it was passable. The spam in particular I thought was a clever attack.

The ending needs some work though. If you hadn't clarified the punchline, I wouldn't have gotten it. I'd like to see that guy's head explode. That's the advantage of animation, you're able to depict things like that. You would have gotten the point across much more clearly by actually showing what you were talking about, rather than the indirect route you took.

Lastly, the little animation at the end with the guy bouncing the ball. It's kind of a lame loop, it feels like it should have a higher frame rate. On top of that, the shadow of the ball sometimes becomes the ball. I don't know how you didn't catch that one. A few more in-betweens would have been a bit impressive. Also, if you had put an end to the loop, having the character drop the ball at some point or something like that, it would have been far more interesting.

That being said, this submission shows little effort. Put in a bit more time and you'll make something more impressive. You show some creativity, particularly in the battle segment, but much of the rest of it feels tacked on and poorly made.

Nice!

That was pretty damn funny! Well executed. Your style was a bit rough, but worked admirably. The only advice is I can give applies to when he was taking his drink and his cheeks filled up. His cheeks looked like they could use an in-between or two. That being said, I'm just nitpicking. Good job!

Also, I would have liked a burp at the end, or maybe he could wipe his mouth or drool or something. I don't know, it just seemed like it could have used something to cap the ending... I'm nitpicking again though. I look forward to seeing the rest of the series!

It's okay.

Well, I'm glad to see somebody using some new sprites. It's a breath of fresh air. The music doesn't add much, but it doesn't take away much either.

Here are your problems however.

You need a background. Even if you want to do something simple, that's fine. It would reflect the sprites pretty well, which are simple themselves. A white background in completely unimpressive however. Using flash, you have no excuse to not add in a background. Just make another layer, use a brush, add a few lines... voila! Not too difficult, and it would add a lot.

Secondly, and this is a big one, you zoom out too far. It makes the sprites look fuzzy and undefined, and it's difficult to tell what's going on. If you want to zoom in and out a bit, that's fine, but please make sure that you can keep things in focus. Seeing little characters zoom around the screen and not being able to tell what they're doing is a big problem for a fight scene.

The static is okay I guess. It doesn't really add much or take away much, but the other problems are really hurting your cartoon.

Pretty good!

Well, it was short, but effective. I liked the joke, it got a smile outta me. The animation itself was pretty simple, but it got the job done. Stylistically this is very well done and the music compliments the animation well.

The only thing I can really judge is your drawing style. I was once told that when animating, the two most important things to focus on are faces and hands. Some of the faces are pretty good, for example the main guy and the cop. I don't know why you didn't bother to detail the wife's face that much however. I think the joke would have worked better if you went into extreme detail, kind of like one of those disturbingly detailed close ups from Ren and Stimpy. Also, the back of the cop's head isn't all that impressive. Try actually drawing the back of somebody's head from real life, see what it looks like then try again.

The hands in this could use some serious work though. Everybody's got sausage fingers and their hands look deformed. The best advice I ever received about drawing hands was that you should draw them like mittens, and then go into detail (dividing up the fingers, adding in knuckles, etc...). Try some life drawing, get the anatomy down. It'll help.

Some of the animation works better than other parts. The cop approaching the car for example is not that great, but while the guy is driving things work well enough. Nothing too serious, but it could use some tweeking.

But otherwise good job. You made a funny short, with a decent sense of style. Well done.

MrMeeky responds:

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Yeah, my drawing lacks a lot of things, really. I'm getting better all the time, though. I've never been able to draw hands but I'll take your advice!

Pretty damn good!

This is very good for your first flash. You made good use of transparent objects, the backgrounds looked pretty good and everything was pretty fluid.

Here are a couple of minor bits of advice.

Number one. The pilot in the window of the plane didn't look all that good. He looked roughly done and unnecessary. He didn't take away from the cartoon all that much, but he added nothing and made things feel less clean. Either get rid of him or clean him up. If you insist on having him there, make it a bit more natural. Maybe he can move a bit, shoot a glance at the skydiver or something. Not a big deal, but something.

Next, this bothered me a bit. The dude who was diving out of the plane was wearing some loose clothing. It should have been flapping like crazy, shouldn't it? A good way to produce an effect like that would be to trace his clothing a few times and cycle it, putting it on its own layer, while his hands and face and hair could be on their own layers. This is how that animated "shiver action is created. It would help things feel more realistic.

Next, there's a shot of the diver from above. There's something off about it. I think it's his shoulders. Maybe it's just me, but I would go on google and find some pictures of skydivers, or even just have a friend lie down on the ground in that same position and see what his shoulders look like. It just doesn't look natural.

That's really all the advice I can give you on the animation. It all works pretty damn well and looks pretty good, especially for your first animation. Admittedly, the actual content of this short isn't that inventive or original, but when you're experimenting with techniques, that's just fine. Content comes later, once you've got the basics down. Great job and keep up the good work!

It's a good start

What you have here is a good start to a cartoon, but you need to put in more effort. The idea is pretty funny, but there are several flaws which prevent this flash from being great.

First of all, lip synching. Do it. It's a lot of work, but if you want your flash to be taken seriously, then you need to put in that effort. Moving the heads is a start, but their lips, or stitch things that are where their mouths should be should open when they're talking. I'm pretty sure that there's tutorials on NG about how to lip synch, take a look at them. Flapping mouths are barely more impressive than the moving heads.

Also, things seem a little overly tweened in general. If you insist on tweening that much, then change the symbols a couple of times. Have their hands moving or something. Articulating more than just the head will help. I always suggest putting in the extra effort and FBFing, but if you aren't willing to do that, then at least tween it to a higher extent, and work to make it a bit more fluid.

One last animation tip. Remember that you are working in animation and you can do anything with it. When the biker gets hit, exacerbate things a bit. Maybe he lands on the hood and splats and then flails into a wall or off of a cliff or something. Maybe he could get dragged under the car for awhile. The car would keep moving and drag him behind it, or he could even just get crushed by a tire. Just tweening a guy bouncing off the hood of a car isn't that interesting. Add in some physical comedy. Really try to push it to the limit. You don't necessarily need to make it graphic if you don't want to (although I get the sense that graphic would be right up your alley, at least for this flash), but really push the joke further.

The voice acting and writing are pretty decent though. You've got a funny joke here, and I just wish that the visuals could compare to the audio. You've got a good basis to work off of, but you really need to push it further.

Go easy on you?

I'm going to start off by saying that the sound design was pretty good. The animation on the other hand, was not. If you really want to impress people, you have to put in that extra effort. For example, at the beginning, when he's walking around with the flashlight, maybe have something being revealed by the flashlight, rather than just showing us a triangle of light. Take advantage of masking layers. For that matter, put something in the background for us to see. Even a few pipes would add some much needed atmosphere.

When the blood hits the wall, it flickers and moves around in strange ways. Take a glass of juice and throw it at a wall or something along those lines, take note of what happens. It'll give you a good idea of what blood hitting a wall will look like.

The guns look pretty good, but the animation of the human creature things does not. Take a look at your foot, I'm sure it doesn't look like a circle. That doesn't mean that you can't simplify your foot, but it's kind of a slope with a flat bottom right? Use that, it'll make things look better.

On top of that, this is probably just a personal peeve here, but seeing a character with no arms or legs strapped up like that looks kind of silly. If you're going for horror, you should remember that the essence of horror is that your audience needs to relate to your victim. The more realistic you make him, the better off you will be. I'm sorry, but a circle with hair just isn't all that interesting for a head.

There are several tutorials on this very site that demonstrate how to do proper walking and make it look better. Take a look at them. If you insist on using characters without limbs, watch Krinkle's Madness series and watch how his characters move. I'm not necessarily saying that you should copy him, but rather that you should see what he does right and work off of it.

Anyway, this certainly isn't the worst first flash I've ever seen. For a first one, it isn't too bad, and I hope this advice helps you with the sequel.

LeTsKiLl4JeSuS responds:

Well thanks for not being a total asshole about the review.Ill take it into consideration.

Not bad... but

It could be better. Look at the timing for example. A lot of this goes by very quickly. Don't be afraid to hold shots for a few seconds occasionally. It helps put emphasis on certain actions and makes your characters movements a bit more realistic feeling. Slow things down a bit. Let us see the looming monster for more than just a second. A lot of your shots just feel like they're zooming by too quickly.

Also, you'll probably get this a lot, but you might want to consider adding some music or sound effects. They will help improve this, putting emphasis on the action and making the cuts feel more natural and less jarring.

Lastly, I appreciate that you did this FBF, and that looks fantastic, but a lot of this is still a bit jumpy. You might want to consider adding in a few more in-betweens or blurring the action a bit more. It feels a bit choppy, especially near the end, but adding in a few more frames will clean this up.

But onto the good. Your characters look bright and colorful and well drawn. The baby is quite cute. The characters are relatively solid feeling and the plot is fun to watch. The FBF adds a lot to it and the extra effort definitely pays off.

Sorry, I do have one more complaint. Please, please, PLEASE use a preloader! With a file this big, it won't load immediately and it lags and pauses. There are several available for free from this website under the downloads section. I would recommend taking advantage of them.

AndreaC responds:

Thanks your feedback has been very helpful, looking foward to making changes.

I'm just your friendly, neighbor hood slacker!

Scott Kalison @Slackman

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Joined on 9/26/07

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