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Slackman

52 Movie Reviews

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It's ok

I get the idea behind this, and it's a kind of funny one, but the animation itself is suffering from problems.

First thing's first. Get a preloader. They've got some free ones here that you can alter to your own means if you so desire. With a file this large it's really necessary, otherwise it won't load all at once and things get ridiculously laggy.

Alright, now for the actual animation. In my honest opinion, you need to put more work into this. Sonic's run is far too slow. It looks like you shot his feet on twos, but his feet should be moving at an incredible speed, not a slower one.
Mario looks overly tweened. His feet look like they're gliding across the ground rather than walking on it. Animate it yourself and put some weight on it. Trust me, it's not that hard and it'll add a lot to your animation.

Link's death was the funniest in my opinion. I can't give you much advice because very little was animated there.

Snake's wasn't all that interesting, but win some lose some, right?

Your backgrounds are unimpressive and bland, a little bit of detail goes a long way.

My last piece of advice: I haven't checked out number two yet, but what I can tell you is that we've all seen video game characters get killed before. Be as creative as you can with their deaths. Sonic getting nailed by Robotnik? Not that funny, we've all had it happen to us within the game. Mario falling to his death, kind of funny, a bit surprising, but we've all seen it happen. The reason Link's death works so well is because it's something new. A lot of these deaths don't differ enough from what happens in their respective games, so they're simply not that interesting to watch.

I'm sorry. Looking back on this review I realize that I've said nothing positive. Your short was kind of entertaining, but it could use some serious work. It's not hideous. It is watchable, it just needs something to set it apart from the rest of the crowd.

PenCapChew89 responds:

Thank you I will take it all on board, Im quite new 2 flash and I dont really know the ins and outs as of yet but im sure they will improve thank you v much pal

Nothing special

I'm going to skip saying that this is short, because I'm pretty sure that you're aware of that.

Your characters look okay, although the guy talking by the tree looked like he had a Picasso-esque thing going on with his face which I wasn't sure if it was intentional or not. The lip synching took me by surprise, it was pretty good, but it wasn't connected to his face much, which kind of tainted it for me. The bodies don't move much at all, which really just isn't all that impressive to watch. A little random movement here and there would go a long way. Maybe have somebody scratch their nose or something simple like that to keep people a bit more interested in the characters.

The biggest problem though was that I simply have no idea how the two parts of this are supposed to be connected. They juxtapose one another in both style and content, which makes for a generous divide between them and made things feel incongruent. If they resembled one another in style, the comparison between the two situations would come off a bit better, and they wouldn't seem so at odds with one another.

Also, the chocolates to the face come a bit quickly. The transition hits us, and we see a random character get nailed in the face almost instantly. I couldn't figure out what happened until I saw the character get up. You might want to hold the shot for a second or two longer before the hit, to make sure that people see the set up and understand what's happening before it happens. Maybe have a little dialogue or something. A sound effect would help emphasize your character getting hit in the head. Also, you might want to show him lying on the ground to help with some continuity there and to make sure people get the joke.

Finally, you should put a little more effort into your backgrounds, it'll go a long way, trust me.

I realize I've said nothing good, and I don't want you to believe that I don't think this short has any potential. It does, I'm just being critical. You seem to have a good sense of where you want to take this short and a funny idea behind it, you just need to put in a bit more effort in order to execute it. The music works well with the cartoon and adds to the tone, and although your characters are not the best drawn I've ever seen, they get the job done.

IZSBHR responds:

It's short? Really? I thought it was, like, Jungleland, Bat out of Hell, and the rousing "I'm gonna build me a house!" Mary's Place. Free e-chocolate to whoever gets those references

I don't see the Picaso resemblance. It's supposed to be an angle from the side.

I originally had the guy sleeping at the tree tapping his foot every few seconds, but flash wasn't responding well to it and kept skipping frames in the movieclip.

The two parts are supposed to be a humorous juxtaposition of the positives and negatives of love, the first half being two characters from the series who are in a successful relationship, and the ladder half being the series' protagonist, who struggles to maintain a relationship. The reason for the different styles is simply that the two take place on completely different planet.
The characters and storyline of this series have not yet been established well, simply because my explanation script is long and complicated, and will undoubtedly take ages to make.

Alien Boy (The green haired dude) never got hit in the head, it was on his head already when a door was slammed in his face.

The character models for the humans haven't been updated in literally almost 2 years, and I plan on updating them with something closer to my on-paper versions of them. As for the aliens, they look perfect to me and I love the designs.

I hope that clears some stuff up, thanks for the review!

Excellent

You should be proud, this is a very well produced animation. I only have two minor bits of advice on how to improve it.

The first is that the characters look a bit stiff occasionally. It's not a huge deal, but a little more FBF might help make things look a bit more lifelike. That being said, you do tween your characters very well, but a bit more FBF might just add that little something extra.

Secondly, I wish your characters had a bit more emotion in their faces. I noticed that throughout most of the fight, Mario had the same face. When his hammer fails to make a dent, should he not be surprised or disappointed? Even just furrowing his brow a bit more would let us know that the failure of his attack has strengthened his resolve.

But these are minor complaints at best. Good job!

Not bad!

Well, I can definitely appreciate that you've done this by hand. It gives the cartoon a special look, something different which you don't see that much nowadays. Thumbs up for putting in the extra effort.

The music also fits pretty well. The one thing I would change about the music is the ending. The ending at least looks like it's supposed to be a bit surprising, and if you use a change in music to help emphasize that, it'll help. For a great example of what I'm talking about, check out Jerry by HotDiggetyDemon, seen here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view /384664. You'll see what I mean.

As far as the animation goes, it's pretty decent, but you should have a bit more fun with it. If he's going to hit the button, use some anticipation. Maybe he winds up first. Most of the animation is straightforward, and it would be a bit more interesting if the character had some quirk to his movements. Also, I think you hold the timing for the fall just a little bit too long. If it really took that long, and the character was just standing there, he would probably step onto solid ground. You might want to try to have him freak out a bit or jump before he falls, or just not hold it for so long.

I love the expressiveness of the drawings, particularly at the end. Keep up the good work! I can't wait to see what you do next!

A dose of pure happy...

The visuals matched the music well, good job there.

My biggest complaint would be the actual animation. While a lot of it you could get away with due to quick cuts and the like, a lot of it felt choppy. Especially the ending, when the guys were doing things in tune with the music, things felt unnatural. FBF would help with that, and if you don't want to do that, tweening with easing could help too.

Really, I'd say that you relied too much on just tweening and moving things, but it's hard to say that because for the most part you get away with it. If you really want to impress people, I'd suggest adding in a bit of FBF, but that's your choice I suppose.

All in all, good job! I enjoyed it.

I like it!

I'll start off by saying that the title of this flash was awesome.

But that's not very helpful, is it? Plot itself worked fine, but if you're going to do a piece without dialogue, that's reliant on the action completely, you should definitely put emphasis on the characters. Have some fun with it. A lot of the time, particularly near the beginning, the main character's movements seemed a bit stiff and overly-tweened. This improved as the short went on, but it was still there.

But some of the movements could use some more observation. For example, watch a bird in flight. I've never seen them bob up and down while flying. Also, when the character gets up near the dumpster, take a little time and have some fun with it. The action seems to run into itself. Most people don't just push off and wind up on their feet. Maybe have him get to his knees first or something like that? Maybe he could grab his head for a moment and steady himself or wipe off the dirt? Something needs to be in there to make it seem more natural.

Finally, 12 frames per second isn't bad. It's the minimum for the human eye to perceive movement. Most animation (at least traditionally), is shot at 24 frames per second, but each frame is shot twice, so it essentially runs by at 12 FPS.

Anyway, good job! I can't wait to see what you come up with in the future.

PIED3 responds:

I see exactly what you mean about the animation, Ill and spend more time on it next time, and thankyou for the long and detailed review!

Pretty good!

It's tough to judge compilations such as this because it's sketch comedy and therefore will always vary in quality from sketch to sketch. What I can say is that this was pretty consistent, pretty clever at points and generally well drawn.

The animation seemed a bit rushed at points, making it occasionally a bit choppier than I would have liked, but generally speaking you got away with it because of the quality of the individual drawings. This is tough to say, because it does not apply to every segment, merely some of them. Some of them are choppy ar rely a bit too heavily on tweens, making them look a bit unnatural, but it doesn't take away too much from the piece as a whole.

All in all, good job!

It's ok

You have some ability drawing. but the timing in this piece is almost painful. It goes by slow as molasses. You have to remember your audience, and this is the internet audience, meaning that pretty much everyone's going to have the attention span of a squirrel on a caffeine rush. Your shots last too long. Keep them just long enough for people to get the point, after that your audience will get bored by it.

On top of that, some audio would seriously help. It helps maintain interest and adds to the piece for multiple other reasons.

The characters are well drawn and aesthetically pleasing though, you should take pride in that.

Not bad

It's pretty good. Your direction is interesting and the FBF is decent. I'm not going to bother to tell you that this is rough, because I'm sure that you're aware of that. The animation itself is unrefined and the characters wobble quite a bit. Clean it up and it'll get a higher score.

You might want to experiment with timing a bit. A lot of the action goes by really quickly and seems unnatural because of it. Holding frames for a bit can help put extra emphasis on actions and make things look more natural.

It's pretty decent, but it could use some refinement.

Jereminion responds:

hello i am working on something better now thx for review

Potential

You've got some potential here. I see what you're going at, but the abrupt ending doesn't help the joke, it takes away from it.

Aside from that, the animation near the beginning is decent, although I can't say much for the ending.

Lastly, your style changes dramatically from the beginning to the end of this piece. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it lends itself to creating a dissonance in the cartoon and hurts the feeling of continuity, which is harmed even more by the abrupt ending.

You show some potential here, with some decent animation, but the piece is too short and doesn't feel cohesive.

Animattions responds:

Thanks, i see what you're talking about, the whole abrupt ending is supposed to be there, the idea is to sorta get people to think "WTF?" then they realise the gag more, i know alot of people don't get that sort of humour straight off.

Yeah my style changed at the end to sort of convey reality, due to the fact that he's all cartoony in the firts part to sorta show that it's just the everyday mario...then when he does hit his head he's in hospital because that's what would most likely happen in that case lol.

Thank you for the review i have a few projects coming up that are totally different and more like a cartoon rather than a skit :), so i'll try and take what you've said and use it well with that!

Thank you!

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Scott Kalison @Slackman

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Joined on 9/26/07

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