MRat's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[XXXI 1 : Outcast]

I admire the ambition here...

.. but I'm afraid the actual animation chops just weren't there to make the story compelling and real. Also the voice actors pretty well blew, but I won't focus in on that.

The breakdown:

The art, though decent, was far too bland and uninspired to match a fantasy universe. You've obviously put a whole lot of thuoght into this project, and thoroughly stretched your imagination to its limits. So if you're going to ride the ways of high fantasy and make something extravagant in plot and idea, the art and direction should match. What I saw was some browns and greens making vague shapes. Really get in their and design unique and interesting characters who are distinct and relfect your own flavour and match the universe they live in. Whatever you do though, don't pull a Jazza and make the most generic fantasy characters ever.

The animation was tweenfilled, which is fine I guess as a beginner, but if you're going to take animation seriously I reccomend going out and grabbing The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams. It's a fantastic book that goes into great detail outlining the principles of tradition and frame-by-frame animation. If you start learning from the classical formats you'll pick up how to make gravity and weight and balance feel truly real in your animations. Then you can learn the tricks and gizmos of Flash such as easing and shape tweens and you'll be able to really grasp tweens as their own art form. As is you have a few symbols getting dragged around in motions that barely resemble the actions they represent.

The direction was the biggest problem for me. You angles were just flat on and didn't really ever change. We never get close ups, or tracking shots, or any such things. Try and really mix things up and give up some shots that aren't pedestrian and textbook. As is this looks like a bad John Singleton attempt at directing. The "camera work" fails to generate any interest and just leaves the viewer staring blankly and a couple of side-scrolling characters from a distance where you can hardly learn anything about them at all. I know you aren't Rtil, but take a look at his work, especially GUM if you want to see a great example of how you can use simple view angles to really spice up your work.

Keep at it, and massive kudos for the effort you put into this. Great to see that even if this isn't the best, at least your producing unique and original content. Work hard and you'll go far!

Blakant responds:

I making my own sprites, so ppl in NG somehow do their own, rather than take some Nintendo sprite & get the credit from other ppl work!
I know its not perfect, but at least make it fair, 4/10 is too shitty for this project, dude!

How bout next time, review more postively like the bonus features & NOT advertise some book.

[Fbf BellFall]

Well FBF is nice...

... but this is pretty well just a piece of practice for you, I'd say, and not really anything worth taking great note of.

Sure the animation is FBF, which is great, more people should use FBF, but it's wobbly and it's really just a sequence of a few hundred frames of doodles flaoting about. I haven't got a problem with random animations with music and stuff, but this itself is so minimal and really just doesn't quality as anything but a mediocre-ly animated sketchbook.

My advice, clean some stuff up, give it some colour, give it some thought. Even something that is totally random should have some thought to it. Also, use the onion skin, and if you already are, pay closer attention to it and make sure you have things lined up properly. Also you don't need to continually re-draw EVERYTHING in your frame. That's the beauty of Flash, layers; take advantage of them. Even on a single character, why not try and break it up and you say only need to draw the head for some movement or whatnot.

That's my suggestion. Once you've done this, post more animation, and I'll have my eye out for it, and then I can offer guidance on actual principles of animating, such as timing.

paddy-ryan responds:

thanks

["Winter"]

Oh how I've missed you...

... every day in my mind i replay a fantastic animation of a white fellow yelling "why, satan, why" at the lord devil seated in a thrown. i waited, and waited for it, and it never came. great sadness ensued.

as for this, well gee, why it isn't rate 4.39083490859038 like half the garbage on here is, i'll never know. This deserves top 10. I love hobos, and it saddens me to see one endure such a fate, but i laugh because i know it's AWESOME. bleeding rules, especially from the eye, trust me on this one. k it sucks, but its cool to look at.

also, the music was soul raping. which is a great thing. it was absolutely perfect, just grand stuff. it fit perfectly and got on my every nerve!

finally, the art and animation. brilliance. the timings were so spot on, and the animation moved with grace. the art wasn't overly detailed, or with lots of shading, but it was pretty damn delicate, in that there were little pieces of things that could change drastically from frame to frame without a careful eye. and you kept it all in check.

Sherbalex, welcome to my favourite authors list.

Sherbalex responds:

woowwoowwowowo thanks man.
btw this might interest you.. :) http://download. yousendit.com/10BA34BD63CB641D i might finish/redo it someday!!
thanks very much for the input dude. enjoy the rest of the holiday season!

["Symphony"]

Brilliant!

A fantastic clock submission. These are so rare, so when we get em, it's a real treat! Lovely. BUT I MUST KNOW WHAT THE SONG IS!

ToadClock responds:

"Battle at Witch Creek" A beautiful piece that came to popular attention when it was featured in the classic PC game "Rise of Nations".

Glad you enjoyed it.

[Fantomas' Page 25]

This was pretty decent...

... not exactly front page stuff, well with the garbage that ends up on their these days this is a step above front page, but you catch my drift. I love Fantomas, so much, so maybe I'm biased. Mike Patton is the music equivalebt to Dr. Frankenstein.

Anyway, it was worth watching at least. Keep at it, and hopefull soon you won't be so tweeny.

[Nuts!]

Quite awesome!

I rather liked this, I must say. The art and animation was very amaterurish, but that wasn't really anything that detracted from my enjoyment. Just work are getting smoother, cleaner lines. You show alot of promise though. Despite the animation being wobbly and liquidy, you have the basic principles of timing down alot better than most others who inbetween and draw at your level. So kudos and keep at it there.

A huge joy for me was the music. I'm a Danny Elfman fanatic. If there was a complaint with the music, it would be that I wished you could have paced the toon to match how the song flows and is paced a little better. Sometimes they paired well, others the music was going one way, and the animation another. If you're not going to keep them in the same flow, you have to make it that way for the entire duration, otherwise it gets confusing. But that's some more advanced that you learn with time, and I wouldn't go in expecting it from you just yet.

The plot was simple and fun. Didn't need excessive violence, or swearing or what have you to make it what it is. It simply was what it was, and worked out great. No complaints there.

The bit at the end with the strange pointless seeming, but entirely hilarious, joke rocked my socks. It was so weird but fun. Extra bonus points for that!

Keep working hard!

[Giggles & Friends: Ep1]

That was great, but the sound quality on the voice

overs needs alot of work. It all sounded like the people were on the phone or someshit. Also they just didn't stand out right. The voice actors themselves were pretty good, not the best, but they got the job done.

Funny stuff with great designs and good animation, at least as far as tweens go. Keep at it.

[Why Am I Like This]

Nathan Lane.

That was Nathan Lane. I'd stake my entire reputation on it. That was quite cool. I enjoyed it.

[The Santa Hunt]

So you like McCracken, do you?

Anyway that was pretty good, but it was obvious you've enjoyed and drawn inspiration from the work of Craig McCracken. Anyway, nice stuff, a little short but you told the whole story, so who cares.

Pretty well animate and nice imagery/design, though I'd reccomend you clean it up a bit. There were specks of white and whatnot.

Keep at it, man.

Zorg-o responds:

yeah, Craig McCracken is one of my inspirations. The reason that it's so rough is because it had to be rushed if it were to be completed because i'm going out of town soon and couldn't of gotten it done if it weren't done by this weekend so yeah. Thanks a lot.

[Zombie en la ciudad]

Quite enjoyable even though...

... I speak very little spanish. I didn't need any, you were right. It's cool that you guys made the song too, I quite like it. I'm gunna go to your site now and check out the song.

The video was tweeny, which I hate, but it still worked over all, and the style was nice, and suiting.