Age/Gender: 16, Male
Location: Florida!
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90 Reviews | 32 w/ Responses
It's a Parody if it's about Odysseus/based on the Odyssey :P
Second, the voice as the tale 'began' was incredibly quiet, and voices in general are kinda, odd, or maybe it's the script, I dunno, it sounded weird whenever they talked.
Speaking of weird, I know you wanted to stylize the noses, but just having them jut out like that does not match the style of the rest of the movie.
Work on your animation as well, and it'll be a pretty cool, bro :)
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Interesting, by far.
Also wondering, what is the name of the song used in the credits?
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It was nice, a little lengthy for me to keep my interest, sorry : /
It seemed like you wanted it to be a very big scale production, but certain features prevented this.
1a) Quality: I know you probably worked outside of flash and had to export in a non-vector form, and you had to condense it from 22 minutes, but maybe you should try just uploading multiple parts, that way they can also be easily watched in shorter, less time-demanding pieces :)
1b) Art: The art was very much well done, actually. Not much to say here except on some occasions check characters' proportions/face. But quite good job overall.
Also, I personally don't like Anime. You'd be real good at more realistic figures, why limit yourself?
2) Drama: For some reason, I felt the movie could have been more 'capturing.' Perhaps that's partly due to the compressed quality, but I think it would also actually be BETTER if you were able to shorten the movie. Remember, just because something's long doesn't mean it's good, and a shorter movie with more condensed emotion is better than a longer movie with more spread out and sparse emotion.
Other than that, nice job :)
Author's Response:
Yeah....peoples time and attention spans are fragile...22 minutes is too long. The longer it is, the better it should be.
I'm with you 1,000,000,000%. This could and should have been more capturing. I feel its due to the story, style, and execution. In general, everything.
"just because something's long doesn't mean it's good,"
I'm with you 1,000,000,000,000,000%
"shorter movie with more condensed emotion is better than a longer movie with more spread out and sparse emotion."
Exactly. Brevity.
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... of those old timey cartoons. I'm sure you've heard that before, but it all seems very traditional and classic. I think it's in part what gives you your novelty: You are not only an excellent animator in the sense of more 'modern' animation styles, but also a great sketching and scanning one as well =D
Got a 9 only because of shortness, and a little because of the voices, but of course those aren't really limiting factors of your own talent ;)
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Quadripeligics don't have to be naked :P
Animation was smooth, almost too smooth in some places, as in lacking energetic motions, mostly the characters kinda 'morphed' between various poses, rather than appearing to actually have momentum and inertia. Try squashing and stretching your movements a little more :)
Curly's voice is REALLY nasly and weird in his first line. In his second, he sounds completely normal. It's kinda weird.
For some reason, Wavy's pose when he says "Who wants to go to the beach," looks REALLY weird, probably because he doesn't actually put his arms behind the other characters, and he seems incredibly large compared to both of them.
Overall, it was good, but a little more effort/'omph' put into it would really make it nice, I suppose that would've happened if you had a little more time to work on it :P
Author's Response:
yeah. all the stuff before they leave quincy on the beach alone was done over the course of two months, and the rest of that in one week.
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"Look out! It's a super wordy and in-depth review!"
It was all pretty well done, but could use a little polishing maybe?
Naturally, when I talk about polishing, I don't mean in terms of visuals/animation, which was generally very well done.
However, were some parts of the movie slightly touched on, it would have been a solid 10!
1: Sounds, while there was music and sound effects throughout, if there was some more key sounds, such as footsteps, sound effects for when the space-car lands before the combat scene, and putting more emphasis (i.e. raising the volume) on the sounds for the combat/magic scene, it would have been that much more immersing.
2. Reworking of Humor: Specifically, I'm referring to a few scenes in which it was obvious that you intended to make the viewer laugh, but I was so put off by the absolute absurdity that I just found it bizarre.
My first example is when you have Romeo begin shooting at the protest group. This could have worked, but the main boss's reaction is so calm and nonchalant after talking about how important it is that they don't mess too much with the protesters that it's just unsettling. Having the boss completely flip out would have been much more effective.
My other example is when you have the hired hitwoman dragging the boss's wife across the street, and then at one point mentions how much she likes her hair. I think it would have been fine to have had the hitwoman bring this up just as she's dragging his wife, with the wife still screaming or similar. Even having the hitwoman stop and lift the woman by the hair with one hand (which is quite unrealistic) is somewhat odd. However, you also have the woman, who was only a few seconds ago screaming her head off and being kidnapped, seemingly completely forget that someone was yanking her off the ground by her hair and kindly thank that very person who was dragging her along the ground is simply too exaggerated and unrealistic to even be funny.
All in all, you appear to making a drama, not a comedy, so keep it a drama. Sure, you can add bits of comedy here and there, but don't make it detract from the overall tones and themes of your production.
3. Plot Coherence/Smoothness: I'm not really sure if that's the best way to describe what I want changed, but I'll give you some examples.
Try and show in the first scene with Romeo and the boss that the boss actually IS in a toilet that's in another room, and isn't in the same room as Romeo. The similar wall colors and lack of specifically showing that the boss was in a different room tricked me the first time I saw it.
When the boss is talking to his wife in the space-car, how come he doesn't notice she has a knife to her neck, and continues to act cheery?
When the hitwoman injects the boss with whatever it was, it first looks like he's dead, and it was poison. I was of course disappointed that that was how the battle ended, but whatever. And then, all of a sudden, a very quick shot is shown of a fist coming from the bottom of the screen, punching at the lady, I think? I guess you were probably going for surprise, but it would have been nice to have gotten at least some visual clue in the previous scene that the boss didn't die for whatever inexplicable reason and is about to start fighting again.
For the love of god, please do NOT use the scribbly text "Painkiller" with an arrow to show that the needle the hitwoman injects herself with is a painkiller. That totally killed the mood set, and I know you could have figured out a better way to show this. Maybe show a closeup of the needle in her hand, with painkiller inscribed on it, or she pulls it out of a box that says Painkiller, or ANYTHING that isn't scribbly text with an arrow. You're above that :P
I'm running out of words, but that's the basic gist of my list. If I didn't mention anything, consider it done well. Well, except for a FEWWWW things, but yeah, if you want, I could tell you in a PM.
But you probably don't need to worry about it. Keep up the good work/effort :)
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I loved every single part of it!
Except for the somewhat choppy/confusing animation. As in, sometimes it was kinda hard to see what exactly was going on, specifically when the boy's jumping around all happy (I would liked to have seen him higher/more in the shot) and when the boy's with the girl and a puzzle shoe falls down into place, it's kinda hard to see exactly who's/which it is.
But, still, 9.5/10 for being totally original, bright, and great!
Oh yeah, and I kinda didn't love the beatbox. It was okay, butchyea >.>
But still STILLLLL Awesome job, all of you! :D
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"Pencilmation's kinda losing its novelty..."
When you first started pencilmations, indeed, I had seen many times before the idea of things being drawn in during the animation, changing the story. But, it was okay that you still did it; it still felt at least a little original.
But now, I'm really wishing that you would move on to a more complex type of animation. The black and white stick figure drawing is getting kinda repetitive, and I'd like to see you grow as an artist, rather than be stuck in this gag forever.
Even the original humor, most of which stemmed from the acts of a pencil drawing things to dramatically alter a situation, has become kind of weak. As an example, nothing is drawn after the characters are made (which doesn't really count, that's more of an entrance) except for the glass dome.
However, if you still find it neccesary to keep making Pencilmations for a long time, I suggest you increase the overall pace, especially with the humor, and definitely EXPERIMENT with other things: Dialogue, multiple pencils, colors... Anything to seperate them from your previous works.
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BUT, I had two problems...
1: I couldn't figure out a way to kill the spider.
2. When I put whiskey in the trade-o-matic, I got into the "ready to fight the pig hunter" pose.
(I got all the way as far as meeting Mr. Personality)
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Very interesting take on the kill everything genre, where the victims have literally no chance of fighting back. Also with dialogue, which was nice I guess.
For some reason, I don't actually find this cliched. I don't know why, though I should.
-1 Star for graphics, but you knew that was coming, eh? Although, +.4 stars for making the style work anyways. SO, technically 9.4/10 :D
Author's Response:
Thanks for the score. It's hard to ride that fine line, poking fun at the cliche without actually being cliche. I think I can pull it off a couple more times. Maybe even better!
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