Galneda's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[c/o Flap Jackson]

Exceptional work was done to these sets, props, wardrobe and characters. The environment and lighting were superb! Really impressive work, and inspiring that claymation / stop-motion animation is still going strong here on NG. Knox, eat yer heart out.

What were some challenges you encountered when making this short? I would love to hear, read, or watch the process to make this piece. Easy five from me, this was so cool and well done.

JWLustig responds:

Thank you! The greatest challenges were probably the set and puppet making. And setting up that long scene between Flap and Charlie knowing I'd be animating for like 3 days, securing everything down and praying I wouldn't screw up. Part of the reason I do 2D animation instead these days!

[RETRO ARCADE ANIME: R-TYPE]

It's absolutely gorgeous. The homages to 80's anime like Macross, Zeta Gundam, and R-Type itself are phenomenally executed. Voice actors Haylizbeth and RicePirate do an outstanding job, although its hilarious how your UK bleeds through getting an American to say lines like "buggered."

The whole thing is brilliantly colorful, and it's astonishing how much labor went into this thing. I recognized your style IMMEDIATELY as the TIE Fighter anime from a few years ago, and MAN, you've really improved a lot since then. However, there are many moments of unnecessary over-animation. The character spouting off and roasting the arcade, it's wonky dialogue, but man, he just doesn't stop moving.

I suppose you COULD have saved yourself some nightmarish headaches by keeping his poses pretty basic, because when it comes to this tendency to overly elaborate movements constantly, every shot that they're in, sometimes you find yourself in poses that are very rigid and unnatural like when he's wincing in terror "H.R. Giger is that you!?" -before dropping the scaredy-cat act after that awkward line and returning to his neutral "I'm a fighter pilot" pose. (That line, incidentally, doesn't make sense because...he's not H.R. Giger, he looks like a Xenomorph, sort-of, which he designed...it's clumsy explaining it, it was clumsy to hear.) Or like that ending, stiff as hell "Hmmmmmm" pose he shares in the end with Haylizbeth's character. Her arms way up, he's cupping his chin with an arm popped out at a weird angle, it's just corn upon corniness (which I acknowledge may be the whole point.)

I'm sure the action would seem a lot punchier if it didn't sound like the guitar was softly bouncing off the walls from a distant hallway. No fault on your part, I'm not sure how much control you have over what music you can use, but even when there was plenty of room for the music to breathe and emote the tone of the action, it was barely audible.

What was no doubt unintentional, which I definitely saw an improvement from the TIE Fighter short, was there's a lot of fundamentals in motion animation that needs to be tweaked and practiced. For example, he finds that he's not only in the game, but sitting in the cockpit of the R-Type fighter. He gets ready, hands on the stick, throttle up, everythings building up HERE WE GO AND he just kinda....drifts away. Everything that moves is very drifty. Speed is lost upon things that are trying to look fast.

The camera is doing some crazy 3D assisted maneuvers, ambitiously rocketing in and swiveling out and doing all sorts of things, but there's no easing, the motions are just kinda going from place to place. Every once and a while the camera will lock onto an object and your eye, as an audience member, can't help but think this is an unintentional/unnatural byproduct of how the camera's rigged. It's not like that Go-Pro shot on Poe Dameron's X-Wing like it's affixed to the fuselage, it's very clearly, rigidly, just like "this thing isn't moving, everything else is moving." Like that alien at 2:05, dominating center frame, and everything in the world is doing something except for the body of this focal point creature. It's the uncanny valley of motion that can take people out of immersion.

A positive example to fix this is probably my favorite shot, the dead pilot overtaken by the alien organism at 1:31- that simple, simple camera zoom while all the tendrils pulse life in contrast to the pilot's lifeless husk was SO effective. Sometimes less is more, and it's beneficial to keep it simple so you can make other parts stand out and shine. Like when he's spitting out Macross missiles going buckwild all over the place.

The special effects are a marvel and a study-piece for me to pick apart frame by frame. I love the anime reflectivity going on in the metal panels, that pink-eyed Zaku with biology all up in it was fucking gorgeous and perfect...it's just MOTION, man. Dramatic, lively motion is missing from this. All I can recommend is Richard William's Animator's Survival Kit, (which is like essential reading, practically bible) and to study frame by frame the rate at which these starships are rocketing in and out and curving away at the rate that they do from some crazy stuff you like to watch. You have special effects and 3D roto down like a super pro. You have your STYLE nailed down to an enviable degree...once you nail the imitation of life, you're going to be an unstoppable champion for animators everywhere.

Never ever stop, I'm rooting for you dude. This shit is a masterpiece, and the next thing you do will dwarf this for sure! I can't wait to see what you do next! We're watching you now! An easy easy Vote 5.

[Save Da Hyrule!]

This was hilarious! I loved the character animations too, y'all did a really good job on this! Keep up the great work!

[Sneak Bot 199X]

I love the idea of this robot, whose sole purpose is to be sneaky and by design he's clearly not. The voices were fine, and I loved the gags! SFX and music were on point as well.

What keeps this from getting a perfect score to me was pace. The world-building introductory text-crawl would only really be needed if you intended to expand upon this character and setting, but if this is a one-shot, is kinda unnecessary. The audience wouldn't think twice that, for whatever reason, they're sending this inept sneak-bot to save the president.

Also, what's up with this world's Colonel Campbell; maybe it's because he's an old white guy with white hair dressed in white, but I'm getting a serious Colonel Sanders vibe if we threw on a Daffy Duck sailor hat and slapped a Cyber eye-patch on him.

Some of the gags necessitated padding, like the slow trudge of the clunky tank treads, and slowly reversing, and that's totally fine but it helped provide the sense that the overall pace was kinda slowly trudging, there was nothing inherently quick to switch up the pace. With some minor tweaking into comedic timing, the jokes could punch more as well as quicken the pace of the overall short.

Having said all of that, I think you did great! Voted 5!

SuperPhil64 responds:

Hey thanks a bunch for the nice words and feedback! Storytelling and writing are two things i'm trying to improve so i will definitely keep this feedback in mind moving forward!

As for the Mission Command guy i tried to just make him look really goofy, figured a world with shitty robots would have shitty leaders. But who knows maybe he also has a chain of fried chicken restaurants?

[Define Intervention]

What a production! Everyone involved did a spectacular job on this. What I'd call the internet equivalent of a star-studded cast, the audio was mixed well (There was like, one too-quiet line as the protagonist priest was just leaving his church in the beginning). The music was on-point, the action and dialogue alike were well-paced. The animation was MARVELOUSLY well done! I had a great time watching it!

I can't wait to see what awaits us an audience as your talented-ass thrives and grows. This was top-tier stuff, easily. Great job!

[How Kratos plays FNAF]

Superb animation! Really immersive, just overall fantastically done. It has a great pace to it, I love the humor, and it actually kinda downplays the horror of FNaF. Its about time those animatronic menaces got their comeuppance! And in glorious fashion, too.

Also, you succeeded in making your version of Golden Freddy significantly creepier than the original. There were SO many opportunities for you to cop out or cut corners and I'm so happy you didn't. The effort and craftsmanship you devoted into this short is evident as it is satisfying to observe. Easy five and favorite, and I'm sharing this to friends who are fans of both Kratos and FNaF. Great job!

[The Randoms: ThxGiving]

This is stellar! Intelligently stupid, but well paced and well animated. I loved the dialogue, especially the Turkey's lines. The sound effects were definitely a highlight as well. Keep up the fantastic work! Easy 5!

[The Eyes of a Stranger]

I don't mind expositing the story through a narrator, but by having active dialogue beneath it at the same time is a big no-no...it becomes difficult to focus when two people are speaking at once, and it happens often enough that its easy to lose interest. Its like having an audio book playing in the background that you can't stop while you're trying to figure out whats happening visually.

Either pause the narration in between the characters lines, or completely separate them from each other. It won't clutter it up for the audience.

The character animation looked great, its a shame this ain't finished but at least you put yourself out there with a proof of concept. I'd like to this continued! Lets see what happens. Let the audience find out who this girl is, what this place is, the significance of the heiroglyphs, and actively involve the audience in the discovery of this mysterious, bandaged entity.

It would be valuable to practice SHOWING the audience these things...show, don't tell. You're dabbling with a visual media, and you don't want to bore your audience with the silky smooth (well voice acted) narration... think about how you could visually interpret EVERYTHING that narration talked about. Try condensing the dialogue, y'know?

Hope that helps. Keep up the great work.

[Jade vs Liun Kang Fatalit]

The art is good, and the music and sound effects were sufficient. But the pace is pretty bad; there needs to be an emphasis on timing. Everything here seemed too stretched out, like every shot were many frames too long.

There's no shame in committing the effort into a short animation, but its never a good thing to pad out a brief joke.

[Hell of a Job]

All I had to do was type in "Employee of the Month" into NG's search bar...after the newgrounds submission web address, after portal, type /view/573327

Originally submitted in 2011, not long from when the audio portal submission that is the spine of this animation was done.

Some of us have seen it before. This definitely looks cleaner, it's more colorful and more complex...however, the framerate chops out when the camera tweens away, and I know its because of multiple different gradients being used. Every time they shift, each gradient needs to be re-rendered. Try to be careful not to clutter up a frame where there's a lot of dynamic movement and you have sophisticated elements at play, like gradients or big-files that are moving around; I lost framerate as well when the guy was torturing the soul. There could be ways around this, and it may be as simple as a tweak in the export settings.

BUT...take that criticism with a grain of salt; I'm not opposed to the idea that the chop in framerate may be my machine. It would do you well to research on the matter from your end of things, anyway. To experiment around, trial and error different settings outside of your comfort zone, and maybe test certain animations on a machine different from your own in the future. All a process to be done at some other time, but food for thought.

Great character designs, immersive environments/lighting, nice creative little touches of detail here and there...but with all due respect to Seymour and his voice clip, my memory is my own faulty critical bias that prevented me from giving this a full score. I crave something more original...but despite it all, the presentation was keen. I even enjoyed the interactive little buttons on the replay menu...its evident you have an eye for details.

Voted 5 because you deserve it for the amount of work you put into this. Good job! :D

Chelo-kun responds:

I am aware of the original animation on Newgrounds for the last two years while I was making this cartoon. But thank you for reminding me, just on the off chance that I might've forgotten where it came from.

I also hear ya on the lagging, please check it out on Youtube. It's much better to watch there.

As for your bias and cravings, I have no power over that. I'm afraid that's all on you. This cartoon was an experiment to see how far great art and animation by itself can go. The answer is: pretty far. The sound track was just a means to fill in the gap. But I've learned that there's more pieces to this puzzle that needs to be found. Now my technical skills are at it's best, I will go out and find my own voice and collaborate with others to make my next project into pure gold. It will be about two minutes with music and better voice acting, but you can bet to see the same, if not better, art and animation.

Thanks for the 5.