blarg1's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Saint - Chapter 1]

Good graphics; wierd audio; bad history

I liked this animation, though I couldn't figure out why your narrator was doing what sounded like a bad impression of a gypsy fortune teller.

I noticed a lot of reviewers lauding the history of this piece - and any interest in history is laudable.

However, you should recognize that the knights templar, like the freemasons, are obscured by a silly quasi-history of conspiracy theories and utter lunacy. Much of this silliness is actually rooted in history itself.

I only caution that most of the "historic" novels that reference the templars, (and that includes The Davinci Code, and some of the stuff he references), bears as much resemblance to history as The X-Files.

The free-masons have also been popular targets - viz. silly movies like "American Treasure". Where I grew up in northern Ontario, the local francophones, (who were steeped in a surprisingly old French tradition of superstition), persisted in telling blood-curdling tales about the masonic temple down the street from the Catholic church.

It's a good read, though - and opens up all kinds of possibilites for creative story telling.

TheZebu responds:

Yeah, DaVinci code isn't "historic". It's not even "historic fiction". It's just a modern thriller that has a few wildly silly plot devices.

I'm not trying to incite any superstition about any existing groups, which is one reason I picked the Templar, and allows for a bit more artistic freedom. There are lots of conspiracy theories with Freemasons and the Templar, the Baphomet, etc, and they are all rubbish. I'm not trying to "expose" anything either. I have no reason to quarrel with the Freemasons, Opus Dei, or any other organization.

[.GiD.]

Courageous and competant

Our society hates Christians. It takes a great deal more courage to do what you have done than most people realize. I have tremendous respect for you.

The production was technically competant, but the sound quality was a little bit muddy. You may find that you get better results if you master all of your tracks in a tool like Sound Forge and flatten them into a single stereo track before importing them into Flash.

Some authors have quite justifiably asked where I get off offering advice or criticism when I have made no submissions to this website. The fact is, I can not. My clients are companies who would never allow their product to appear in this venue.

You'll have to take it on faith that I have encountered many of the same technical problems as you have over the years. I love Flash as an authoring tool and have been using it since it was called "Future Shock".

Best of luck in your future endeavours.

inevitability responds:

I thank you greatly for the advice. I shall seriously take into account what you just told me about the sound.

[Eggmation- Noir]

pointless

Pointless storyline. Points off for what sounds suspiciously like an Oasis track. Nasty.

TheDevilsJoker responds:

suspiciously like oasis, it WAS oasis! it said it on the audio thing...jeez.

[Nimpy_Poo: Final]

You are teh banned?

How about "you are teh blammed"/

NimpyPoo-1 responds:

why dont you love me???

[Lambi part 3]

Beautiful work - but fix the soundtrack!

Your art and naimation is beautiful, but again, the soundtrack really, desperately needs work, as it is really detracting ffrom the experience.

The soundloops you have embedded are nasty - they contain trailoing silences so they never loop correctly.

The best spproach would be to create your animation without sound, then record a "score" of all the emotional peaks and change points for the music, by writing down the time in seconds shown on the timeline in Flash at each point.

Then use a sound like Acid Music or Sound Forge to create a soundtrack for the whole thing... this way you can stitch together the sounds and make the transitions smooth.

Finally, import this new soundtrack and tweak the naimation to make sure th emusic fits exactly, then publish your movie with the music in streaming mode, to enfore synchronization.

Yes, the filesize would be larger this way than by using separate loops, but the result would be more effective. Effective compression and streaming would still make the file size manageable, even with a 10 minute score.

Failing this, at least PLEASE trip your loops so they don't hiccough all the time.
Failing

Lambi responds:

Thanks for actually giving me a few possible solutions to my problem, everyone (including myself in my comment) just states that the sounds not right, but dont offer much help

[First Things First]

The trouble with collaborations...

actually, there are two problems with collaborations:

1) first of all, a reviewer has no choice but to average the sum-total of his or her experience, so the good artists suffer because of their lazier counterparts.

2) the second problem, is that I find that in virtually every case, these "collaborations" aren't really collaborations at all' they are simply collections of stuff that get thrown together.

You would end up with a much more cohesive and impressive product if a storyboard, standards, and sketches were all worked out in advance, and everyone worked together on the same thing, instead of everyone doing their own thing and pulling in different directions.

just a thought...

zonzo responds:

We made it for fun, we didn't even know if we were going to submit it, but I see your point on serious collabs.

[The Whistler.]

This doesn't have much to say...

...and neither do I. I am dumbfounded - gobsmacked by a brain-dead animation.

wallpaperman responds:

if you wanna watch intelligent movies go to school einstein

[The Messiah of Meat]

Weird but cute

I wouldn't call this sacreligeous... just very odd.

It was cute, but the audio was excruciating to listen to, (the reversed voices are irritating), and the pacing was slow. Fixing those two things would make this much more watchable.

dravalanche responds:

I had 2 days to make and mix the audio I tried redoing the audio but I really like the way it was done originally plus there was filesize issues.

cheers

[Legend of Legion: Ep. 1]

Good beginning; needs work

You made an ambitious beginning, but you need to do some work.

You had asked for some constructive criticism, so I'll leave you with some comments and ideas.

I work in the corporate world, but many of the core principles apply both to fine art and commercial art.

First off: pacing is everything. I found this animation painfully slow paced, and I think it would make a great improvement if the pacing was just a little more taut. More on this later...

Secondly: Show an establishing shot first, and with every change of point of view.

I noticed other reviewers who complained they couldn't follow what was happening, and I had the same problem. Many of your shots were from extreme points of view. That's okay, but first you have to establish who or what you are looking at. I spent a lot of time looking at reaction shots of eyes. "Who's eyes?" I wondered, "What were they reacting to?"

In plain English, every time you change your setting, or the direction you are looking, or the person or thing you are looking at, you should always start with a wide shot so people can take in what it is they are seeing.

and Thirdly: Audio can make or break a film faster than anything else. The audio quality was poor, and this really detracted from the experience. I have posted elsewhere about how to create good quality audio in Flash, and I won't repeat it here, but there are many resources on the web. Three simple rules for audio: 1) always use a spit guard 2) never pipe a microphone directly into a sound card, and 3) always monitor your sound levels so you don't get peaks, (which cause distortion).

I had mentioned that I would talk briefly about pacing. The best way to address that is by using a tool that will also help address the problems you had with your point of view: a storyboard.

When you are going to build an animation, first write a script, and then plan the animation out on paper. Draw little boxes for each shot, and sketch in little stick men, or whatever to show what you will see in the frame.

Your storyboard should be large enough that you can actually spread it out on a wall or on the floor, and see the whole plan at once.

If you start by actually planning things out on paper, you will notice an immediate improvement in the quality of your finished animations.

As you work on your storyboard, try "acting out" the scenes out loud, (I know this sounds silly, but believe me, it works). As you do this, you will get an idea of how long each shot and each movement should last.

I hope this helps you in your next animation.

TeamKholdstare responds:

Thanks for the advice, i did use the idea of the storyboard but i added too many ideas so it didnt work too well.

[French Erotic BIRTHDAY!]

groovy

Did you make this card for Colin Mochrie - or did you just shamelessly exploit him in your erotic animation?

I liked this. Extra points for the Andy Warhol tribute art.

TmsT responds:

Both. ^_^