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273 Movie Reviews

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Amazing!

Slick animation, excellent pacing & exceptional timing with the music make this one of the most superior pieces on NG! Excellent job!

Simply Brilliant!

This is amazing! The animation was incredibly smooth. Did you use actionscripting for most of the tweening? This was well made all around - excellent graphics, spot on sound synching and hilarious! E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T job!!!

Some Tips

WRITING CREDITS - This first episode doesn't stray enough from the source material to credit yourself and HorrorFreak for writing the story. Instead, your opening credits should read "Original Story Written by Bram Stoker Adapted by John & HorrorFreak".
RAIN EFFECT - The rain falling in all different directions is distracting. You should angle the rain in one direction and draw about 3 to 5 frames of it falling so it falls more smoothly. As odd as it sounds, white or grey rain is also less distracting than blue.
ART & ANIMATION STYLE - Both are very crude and can use a lot of polish. The hand drawn backgrounds need to look more solid. Do this by adding details like bricks and shadows. A book or course in basic figure drawing would make the characters much more pleasing to the eye. Right now, there's no sense of proportion in their design so they exude no screen presence. Some adept frame-by-frame animation would also make this shine. The 3-D "castle" & "trees" should either be redesigned or dropped altogether. Next to the sound files, they're eating up a lot of file space and don't add any value to your visuals. Their poor design actually takes away from the project.
MUSIC & SOUND - Your music fit rather well with the piece, but the SOD tune didn't work at all. Since this is supposed to be a gothic piece set in the 1600's either a) stick with that theme and avoid modern music or b) use the modern music a bit more creatively where it will enhance the scene. Avoid the robotic voices in this series. They simply do not fit in. Make sure when your characters are talking, you drop the volume on all background sounds so the "actors" can be heard. Most of the opening lines were muffled by background noise.
VALUE - This piece is almost 4megs, but the content doesn't justify it. Sweeping shots of a poorly designed "castle" do not replace the value of a well paced and well told story. Really concentrate on your script for the next episode and not so much on 3-D set pieces.

I know this probably sounded harsh, I didn't mean it to. I can see what you're trying to do here and I see the potential. If I thought you sucked, I wouldn't have bothered giving you the tips. I wish you the best of luck in your next project. if you need anymore tips or advice, feel free to e-mail me. You'll find it in my profile. Best o' luck on the series! Cheers!

johnm831 responds:

Thanks. When I saw the long review I thought it was going to be a lengthy flaming session but it was all thoughtfull intellgent and helpful comments. Thanks again

Well Done!

A solid piece of stick entertainment! You established an eerie mood with the music which helped add an overall creepy feel to the piece. When there was danger, I felt it. You know how to work your audience which is a talent a lot of stick authors don't have. Good job!

Not Bad!

The ripped sprites were very clean and clear. You expertly used their animated states to tell your story. They really worked in this project. My only crit would be the story dragged a bit. The scenes where it was explained how Ryu's outfit & Sonic's gloves work were not necessary to the story and slowed down the pace a bit. The scene in Sonic's Funland also killed the pace because it was unnecessarily long.
Bottom line: Though slow in parts, I found this piece to be very entertaining and impressive. Though people have been questioning the integrity of using sprites, I'd rather see well animated sprites in a movie like this rather than shoddy artwork that makes the viewing experience almost unbearable. Even if this turns out to be your last TOAI project, I hope you create more sprite movies because you've got a talent for it. Good job!

I'm Laughing Too Hard ...

... to write an in-depth review. This was just excellent all the way around! Great art, humour, sound and excellent economy of movement. Excellent work!

Fun For This Horror Fan!

I really enjoyed that! It had verbal and visual jokes that worked very well! The animation wasn't too shabby either. On the whole (all misspellings aside), this was an excellent effort and a very entertaining project! The horror psychiatrist bit reminded me of a similar gag in "Cracked" magazine when they used to goof on horror icons. Great job! I look forward to your next project!

Interesting

The animation is good and I like your method of storytelling, but you need to make sure the sound effects don't drown out the newscaster. I couldn't hear anything he said. Either pump up his volume or drop the volume on the sound fx when he speaks. Overall, this is a well made project. I look forward to the series.

Pretty Good

Though a bit short and lacking in sound effects, this piece was funny. The humour is a bit left of center which is exactly where I like it. I look forward to more installments.

Now That's Something!

Not too bad. The sound effects were spot on. Very inventive. As someone suggested before, costumes would be great. Also, so you have something to trace over for the lightsaber effects, you should use broom handles with dressed up PVC pipe at the bottom to act as the saber grips. This is a solid effort! I look forward to seeing you improve!

ownzor responds:

Actually we did use those things that you use to hold up posters(If you take away all the added sounds you can hear them hitting each other)But next time I think Il use some toy lightsabers.

In dark of night, a flash of light, a werewolf howls, a monster growls, the village sleeps, the creature creeps, the scalpel stabs in Doc Monster Labs!

Age 54, Male

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Hard Knocks

Doc Monster Labs, NJ

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