artistunknown's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mattbuscus Sticks 1]

Okay, this is like the 4th time I've seen this underjudgement. No one person removed your video, the voters voted on it, and it had a score lower than 1.6 so it was blammed. Submitting something after it was blammed with no significant improvements is against the rules, and chances are it's most likely going to get blammed again. Stop submitting the same thing, it's just going to get blammed again and again. Try harder and make something better or try to improve this if you really want it on the site so badly.

[Hitman Joe In: Level 50]

Well now, I have been policing the portal for several days straight now, seeing nothing but garbage submissions, or good submissions that really aren't my cup of tea, but this, was truly something enjoyable. This had everything that makes a great cartoon, great animation, great timing, great writing- everything about this was perfect. I genuinely enjoyed this, so thank you for the 3 minutes of entertainment.
From the moment this started I knew it would be good; that opening shot itself was enough to have me hooked, and then it just kept getting better. The characters were enjoyable, the voices were enjoyable, the art and animation were enjoyable, everything was just perfect, up until the very end. If there was one thing that I would have to complain about is how did the Hitman survived from having his neck crushed like that? :p Yeah, it's a cartoon it doesn't have to makes perfect sense, it even added to the hilarity. I constantly had a smile on my face while watching this. This was definitely an instant favorite. Thank you for this animation, and I will be looking forward to your future submissions!

TimBentley responds:

I've been meaning to reply to this comment since I got it. You really made my day with this man, thanks, it means a lot.

[Adrellia Village #45: SE]

Finally getting around to reviewing this one. I'm not sure why I held it off for so long, but whatever. I will start off by saying that while this was a step backward from the last episode, it was still better than #43; only slightly though.

Now then, writing: there wasn't too much to complain about, though nothing extremely well done either. The script was okay. Not really much more to say about that.

The animation varied. While it's the same quality as AV43, there was a bit more motion of the characters, with the exception of the last scene which just seemed extremely lazy; the characters didn't even blink! The frame by frame on Philip was good though, however his tie blowing in the wind does get annoying, some nice variety of the direction it blows would have been nice to see. When Drake is walking out of the hotel, he just stops when it fades out. This is very awkward to look at; he should have either kept walking or it should have been a hard cut instead of a fade. Although you seem to be using better transitions, so that's good, though I'm not sure if there should have been a fade in the last scene, it didn't really seem fitting. When Drake is walking in the hall, the change in the color of the wall is very noticeable, that could have easily been fixed. The best parts of the animation were probably the scene with the wizards, and the transport-o-matic scene. The transport-o-matic scene was done very well, nice a psychedelic and Drake's falling and the machine exploding was hilarious. The wizard scene was also nice and suspenseful, and even though it was obviously tweeny, it still looked really well done. Overall, the animation wasn't the best but it still had its moments.

And finally voice acting. I liked the additional voices, they were really well done and hopefully the voice actors have more roles soon. The only negative thing I can think of (other than the obvious blandness of the majority, but again that's obvious, it's not getting fixed, so there's no need to go indepth ragemode about it) is how Philip's voice was different than last time. Same voice actor, obviously, but the accent he used was different than before. I liked the voice he had before, it was different :(. Overall, the new voices were good, the others are the same as before. Some improvement, but otherwise meh.

Overall, this episode was okay, certainly better than AV43, but not as good as it could have been. Some things are done good, but some also seem rushed or lazy. The subtle suspense with the wizards was nice and is leading to something big (as if I didn't know what, heh). So it is going somewhere. Really I should be rating this lower, but I rated the other ones a bit higher as well (mostly) so if I started on this one, that might not look good, plus I'd feel like a dick. Well, I hope this was helpful, and I'm looking forward to AV46. Good luck on your future projects!

MistyE responds:

thanks for the review
and i definitely agree about scene 3 being lazy, this was a bit rushed and i'll try to improve that in the next episode

[The Stick-up]

It's nice to see more stopmotions popping up on Newgrounds, and this one wasn't bad either.

This was pretty good, the movement was alright, and the image quality was okay. I also chuckled at the end. I sense a bit of inspiration from Keshen, are you a fan of his? The ending and the music reminds me of his style. It was used well though, so good job.

There are some ways you can improve though. Try taking more pictures, as the movement wasn't insanely smooth. The movement was alright, but it could be better. The jokes could also use some help. I did chuckle at the end, but the buildup was a bit stale and it felt like it dragged on.

Again, this was pretty good, not great. I see potential in you as a brick-filmer. Keep at it, and I'm sure you'll be as good as Keshen one day. Good luck on your future projects, and hopefully you'll upload more of your stopmotions to newgrounds. I'll be looking forward to it.

TheDemonRick responds:

thank you so much and yes i am a huge keshen fan but mostly forrestfire101. i got the ending music sound effect from a website and i watched some of keshens videos and yeah its the same music

[William, I'm Coming Home]

Simply put: this was beatutiful. I really enjoyed everything about this. The animation was great, the visuals were great, and the timing was great. I enjoyed the subtle little jokes, everyone who storyboarded did a great job, especially Exedor's storyboards, beautiful direction. I can see that later on the animation was getting better toward the end. I'm glad you decided to use more frame by frame than tweens, it really paid off, and it looks amazing. In fact, this was so amazing, I had to watch it twice. As I've said before, the direction in this was great. After King William loses his car, he tries several other ways to get home, like riding a horse, a ship, and even climbing up a mountain. I think the mountain climbing sequence was my favorite part of thee animation. It was handled very well. Also, best ending ever, was so not expecting that.
As amazing as it was though, it does have its share of cons. Sometimes, the visuals were inconsistent and looked a little messy. When King William is laying on a grassy mountain, and the horse is standing, the drawing of the horse looks a bit unappealing. It's also hard to tell exactly what they are on, which I'm guessing was a mountain, but because of the same shade of green being used, and no shading, it's really hard to tell. There was also one continuity error I noticed this time: When King William is climbing up the mountain, he doesn't have his crown on, when he's standing on the mountain, in a brief shot, he has it on, but then in the next shot, he doesn't have it again. This is only a minor thing since it is brief.
Overall, this was more amazing than I thought it would be. I enjoyed every bit of it. Everyone who contributed did a great job!

MistyE responds:

Thank you very much for the review! Yeah, I agree, the coloring on the grassy mountain could have been more varied. I'll probably end up changing it.

[Adrellia Village #43: SE]

Alright, I'm not sure how long this review is going to be, since I can't think of a lot to say about this one, I guess it's a shorter review for a shorter episode, heh. I enjoyed helping with this episode. I think my writing and voicing of two lines helped the episode a bit.

Now then, the writing. There was a nice mix between comedy and drama. The opening scene was pretty well written, and would have been great if the characters were actually yelling, but we've been through this: the voice actor isn't exactly young, so it's probably not best for him to strain his voice. The scene was still handled well though, it was pretty enjoyable and nicely paced. There was nice direction throughout the rest of the episode as well. Though the silent scene with King William was short, I think it was a nice highlight of the episode. The dialog in th episode was also enjoyable. I feel like an asshole for saying this, because I wrote it, but I think the writing in the last scene is the best. Drake has a little monolog, and the scene has a lot of emotion. The music also helps with this scene, and Drake's voice actor actually did a good job in this scene, and I think it really helped it. This episode is very short though, and unfortunately it suffered from everything that was cut. Overall, I did enjoy the writing in the episode, everything was well written, and there was a nice balance of comedy and drama.

Oh the animation, where to start... For the most part, the animation was pretty much the same as the last episode, which is a shame. It was a mixture of tweens and frame by frame, though a lot less frame by frame was used in this episode. Nice coloring though, very appealing to the eyes. One thing I think you need to work on is scene transitions. For the most part, they were okay, but the transition at the end of the first scene really bugged me. You used a fade after Angus said "My bacon". A fade doesn't really seem appropriate there, since the camera is just fixed on his face, and that line isn't really the best to end a scene on. A hard cut would have been better there, since with a fade, the camera is fixed on his motionless face longer and it just looks wrong. With a hard cut to the next scene (or a brief clip of black like I do) it doesn't linger and flows more nicely. I think fades should be left to more ominous or foreshadowing bits of dialog or imagery. Like at the end of the last scene, perfect use of a fade. The line "I hope King William and the others are okay" is a foreshadowing line, and the fade really helped that. Scene transitions do add to the tone of the scene. Aside from that, I did enjoy the direction of the episode for the most part, though some parts could have been handled better. There were too many moments of characters going to do something and cutting to them having done it. An example would be Rachel going to use the portal and then being in the world of destiny, but you didn't show her using the portal. While in some cases this could drag out a scene, it does help lessen confusion, and when the episode is as short as this, I think it would have helped.

The voice acting was about the same as before, except there's a few additional voices this time around. Gee, wonder who that was :3. The voice acting in the beginning was a bit unenthusiastic, but we've already discussed the yelling. After the part where they should have been yelling, it does get better. For the rest of the episode, the voice acting is about the same as usual. Drake's voice actor is improving and doing a fine job, he handled the hotel scene very well. Rachel's voice actress is a bit meh. Why is it that Drake's voice actor has improved, bur Rachel's hasn't? Maybe it's because you don't have her record lines as much? Either way, it still works, and she did try, so that's good. Some of the pronunciation was a bit awkward, but what are you gonna do? I can't really say anything about the voice of the bear or the reporter since I voiced them, but yeah. I'll just let other people talk about that, heh. That's really all I have to say about the voice acting.

Overall, I did enjoy this episode. I think it's either a step backward or a standstill in the quality of the animation. The writing was an improvement over the last episode, and the voice acting and music really added to the feel of everything. My major problem is how short this episode is. I really think it should have been longer, because this just feels like nothing happened, and just serves as filler. It was still a good episode though, just some things that need to be touched up on. I hope this was helpful, and good luck on future episodes.

MistyE responds:

Thank you very much for your helpful review! Yeah, I'd definitely have to agree that the writing in the last scene was the best, it was very heartfelt and well-written, and the background music definitely contributed to it too. I appreciate your comments on the direction, and I will try to improve the scene transitions in the future episodes. Thanks again!

[Adrellia Village #42: SE]

It's nice to see that you were able to make it to 10 minutes, though it's not the 11:45 you were aiming for, honestly who the hell cares? A lot of work went into this, and a lot of people contributed, and though it still wasn't the best it could have been, it was still great.

The writing was an improvement over the last episodes. It didn't drag as much, and there was a nice amount of humor, even if a lot of that humor was lame puns. A pun every now and then is okay. Some scenes that I felt dragged on for too long, were not really due to the writing, but more to timing choices and camera placement, but more on that when I touch on the animation. I love how you chose to take a more serious route with the plot in this episode. King William realizes he's not that great of a ruler, and for once we can actually feel for him. King William has feelings about the situation and so do we. Though I do think that some of the comedy took away from the overall seriousness with King William resigning, and that probably should have been handled differently. Some comedic relief to take away the tension of serious, real life stuff, is good, but there might have been a little too much here. This was still a pretty solid script though, and what did work worked really well. There was a great amount of scene changes. The scenes didn't linger longer than they needed to, so nothing ever really dragged on, except for what I mentioned earlier. I did enjoy the episode though, I laughed a few times and was never bored watching it.

Now then, the animation. As opposed to other episodes of Adrellia Village, it's a vast improvement. It's not overly tweened, and there's a great amount of frame by frame present. Though a lot of parts do use tweens, but I can understand that some things would be better tweened or too much of a pain to fbf. The frame by frame that was done though was very well done. There was a nice amount of shading and lighting effects present as well, which is something you usually don't include in your cartoons, so it's good that you're stepping out of your comfort zone, and it payed off, because it left a great visual appearance and definitely helped the mood of the scene. You (and the other colorists) made some excellent choices when it came to the color. There was nice variety, and nothing seemed too dull unless it called for it. Not everything with the animation was as good as it could be though. Touching on the timing issues I mentioned earlier, some scenes felt like they dragged on because there wasn't enough changes in camera angle. The camera was fixed on some positions for far too long, and were in desperate need of an angle change. An example would be when King William is giving his speech and the person asks "How much we talkin'?". It would have been better to change the camera angle to show the crowd. I'm guessing you attempted to do that, since after that line is delivered, King William suddenly switches position. Too many changes of camera angle is bad too, but you didn't have a problem with that, so good job on that. Other than those few minor complaints, the animation and timing was done very well. There was a lot going on, and never a moment when nothing was happening.

The voice acting was okay for the most part. It's unfortunate that King William's voice actor had to be replaced, his replacement did a good job, though I don't think he sounded quite old enough for King William. He still did a good job though, he had great emotion and actually did add to the scene. The other voice actors were okay as well. For one person doing the majority of the male characters, he has really evolved over time and has given these characters a great variety of voices. I'm not sure what to think of Alan's voice actor though. Over all, it didn't detract from the overall quality of the episode, and in some cases it even added to it. I think I enjoy Rory's voice the most, gotta love that Scottish accent.

Bottom line, I enjoyed this. I'm glad I was able to help so much throughout production. This wasn't as good as it could have been, and seems like it was somewhat rushed in the end. Some things could have been handled better, but for the most part, it was done well. This episode was vastly superior to the previous 41 episodes, and I can't wait to see how the next few episodes turn out, as I sense they will be better. Good luck on your future projects. I hope my review was helpful, and I hope this does well.

MistyE responds:

Thank you very much for taking your time to review this. I'm glad that you could feel sympathy for King William, that's what I was trying to do and one of the concerns of the script for this episode was that the viewer wouldn't care about King William since he's generally a mean tyrant. I get what you're saying about the camera placement. I was originally going to add more shots but in the end I ended up leaving it as it is since I was in a hurry. Still, that's no excuse and I'll try to add more variety in the angles for future episodes. Thanks again.

[HeroesVsVilliansTrailer 1]

Okay, so unlike everyone else, who will either give you false praise for reasons unknown, or completely hate you for uploading something live action to Newgrounds, I will actually review this for what it is, and give it the critique it deserves.

Now then, first of all, we must establish the bias against live action on Newgrounds, a traditionally site, however people cannot say that live action does not belong on Newgrounds, after all, the Numa Numa has its roots here!

And on your news post talking about this you say that it will be the first proper movie on newgrounds. This is however, a false statement. The title of feature film on goes to (to the best of my knowledge, there might be others) Rangers: The by Kirbopher. Sure split into several parts, but it is labeled as a movie, follows through a sequential order, and has a runtime of around 52 minutes, and by the qualifications of the Sundance Film Festival (which is a very credible source) a feature film is classified as least 50 While an hour or two long movie would definitely beat it out in runtime, if it were animated, it would be welcomed and quite a feat. I think newgrouds is ready for a live action feature film, though this mean I like to see one on here.

Now then, on to the actual trailer itself. Plain and simple, pretty sub-par. The image quality is terrible, the steadiness of the camera is terrible, even if an action shot the camera shake that much. The pacing of the trailer is also very off, and the music really fit with what is happening on screen. You have a pretty up-beat fast song, yet the footage is very slowly paced, and it sync up well, adding to the image quality, and the bad acting, it makes for a pretty poor presentation. The text is also not appealing, a nicer font could have been chosen, thousands out there.

The point of a trailer is to give you a glimpse of the film to come, and I hope this how the final product will look, because again, this is sub-par. A feature film is supposed to have or at least better quality than this. You can pick up a decent camcorder for around $100 that will film in better quality than this, so I know what doing there. This trailer will honestly only interest maybe a few people, and those people are probably too brain-dead to know any better. Everyone else however will scoff at the quality and leave immediately. Since this trailer say much about the story of the film, I say anything about the writing, and because there was no audio from the actual film, I say too much about the acting other than the physical movements, which too great. If this is really how the final product is looking right now, it seriously needs to be redone, because calling something with this quality a feature film, is unacceptable.

I will watch your film when it comes out, because I am a critic and a filmmaker myself. I will also review the film for what it is, like how I did here, though maybe a little more to the point. You have a lot to improve on, and hopefully you take some of what said into consideration, and manage to greatly increase the quality of the film. Good luck in the long run, and I hope this helped.

[Talking Animation Test]

This is pretty good for a test. Good voice acting, and the lip-sync wasn't half bad. Decent environmental art, and the character art was pretty good too. Nice proportions, anatomy is pretty accurate, and good drawing overall. I see potential and look forward to seeing more from you.
Welcome to newgrounds, and good luck on your future animations!

SahuaroProductions responds:

Thanks!!

[Playback - Part 1]

Well now, this has been a long time in the works, and it's certainly been worth the wait, and being part one, it's a lengthy 8 and a half minute animation by itself, which is always nice to see.

Now then, there were several things that I truly enjoyed about this. The writing and pacing were great, and the animation was well done too, nice amount of frame by frame, and beautiful frame by frame at times too. I also enjoyed the majority of the voice acting. There were also great visual gags, like the pain inflicted on Joe, the timing for those moments were well executed.

My main problem with this was some of the voice acting was less than satisfactory, but I'm not going to complain about it since I know you were under a deadline and could not get in contact with some voice actors in time.
Also, a small problem, the line quality at times was rather jagged and unsightly, hopefully you can manage to fix this in the next part.

Some of the changes from the script/storyboard you made were interesting choices, like replacing the laugh track when the janitor speaks, or the background transitioning from Joe's room, to the class room. That would have been nice to see, but I can see why you would decide against it, but what you did do instead sufficed.

As I've said before, there's a nice amount of top-notch frame by frame in here, and you have definitely improved on your art and animation skills, and I'm looking forward to everything you decide to spend time on.

I hope this does well, I hope this review was helpful to you, and I can't wait for the second part. Good luck until then, and keep improving!

MistyE responds:

thanks for the review! a lot of the visual gags were never in the original script. they were thought of during the animatic stage. i get what you're saying about the voice acting, it'll be better in the second part.

line quality is always an issue and it's always a bit challenging to get it just right. thanks again!