andreasng's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Madness Neurosis Collab 3]

former glory of madness

i have been a very happy madness fan. well not fan, but i liked the old madness none the less. is this new artists doing the newer episodes??? cus the animation is missing the quality madness was once known for.

the timing is off, the funny ideas are gone, the animation has lost it's smoothness. so it's sad to see that it is continuing in the wrog direction instead of shutting the project down.

I would say that animation wise, you guys should work on two things. first off make sure you got some cool anticipation before doing an action. ie before jumbing, kneel down, before stabbing move knife or what ever in the opposite direction. don't zoom too close. the characters are simple and does not look cool up close. rather make camera shakes, adjustment pans, and idle noise on the target.

story wise i would say: where is the coolness. i remember the madness episode where the clown throws a party and he stands at the turntables rocking the house. that episode is filled with coolness, cool stuff to look at, and cool animation to look at. plus the jesus, and clown and everything was so fresh.

maybe it's just time for something new. sorry guys, but i can't applaud a de-evolution

LittleLuckyLink responds:

Dude, you have it all wrong let me explain. KRINKELS, made madness redeemer, avenger, apoethesis, depredation, antipathy, and consternation. As well as marsh mellow, and Madness combat (chicken dance) This is called a tribute. Tributes are things that are dedicated to the original creator of something.
You talk to us like you are talking to krinkels.

[Waterlollies]

almost perfect!

Hi adam

i thought i would drop you a review, that doesn't "just" throw you a 10 in your face.

Having watched waterlollies 5 times now i realize that it actually grows on me. the first time i saw it i was suprised to see that it actually disapointed me a tiny tiny bit.
- don't get me wrong waterlollies is the best of the best-
but compared to littlefoot i thought it lacked a bit of personality, and the cutting didn't really live up to the standards you created for both littlefoot and yuyu. Watching it the second time, having the above in mind, i could concentrate on others stuff, which was good, it left me wanting to see it again and again.

My opinion on the personality subject hasn't changed. i have a hard time figuring out what it is, but i think the story seems superficial in a way. We already know that bitey is one arrogant bastard (^_^) so i guess i expected something more. however it ofcourse is correct that there actaully is more of a real story in waterlollies than any of the other b-wood shorts, and that is very compelling.

the overall look is very nice. it seems like you tuned down the contrast a bit, which i think makes a bit less amazing visuals when speaking hue/sat/contrast, but it is a minor.

animationwise (being an animator myself) i must say that it is really good. you master flash so well, and only very few online short creators (or what ever i should call you) come near your efforts. i think 2 others maybe.

effects is mindblowing. i am a bit annoyed that you wrote somewhere that 3d was used for some of the waterlollies (right?) but again who cares, except me ofcourse. Still fantastic amazing effects. the water, the reflections, the new and improved cool shadows, especially when bitey takes cover in the river and the oh so smooth shadow on his belly makes me smile.

you've got noise as well? very clever

i haven't looked and i haven't found any of your cameos or hidden stuff, i'm very very much into all that stuff, but i haven't got the patience at the moment. But that also is one of the masterful ingrediences that makes waterlollies so amazing.

music and sound is wonderful. first i thought it didn't really fit as well as the soundtrack for the yuyu, but now that i've heard it a couple of times, it really is a master piece. sound effects very nice.

i rarely gives out high ratings. i think newgrounds is a place filled with average stuff that gets undeserved 10's, which makes alot of your deserved 10 fade. If i could i would give your something special, but i guess i'll just cross my fingers that your get a couple of the awards just to distance waterlollies from all the other "perfect" stuff around here.

adam, waterlollies is amazing. WAy way way above newgrounds' best, and a bit below your own, but this is a tiny piece of the grant puzzle. i hope this will become a spindrallic feature some day. i'll support you financially next time around, if only with a pepple.

and as you already know, you and your work is on my top 3 inspirational source, and waterlollies only carved that in cryptonit.

-

recap

story 9.5
animation 9.5
effects 10
music 9.5
sound 9

you make me smile

/andreas ng

chluaid responds:

thanks andreas! Great review and I'm grateful for the 'itemised' critique :)
Just to clear one thing up there's no 3D. I drew everything by hand, even some of the swarm scenes. I didn't use any 3D for waterlollies at all.

The swarms that appear as pixel-dots are actionscripted and one of the swarm scenes at the beginning of the movie was created as a particle simulation in Maya, but other than that, everything is brush strokes that I drew directly into Flash.

Regarding the more muted colours, I've used a slightly less saturated palette for Waterlollies, because it makes everything just that little bit more believable to me. The other thing is that previous Brackenwood movie palettes (particularly littleFoot) have some terrible bleed issues on a television screen so I made the decision to tone things down across the board.

You question about noise, I'm not sure what you mean, but if you're referring to the distant swarm (when Bitey's watching them from across the water), it's actually just a blurred shape tween with the hand-drawn swarm cycle laid over the top :D

thanks again!

[JujubeLock: Law School 4]

wierd

i see where you are going with this. but it just doesn't do it .. sorry guys

JujubeLock responds:

I highly doubt that you "see where [I am] going with this."

[Metal Gear Shroom]

not enough

this just doesn't do it. the idea is somewhat original, apart from the fact that 80% of stuff on newgrounds is parodies on something, naruto, digimon, metal gear, dragonball, and so on.

when making parodies, it is important to entertain the audience from the first second, mainly because parodies are unoriginal, and therefore not very interesting, unless it is amazingly funny. also the artist have to capture the fealing of the concept which is being made fun of. Snake in a forest sniffing schrooms isn't enough.

2 for way below average

hideto responds:

just because this is a popular game thats been parodied many times shouldn't affect whether you find this original or not. The jokes define whether a parody is original. And you dont sniff shrooms. maybe thats why its not so funny for you :)

[Yoshi's berry bad day II]

it's a start

when it comes to "port" flash i think it is very important to keep a high level of action, like some of the other stuff around here. i don'r feel like i can rate this. sorry. keep going! ACtion!!!

Yoshiking2 responds:

What port flash. i didn't take this from anywhere. A port is something that is taking from one place to another. I made this myself by hand so get a definition next time jerk.