raitendo's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Radiohead - Idioteque]

compression please!

compress the mp3! this file should be more like 500 kb rather than 5 mb! horrible, really! and set the sound to streaming, really, I seem to be saying this in every review, but very few seem to have understood it. it didn't matter too much in this film except I would have been able to stream it if you had.
about the video itself - animation was OK, but you really overused the three or so animations - not good. really repetetive. sorry, don't really know what to do about the sound problem though.

[Golgotha Trailer]

woah

talk about shockingly good! I was just expecting the typical crappy NG animation, opened the movie, half-watched disinterestedly and nearly choked (on what? dunno, just... choked)! it's hard to come with any kind of constructive criticism though, as this is a trailer and the only thing I can comment on is the graphics... and considering how brilliant they were, I couldn't possibly come up with a single issue... alright, maybe one, the character design was a bit "anime", which I personally don't care too much for, but hey, that's just my personal opionion. glad you decided to continue/finish it! anyways, keep the wicked work up, mate. cheers

[Dante vs Link (Part 5)]

boring concept, ok flick

about the concept; I haven't seen the earlier episodes, so to me, this just seemed like one more pointless "famous characters kill each other off"-film. Which is a concept which is getting old.
The graphics weren't very good, but I can see you clearly made an effort and I'd say this is an accurate reflection of your current skills, so it'd be pretty pointless to give you any criticism about that.
Few things though: Dante's ending music was pretty sucky and not very suitable, and overall that ending wasn't as well worked through as Link's.
I give you 7/10 because you seriously made an effort.

[Skeletor's bakery]

ok

firstly, bad voice synch. no, it has nothing to do with wether you've got broadband or not. here's what you do: set the sound as "streaming" instead of "event", that way it will look fine on every computer, not just on yours as I think the case is now.
Pacing was a bit slow, make it faster for the next episode. make the intro alot shorter, and better looking (that canvas thing or whatever it was didn't look too good, honestly). great you made a song of your own though. try and include a few more jokes the next time, as well...anyway, cheers

CGSstudios responds:

OK, the canvas thing is a mockery of the old style photos of cheers, and ill fix the sound for next time, cut me some slack, this is my first animation i've uploaded! ;)

[Kung Fu 8]

huddinge, huddinge, vad blev det av dig?

it's a good short flick, although, the "2 characters killing each other off"-concept is a bit old now... anyway, there's really not that much to say about it... except that it's completely unoriginal, but pretty good. not good enough to stand out from the crowd though. I'd suggest you make a genre-switch. make a proper animation about something interesting. (liked the music btw)

[Test Gin]

alright

liked the shinobi-style hero. with entries like this, it's hard coming with constructive criticism. all I can say is, um, good work, keep it up.

[Elemental Warrior 0]

totally cool

hell, did you rotoscope all of that? using what programme? seems to me it'd be less an effort doing it from scratch. anyways, it was really cool, but you shouldn't have mentioned the rotoscoping part, then I'd have been really impressed ;). still, quite an effort and a very good result as well! the graphics weren't top-notch but the animation was... so as long as the characters moved, it looked A... the stills were only so-so (bar the first one, brill). cheers

[Sonne]

that was... cool!

not even 10 000 views but still 250 reviews? that's a good proof that the film is really good, and really liked by the few that have seen it. should be on the front page, for example instead of that stupid "Newgrounds the legend". so, um, it's good, but I still feel I should give you some constructive criticism, mostly small things but still.
1) I didn't really like the way the clocks blinked... you shouldn't have tweened it, you should have you know had eyelids or whatever, that just didn't look too good
2) using weapons from CS is alright, I suppose, if you actually redraw them so that they fit the rest of the movie. the pistol was alright, but the other bigger weapon... it just didn't fit.
3) at times, the pacing wasn't all that good... but at other times, it was excellent.
4) some animation issues - when one of the clocks strike the guard in the head, the guard should obviously not just be standing there - the hit didn't have any impact.
5) I'm not really sure about the story, sorta think the strawberry should have saved more of the clocks. well... a matter of taste, I suppose, but anyway.
6) graphics weren't too good - except for the clocks, top-notch (except for the blinking issue). the 7-eyed humanoids were just, you know... disappointing.

anyways, it was very different and very original and very successful in actually creating an atmosphere. wicked!

AvocadoClock responds:

Wow, you really dug deep for this review!

1) Blinking of eyes... that's a really good idea! I'll remember that for the current movie I'm working on.

2) The CS weapons were just from the timing. Another friend of mine, PlumClock, was working on them right as I was making the movie, so I borrowed his graphics. I should have made my own weapons, but can you blame a guy for being lazy? =P

3) Yeah... I did have trouble in a few scenes with pacing. I wanted to go slow and fast in different areas, so it does get chopped in a few areas inbetween and such. When making the movie, I had a few times where I couldn't even think of anything to put in... so I made "filler" scenes that weren't ideas that I had originally planned on. The movie just kind of evolved as I made it.

4) Hahaha... yeah, I wanted to make the guard's eyes bulge, blink, or have some form or recoil from the impact, but the daunting task of 7 eyes to animate set me back. I thought to myself that it was a 1 second scene, so it wouldn't matter too much. I ought to scale priority on the amount of importance next time around instead of time then, lol.

5) If I had fit more clocks into the story, it might have been harder for it to flow with the amount of time I had with the song lyrics. If I had more clocks, it would've been harder to know their struggles personally, too. They would've been just a statistic, if you know what I mean. If 10 clocks were mowed down with a gun, it probably wouldn't be as dramatic as one clock fighting for his life against those same odds. And then vice-versa with saving the clocks. That's just my view on it though, so I'll take yours into account.

6) The crappy backgrounds were intentional (to a degree, haha) because I wanted to shift focus onto the characters. As for the 7 eyed creatures, they were originally going to be stick figures, so you can breath a sigh of relief that it wasn't as bad as it could've been, lol.

Thanks for the review!! I highly appreciate it!! <3

[Life After College - EP2]

some priceless tips

I've got two priceless tips here
1) Set the audio as "streaming"... the synch was even worse this time than in the first one...
2) Redo the character design COMPLETELY and come up with a new, fresh look for episode 3 or 4... since you are using only one image for each character's face, you could put SO much more effort into it. don't worry about the backdrops though, they're alright. but seriously, change the look of the characters.
what else should I say... the comedy is better than in the first episode, although the pacing was completely ruined because of the poor audio synch, a shame, bet it would have worked otherwise. the jokes were an improvement, but still not quite there yet. I'd suggest you give the jokes some more thought, work through them more and they can become genuinely funny... like that car accident scene... it was a good setting for a joke, but it didn't really work out. maybe you should try and sit down with a couple of friends and discuss the jokes through. or hell, just watch loads of monty python's flying circus and steal a few jokes.
hope you don't find me condescending, I suppose you might, but I don't really mean it that way. I think you have the ability, but you're just not utilizing it right now. anyway, cheers mate

[Life After College - EP1]

so-so

the humour sorta reminds me of Family Guy, but I dunno... the pacing was perfectly alright, kudos for that, but the jokes themselves... they just weren't funny. Graphics, sort of well done, but the character design wasn't really my cup of tea... to be straight-forward, they looked horrid, although the style is flexible, but considering this episode only features four characters, I think you should have done something more original, and first and fore-most, better looking. the animation wasn't that good either... the mouth movements looked good, but were out of synch, which destroyed the whole impression. the backdrops were also so-so. however, somehow, it all added up (suppose I sorta fell for that bitmap you used when they were walking - cheap trick, but hey! it works) and the graphics were kinda good. I wouldn't call them average, considering NG average is absolutely horrible, but so-so. Gonna go watch episode 2 now... cheers