Esn's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Primal War 03]

Bad sound effects

You have an excellent thing going here, and I think that this could really become big, but you need to iron out some things. First of all, the sound issue - you keep using the same animal sounds over and over again for everything that is said and it is VERY noticeable. You should really try to find or create many different sounds for each creature so that you can use them when they're talking. Angry sounds, happy sounds, frightened sounds, etc. It won't be easy, but I think it's necessary. Also, you didn't have any music in this flash - although I wasn't a big fan of the music in your previous animations, some music is often better than NO music. Try using a variety of different music in your animations that goes with the mood, whether it's sad, happy, bloodthirsty (well, you're good at finding "bloodthirsty" music at least), whatever. You could try scouring the Newgrounds audio portal and see if you find anything that suits you.

As for the rest of it - excellent graphics and animations, although I got the feeling that you rushed this episode out the door a bit. I'm not sure what you could work on here... perhaps on colouring? Also, excellent fight scenes - they're very realistic and well-done. Overall, I'm looking forward to whatever you create next.

Hope to see you on the front page some day. :)

[The REAL Eggman]

Needs subtitles

really, it does - that's one of my only small quibbles with this flash (the other is that the Eggman that you drew isn't actually very fat, which takes the fun out of the song).

Other than that though, excellent graphics, sound and editing. Definitely worth watching for Sonic and non-Sonic fans alike.

[Spiriti-part I]

It is wonderfull...

but you really should have finished the whole thing before putting it on here in my opinion, especially since it is so short. I watched the unfinished full version on your website and I recommend that everyone else do the same - it gives you a much better idea of where this is heading (although I'm still very confused about what you plan to do with this, to be honest - is this the introduction for a tv series?).

One thing, though - how come the file size is so enormous? Are you sure that you can't do something to make it smaller? I mean, I've seen animations of similar quality on Newgrounds that don't have huge file sizes ("Sweet Mother of Vartan" for instance, which has a slightly bigger file size but is also a lot longer). Really, there must be ways to make the file size smaller somehow...

[The Apple Orchard 2]

I wish I could give this a higher score

because I absolutely loved the visual style (what kind of tissues did you use?), but the storyline was a little too ordinary and the voicework was only average.

It certainly wasn't bad, but it wasn't terribly interesting or original either, and the humour was a little too "dumb" for my taste.

Nevertheless, good effort.

[Fitch and Jove 4]

Hilarious!

But it needs better graphics and animation - that's the only thing holding me back from giving it a higher score. That, and you stealing the "Seinfeld" bloop-thing after you made a joke - it would've been far better if you'd found something else, because it sticks out like a sore thumb for being unoriginal. I loved this part, though:
"Yeah, I did wonder what all this mess was."
"And now you know."
"...yes, I do."

The humour reminds me of Sheriff Benson #3 - I'm basically going through the December 2005 entries to decide what to vote for (I'm part of the NG Jury this month - woohoo!) so I saw them pretty much right after one another. Anyway, this does look like something I might vote for (though not at the top of the list) - I really do like the humour. Then again, I've got still something like a hundred left to watch. :P

margarine responds:

That whole bloop thing was supposed to be a nod to Seinfeld...I have a friend who plays bass and he did the cool slap bit. I just forgot to credit him, I guess that's why you thought I'd stolen it.
Glad you liked it all the same. And if you vote for me, I'll write you into my will ;)

[FROSTY, the lost footage]

A little too much like SamT's holiday movie

As much as I loved this flash (the introduction was also really funny), I couldn't help noticing the similarity to SamT's "Snowy the Frostman" which is currently on the frontpage of Newgrounds. Were you inspired by that, or did you come up with the idea all on your own?

It'd not a carbon copy and has a lot of its own original ideas, but there is a definite similarity.

[Shamoozal: Jacquo's Carol]

Awesome!

Well, you've got another fan. :)

Seriously, that was really smooth and well-done. WONDERFULL style and animation. Excellent song too, and quite funny (esp. the bombs part), even though that thin guy with a beard was a terrible singer.

I seriously just can't find a single thing wrong with this - try for something bigger next time, that's really the only reason I can think of for why this doesn't have a higher score.

[-Motion-]

Keep churning these out, they're great!

An excellent bit of random claymation. I could watch this again and again.

Now for a few specific comments:

- before the slug went into the water, I think it should have jumped a little bit - that particular bit of movement didn't look quite right
- excellent water effect
- I like what you did with the white face. First there was a black hole on top that looked like a smiling mouth (made me laugh) and then it turns out that it was actually the eye, and the mouth appears on the bottom later. Whether or not that was intended, it's a pretty cool effect.
- when those white "slugs" were going in and out of the white landscape, it also looked a little flat - it didn't look like they were really jumping out, it looked too even (although it was a cool idea)

Aside from those few criticisms that I just mentioned, though, what I like best in your work is how everything seems ALIVE! It doesn't look like it was animated - all of the creatures/things have a certain bounce in their movements that's really lifelike. I'm looking forward to other movies from you. :)

P.S. I'm extremely surprised that you managed to get something done with Windows Movie Maker - the last time I tried to make an animation in that program, it refused to compile it and took 5 minutes to do every single operation. Piece of ^%*@&$ shit! I looked it up and apparently a lot of people had the same problem and there was no solution. Made me seriously consider getting a Mac. But anyway, I'm glad to know that it works for you. :p

MackProductions responds:

thank you VERY much

[Winter Attack: Trailer]

Wonderfull!

What I liked the most was the flow that it had to it! Not just the smoothness of the animation, but the smoothness of the scene transitions and the flow of the movie as a whole. Excellent music selection as well!

I think that when you finish your film you should consider submitting it to the short film contest over at StopMoShorts dot com - I'm sure that they'll love a new member over there, and they have a DVD set as a prize this time around. Be sure to check out their links section as well and visit some of those websites - there's a large stop motion community out there who I think will react very well to your works. :)

Perhaps you're a member at the forum there already, I don't know, but in case you're not - you should really consider it, it's a very fun place to hang around. ;)

MackProductions responds:

thank you very much, yes i will look into your suggestion, see you on the forums

[Halo 3 2:Halo 4 The Movie]

Great

Great graphics and a really funny animation. I could really tell that at some parts you really did the bare minimum amount of work necessary (lip-synching worked but just barely), but for the most part you pulled it off - everything looked pretty good. And there were some bits where you put in a lot more detail than I expected (the sandwich bit at the end for example). The humour is really odd, but that's what I like about it.

This is really one of your better works I think, along with "Wall Lunch" and "Royce Biggins Ep. 3"!