Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Wegra Adventures]

You've got the beginnings of a style here

the fast speakonia doesn't really make it funnier - just hard to understand. Maybe if you spoke quickly yourself, you could have it be more understandable?

Though it's kinda like a slideshow, that style of 'animation' works well for the humour I think you're going for - I mean, better pics wouldn't actually make it any funnier.

Have a pre-loader. Having movies start automatically, then run in a loop seems kinda annoying.

It was better than I thought it'd be, judging from the icon, but not really chucklesome for me. I felt like the absurdity was kinda forced at points, rather than flowing naturally.

Wegra responds:

Yeah I know. I slowed it down over the last 2.

[Bahamut's Fav. Reviews]

What're the fonts in the last frame?

I thought I would have been one of your favourite reviewers... :-( Good to see myself in the bonus section though, alongside MacGuges' awesome review.

I like the basic idea, but I didn't actually find it all that entertaining. Mayor M cheese's review was kinda funny in and of itself, as were parts of others but for a large portion of the flash it felt kinda dull.

Specifically, most of the first half seemed like the reviews weren't that funny in and of themselves, and neither were your reactions. I can understand that there's a balance to keep between getting reviews with comic potential and getting ones you actually like, but I think you should've gone further towards the entertainment potential. Specially at the start and for the last review.

I liked you kicking Livecorpse out, showing how you suck arse at travelling around the world (good job not only having positive stuff) and rebecca's review and reaction was cool.

Most importantly, you've replaced the buttons with some slick font with some sort of glow. What's the font?

My issue is that they don't immediately register as buttons. As I hadn't read your comments before starting it, I didn't realise the buttons during the speakonia bits were actually buttons.

Maybe having some sort of box with rounded edges around those words, along with some change in colour or style upon rollover would make it totally obvious that it's a button?

Speaking of typography, I like the font you've used for the headings and main text in the last frame. It looks kinda like comic sans, but has less sloppy x-height than I remember comic sans having, as well as a more interesting 's'. What is it?

Good Flash, though not the legendary masterpiece I was hoping for.

kinggila responds:

Fonts on the last frame = CatholicSchoolGirls BB

You are one of my favourite reviews, but unfortunately, I had to narrow things down. If it weren't for the time length issue, I might have added more entertainment value to this flash.

Why on earth did you call Casualty Livecorpse? :S

Maybe I could make the text glow even more when highlighted, but I'll have a mess around when I start working on my 100th flash.

Comic Sans MS is the font that I used for the credits page.

"Good Flash, though not the legendary masterpiece I was hoping for."

There's always the 100th flash to look forward to, which should be the legendary masterpiece you're looking for.

Thanks Bezman! :)

[Edgar N' Locke 07]

Fast pace, good presentation, decent dialogue.

I like muffin's intro. Though maybe replace what I assume is verdana with something bolder and heavier?

I liked the presentation of this - with the name and the spinning whitened sprites. Fairly cool. Also, I like the end buttons. Though for the paragraph titles, maybe use a different font - something heavier. Maybe use another pixellated font?

Gogo's voice made me chuckle.

I assume Edgar is just speaking your opinion?

When you have the lyrics show, if they were larger, we'd be able to actually skim them.

A pixellated thought bubble would have been cool.

Anyways, I enjoyed this - liked hearing the various 'opinions' - specially the soldiers', woman's, and 'this is metal?'.

- Review Request Club -

kinggila responds:

I'm glad you liked the presentation here. My original idea was to show the name going big and then move off the screen. It looked really crappy and thought that I could make a better name introduction for all the characters and I did. :)

yes, Edgar's voice = My opinion

The lyrics had to be that small due to the dimension size issues, but for lyrics, anyone can just google the lyrics for them.

Thanks Bezman! :D

[Skate Something ep.1]

Good stuff

I was watching some snowboarders this afternoon. They'd set up some real snow slopes in Kelvingrove Park and I watched on - amused as they fell over, disappointed as they didn't attempt anything daring, but cheered when they busted out 720s and even somersaults!

Watching these kinds of things done for real is far more interesting to me - simply because we're amazed by the skill of the person. We never experience that with an animation. For that reason, I normally find these kind of things boring.

I liked how you used the possibilities of animation a little and had him jumping over spikes. Go for more stuff like that - why not have really unrealistic situations - maybe he's skating through a labyrinth, a rock chases him, handplanting and jumping backwards onto a lower floor... or maybe he's riding over stars or rainbows? Or maybe mix up a fighting flash with a skating animation - having folk gang up to beat him up, but he jumps over them, goes over their heads, hits them with the board...

Music was suitable and sfx were good.

The shapes were all pretty simplistic, but I liked how the guy sorta shifted his body weight as he jumped or whatever.

I liked how the board turned. But when the board spun around a vertical axis, is that something that could be really done? It kinda looked to me like he just jumped as if he were to do a kick-flip, then the board somehow magically spun like that. Maybe you could study skating vids, prhaps on slowmo, and watch how their bodies move when they do tricks.

A great first flash and you show promise, but it has a way to go yet.

-Review Request Club-

sistem69 responds:

thanks for the review and yes that trick is impossiblr to do but hey its cool right?
im glad u liked it.

[Gravity's Just a Theory]

Whimsical and charming.

Beautiful animation.

Everything was paced really well to the music and the graphics and ideas were charming.

My favourite parts were the bowl of milk's sign and the nightime cannon.

Also, the swishing beard and rising fowers were cool.

My one complaint is that in the final scene, it's too 'messy' somehow. It doesn't really fit in with the gentle ending to see the shrieking face on the right and the clutter on the ground. Maybe if you'd had lights going off at that point, the clutter somehow cleared earlier in the movie and the shrieking face falling asleep, it may have been more fitting.

Otherwise, beautiful and imaginative stuff. A lot of positive vibes here.

Oggy-cheese responds:

thanks for your constructive criticism, and yes i know what you mean, but i was aiming for it getting a bit more fast paced and frantic as it went along, like the song does at the end, then all calming down again. Yea, the green face could've been something a bit better :P and what do you mean by the clutter on the ground? To be fair, i was running out of ideas by that point :D

[Afro_Stud - The Fairytale]

I'd buy one...

First of all, I want to commend your excellent colouring on the restyled end screen. A distinct rollover frame would be good though.

Anyways, this flash is awesome.

The 2 short 'excrepts' from the book were hilarious. I loved the origin of his name and Adolf's minimal responses. s

The explanation for the pokeflashes ending was a nice nod to all that's happened.

Decent crying. On 2nd watch, I noticed graham's head bobbing - don't remember you doing that. Seems like you're taking a little bit more time over these things.

I actually thought for a moment that it was gonna end when the ad stopped, so was glad to see it continue.

I think you should ask A_S to voice himself again. I just found his voice funnier in your toons.

Also, the whole barbie doll fiasco wasn't that interesting and could have been cut or improved somehow - unless you're maybe trying to establish Hitler as a regular character and show his compassion.

Good stuff in any case. Keep it up!

kinggila responds:

A rollover frame? I think that would be fine. I'll have to think how I'd make that look decent, though.

Graham's "head bobbing" was originally used on Afro N' Graham 01 for when he laughed at me for being angry at Afro_Stud.

Nah, the ad itself would have been too short. :(

Hitler just wanted to make Afro_Stud happy by giving him a barbie doll.

Thanks Bezman. :)

[A Thousand Two Frames]

The starting splash is cool.

I feel like the strongest parts of these things - certainly in your case - is when they're bordering more towards pure abstraction.

The blue splash was certainly brilliantly done, and the red bit was cool too.

The scenes with the cavemonster, pooing blob, zombie and fish just didn't seem as strong though.

Unlike the first installment, this wasn't really connected - that had the theme of all the travelling etc. If you followed themes (e.g. dinosaurss, machines or jungle animals), it might seem more like a cohesive whole

Anyways, I'd really suggest you give us more splashes - those seem to be your forte. Maybe turn the animals etc. into more stylised blocks of colour? Maybe spend more time on them and sketch out different ways of drawing them before doing something on the computer?

As is, they bring the animation down.

I didn't enjoy this much, sorry.

blackcat2000 responds:

Mmm... Splashes... Mmm... Water... Mmm...
Block colors? Sure.
A plot to my randomness? Egad! I'll storyboard any future flashes. I'm sure it'll help. I'm drawing things (or was trying to) in (more) detail now, on paper. During classes. That way I'm totally concentrating. I can probably animate a strange monster if I reaaaallly wanted to. Maybe I'll compile some shorts. But connect them in random ways :D
Nah, that'd contradict your suggestion. I'll stick to some sort of theme :D
Thanks for the review!

[The Beelion]

Fun poem and idea marred by other elements.

I liked the poem at the start, but felt the graphics and the remainder let it down.

Your trees were nicely visualised.

The loop being on for so long kinda let it down though. I mean, where the poem talks about the nine creatures, maybe show them clambering around the trophy. And when they start singing Hakuna Matata, I thought it was gonna continue throughout the song and would have given up on it had it not been an RRC request.

I'd suggest you don't implement that song, unless you were gonna have the beelion dance or something.

The end kinda works well - those scenes at 1 frame a second are quite dramatic. When he finally gets the trophy though, as a moodshift, maybe you could have tweened him going through the cave?

I watched this last week and still don't know what to think of it. I love mixing animals together and your poem is cool. But so much brings it down that I can't really say I liked it overall.

I strongly encourage you to keep realising these ideas though. Look forward to seeing what you can do after garnering more skills.

blackcat2000 responds:

Heh. Thanks to the RRC for keeping some people longer than they would "normally" have. It was a slight fear when I submitted it that half the people would figure it's not going to end.
Indeed, indeed... motion tweening and movement to make the movie a tad more mysterious... have him moving into the darkness...
Thanks for the review!

[A Thousand Frames]

A step above the typical fbf experiments

What do you mean by 'rotating perspective', 'semi-3D things' and 'blurry movement'?

This was pretty cool - I specially liked the colours and liquidy motion at the start, as well as the fact that it all had a vague narrative, but the miidle and ending remained a slight disappointment.

Seeing that skull turn into liquid and splash away, then those colours shift, followed by the colours receding kinda like fungus was all incredible.

I felt that when you tried to be more literal - like with the fish, man, bullet... the limits of your abilities kinda showed. Maybe some colours would have improved it a bit and maybe you could have used the ctrl-Z to its full potential, trying for lines with style when drawing stuff, maybe sketching out a rough in a layer underneath, then redrawing it with more confidence and - hopefully as a result - flair.

The lack of colours worked well when the 'spedy' section started, but in the sea, I really missed it and in space it might have been nice to fill in the bullet/TV with some shade.

The narrative was cool - it was fun how racing along the road brought us to the cliff edge, bringing us underwater, bringing us into space. Maybe you could make more of some vague 'thematic flow' like that, maybe dropping some scenes, like the gumball bit , which didn't really work well imo.

Anyways, it's cool to see peeps experimenting and this was fun to watch the first time. Good stuff.

blackcat2000 responds:

Rotating perspective- I dunno... More like plain rotating, I guess... It's when the guy shows up for a short while, with his head spinning.
Semi-3D things- Well, more like... drawing with shading... The planet and all. I was a bit vague with that, but I meant shading :P
Blurry movement is another one... The fish swimming for example.

Sorry that i disappointed with the middle and end, but I figured it needed more action, then I sorta drifted into the land of animating madness :P
With the drawing underneath, I tried that with "The Beelion" and found it to be quite helpful... But probably would've been a tad boring with pure fbf. It's a good idea though, and I'll definitely remember it in future.

Thanks for the awesome review :)

[VZ Series:Naruto V Sasuke]

Just like hundreds

Overall, the movie bored me - the graphics are mediocre (excellently drawn by whomever drew them, badly composited by you for the most part) and the plot is the same old tosh. Essentially, it's just like hundreds of others.

What's the name of the font you used for the in-movie dialogue and opening text? It looks like a great decorative font, but for the size you're using it at (for the speech), you really need something more functional. Maybe a bitmapped font or a sans serif?

The sprites were well put together and all the speedlines, explosions and specially the 'charging up visuals' looks cool. Changing the bgs at that point was a nice idea.

However, there's a lot wrong.

Zoom-ins weren't a good idea with sprites - it doesn't look good. Work within the restrictions of the medium rather than trying to force it into places it shouldn't be.

You could have used a mask to blend the mountain and the 4 faces a bit better.

There were some examples of squashing - resulting in an oval planet at some points and a chubby Naruto in Sasuke's ending.

The explosions for Naruto's death looks fairly incongruous with everything else. Try to source images that match each other better.

The stuff I've said is just a bunch of graphical niggles - nothing that would stop it being enjoyed if the narrative was above par. Unfortunately, that's just the same-old battle scene and the 'true' ending, was just totally confusing. It wasn't as if it raised questions - it just made me wonder, 'wtf' and feel like you'd set yourself up to explain something that you won't properly be able to.

The charging bit and the bit where Sasuke first hits Naruto do look pretty decent.

I suggest you take a step back and think about what you're hoping to achieve with this series.

Tell a story? Work on it.
Improve your animation? Don't use sprites.
Show us cool stuff? Make a website - not flash animations.

-Review Request Club-

mortis5000 responds:

Thank You...The sprites were limited so I did have my hands tied behind my back...the camera systems that I used did distort some of my scence esp sasuke ending...I have adopted a new system actually that doesn't distort it...