PIED3's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Peeping Tom]

Hey cool this is the first time a song of mine has been used in anything! And you used a full 3 seconds of it! The animation was a little short and simple but the punchline was somewhat funny and it sort the colours where okay i guess. You should have had a replay button that stopped the credits music so watching it 3000 times in a row would be a little easier but i managed none less. The sound effects were decent. I'll give it a biased 6.

Little-Rena responds:

Not sure why you'd want to watch it 3000 times in a row, lol, but thanks.

["The Worst"]

Wow, you weren't kidding when you said "'Winter' is Seasame street in comparison".
But not only did this massively exceed it in terms of gratuitous gore and grotesqueness but also in artistic merit and beauty. Right from the opening shot of the building it was obvious this was going to be something special. The lighting, colouring, animation and art style are all superb. The swollen sacks and crimson contusions of the gruesome creatures are so well drawn it's impossible not to reel back in horror. The scenes were made all the more vile by the laughter of the onlookers and the lack of sound effects. Somehow those grinning fleshy faces contorting in amusement were horribly magnified by the lack of audible laughter. I wasn't a big fan of the music but it certainly fitted with the theme of the animation.
All in all an astoundingly well made animation with a unique feel and mood that has me replaying it over and over. Excellent work!

Sherbalex responds:

i dunno about the beauty but i sure hope there's merit

[Days Of Yore 2]

I watched this the day it was realesed but seeing your impassioned grieving at lack of views i thought i should give it a review... because it's all round great! I like your art style a lot, the characters are fun and full of life and the block colour backgrounds have a suprising professionalism to them thanks to their clean smoothness. The voice actingw as spot on, amusing satyrs of the vocal style of the period and this wonderful delivery combined with the excellent script and dialogue had me laughing throughout. The ending especially cracked me up, some how the accents make the insult even more amusing.
And i'm yet to speak of your charming animation! Really smooth and bouncy, a nice blend of tweens and fbf. I think some of the facial expressions and arm stretching were a bit too over the top, or atleast a bit over used. It's really just a matter of preference but i think the wacky expressions lose their comedic effect when used almost constantly. I liked the concept and the pacing was fast enough to remove any of those awkward pauses animated comedies sometimes have.
All in all i thought it was very funny and well executed!

molkman responds:

Thanks for the great review. :)

I was pretty shocked at first when I put it up on NG and it totally fell off the radar with NG freezing.

[Small Talk]

Should put a preloader in there because having it automatically start is a little annoying. There should also be an end screen with a replay button so it doesn't repeat in a mind mashing loop for eternity!
Technical details aside though it was a nice animation. I don't really like it when people just grab a funny audio clip and animate something over the top but for what it is you've done it well. I like your art style a lot. The soft colours and thing lines give it a laid back appearance that fits perfectly with the tone of the audio clip. The animation was a little static and whilst the lip synching was decent the facial expressions could have been a little more varied. Sure they widened there eyes and closed them whilst laughing but a bit more motion would have been nice.
I liked the various animals you had playing the roles and that added another comedic element that stopped the joke getting too stale. As a whole despite not really liking the concept i thought it was decent, definitely a nice art style.

MrKwai responds:

Thanks very much, yeah sorry about the preloader and stuff im a newgrounds noob, but thanks for all the feedback nice to hear some input :)

[Robot Love episode 2]

First things first, it's good that you have a preloader but the play button is a little osbscure. It apperas to be a small pebble? It's hit area is also a little wacky.
And after pressing that, why does the animation stop again on the title screen? This seems a little unnecessary, pressing play once should be enough to watch the whole movie. Again, the play button is literally the title and this is a little obscure too, there are no roll over effects and it's hit area is the same size as the actual text. It required skill to get the movie going again! Always make sure you have large hit boxes for all your buttons and atleast some roll over effect (no matter how subtle).
As for the actual content it was decent. You have a clean artstyle and the black white (whilst a bit bland) looked nice enough. The red hearts & kisses were a nice touch. I liked the background music, though you should have credited the author (even if it's you!).
The concept was a little strange, two robots floating on a cloud meet each other and fall in love? Well okay! But perhaps a little more explanation could make it more engaging. Why were they floating on clouds? What made them attracted to each other? Something at least that the viewer can relate to.

Oh and seeing as you like robots, you might like to know it's Roboy Day on July the 10th and if you submit a robot animation then you enter the side wide competition. Perhaps you'd like to spend the time and make a longer, more plot driven robot animation and release it then? Just a thought.

Keep it up!

DIRLON responds:

Well the thing was with the loader I really got messed with that thing so I thought what the hell who cares its all about the animation, and we are planning to do more of those things and next time it will be longer no worries.

Thank you!

[Jimmy Raps Pt. I]

I enjoyed the script and voice acting though i wasn't a huge fan of the art style. Some of the colours were a bit garish but the mouths with their large teeth were quite unique and i liked that. The lip synching was decent and the facial expressions were comical, it was perhaps all a bit static but the script didn't demand that much movement.
You blended the photo backgrounds well with the vector foregrounds and the drawn backgrounds were good too. The pacing was good (which is very important with comedy) and the characters were all interesting and distinct. Some good work!

MigitMadness responds:

Thank you for giving us some feedback! It's nice to have such positive feedback. I can understand not enjoying the overall style, afterall it's just a matter of opinion. We are always lookng for ways to improve things though.

[enter: dollhouse one.]

Great atmosphere! The concept is really cool and you pull it off quite well, i never thought i'd be scared by a cat leaning his head into a doll house. The song(?) that loops in the background gets a little annoying. The sudden cut off is quite jarring and stops the music from ever blending entirely into the background. Your art is decent and the camera angles and lighting were pretty good too. I think your animation needs work and a lot of it is far too static. Remember than when people walk and run they don't glide, they move up and down. A key part of making run/walk cycles look good is getting this right. Having a body glide horizontally along with legs moving beneath just looks bad, make sure the body is moving up and down with the rise and fall of the walk!
That said some of the animation was pretty good and i'm sure with practice you can get some create some more realistic looking motion. The voice acting fitted the concept perfectly and the sound design was good too.
I didn't really like the shrinking growing scene, the imagery of it is a little too cliche and comical to work with the sinister tone you're creating here. All in all though it was an enjoyable flash and i look forward to future episodes!

beccahyman responds:

Thanks for this, really honest and helpful. I'm definitely a massive amateur with sound design, i need to get a better mic to record background noise & edit it properly or collaborate with someone here on newgrounds because I had to make the eerie sounds etc from scratch. I do see what you're saying with the jarring sound, which i didn't entirely register until I started editing with headphones.

And really appreciate your advice about walkcycles, they're still my biggest struggle and I do need more practice. As for the shrinking scene, I hadn't really thought about it as comical but thanks for your input. Think as I get better with AFX i can come up with better transitions from live-action characters into flash figures.

Thanks for a fair and thorough review, man.

[The Rise of Facebook Pt.1]

Ha ha, a nice satire. The animation was a little static but the lip synching was decent and i liked your character design. The pacing was perfect and the the script was pretty great too with the interchanging of interviewees never letting the audience get bored. I thought the voice acting was decent (i particularly liked the chav) and the background music was suitabley chosen and not too loud so as to distract. The transitions were proffesionally done and i really can't think of much to complain about. Looking forward to part 2!

killourkid responds:

thanks for the kind words, i hope you enjoy part 2!

[Fish Face Fred]

I really like your art style and character design and your animation is pretty great too. Good use of fbf and some real smooth bouncy motion that is a joy to watch. The sort of water colour splishy splosh backgrounds were neat too and gave some softness to contrast the crisp lines of the foreground animation. The facial expressions were very emotive without doing the over the top, in your face, eyes balls popping out, style that's popular as of late. That said, i didn't really like the script or the voice acting. The plot was a little too random for my liking and lacked clear punchlines and laugh out loud moments. The voice actors delivery was fine for the casual conversational tone you were going for but it just wasn't that engaging or humorous. I think you've definitely shown a lot of skill with this and i'd love to see you make something more serious.

Wakman111 responds:

Thanks!
I'm really focused on fbf animation. It is one of the main things I'm trying to get better at. that, and actually giving the body noticeable volume and shape, which is pretty difficult to do with flash and its line quality. Although, I'm sure the watercolor backgrounds flattened them even further.

I'm actually really happy that you liked the facial expressions. I'm very influenced by most of the great animators on here, but I am also getting kind of tired of the grotesquely and overly exaggerated faces. I still wanted to keep that core of the emotive expressions but tone it down and sort of take it in a bit more refreshing direction, even though it may not be too different than where it was originally going.

As for the script. There technically wasn't one. I asked NeroSkwid to tell me a story about his friends back home. It was very on the spot, so the cadence, timing, and execution was all left to him as he recalled this story in real time. It was done only in one take and I'm happy with it, even if it is very casual and informal.

I plan on being a bit more productive and present in the NG community, so you should see a lot more from me!
Thank you for taking the time to critique!

[ne porvivajo]

Well that was very surreal! This is the sort of thing that i think makes animation such a great medium, total freedom to do whatever you want! Blow up the moon, have a talking baloon, have a man with a barnacle for a nose? Whatever, anything goes! The cuts and plot pieces were well timed with the music but the real highlight of this for me was your wonderful art style. Everything looks very full of life and nice little details and yet reamins clean and clear. It's hard to commont on the plot/concept as it was obviously meant to be quite strange, as you said, like the mind on a broken rollercoaster. I think you built a rich and engaging world that i would like to see expanded on or atleast more of. I think you overdid it a bit with the explosions and thats kinda a cliche in animation randomness. Still, definitely a fine piece of work!

justicejew responds:

thanks! this was super minimal effort, imagine if i tried hard one day!! and everything exploding is a metaphor for my hatred for deadlines and perhaps even myself