JKR's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Crossing]

I liked it! You have a knack for close ups and expressions, great job there. It could use a little editing down, but it was a fun little short regardless. :)

newgamingspies responds:

Thank you! And sorry for not responding! ;-; :'D

[Creative Types]

Beautiful job! Congrats on such a terrific animated music video. You can tell it took a lot of work.

Sucks about the stolen thing, but at least as it says in the song, it shouldn't matter about views. Besides, I don't think this one will have any problem getting lots of 5 stars and whatnot. :)

[Linda Show: Chick-fil-A]

Not your best work. Closer to your worst, to be honest. I don't mean that to be antagonistic, it's just this wasn't great. Maybe it was just too preachy. Or maybe not preachy ENOUGH, if that makes sense. Your others have been so over the top that it becomes funny. This wasn't.

Anyway, looking forward to more Taco Man, and hopefully another 5 years before Linda returns again.

[Kagemono: The Shadow Folk]

It's tricky to give this a review on Newgrounds. ON NEWGROUNDS, it is fantastic. But that's because it's surrounded by a lot of terrible stuff. I think it's important instead to judge this outside of Newgrounds, in the world of real animation.

In that realm, this was very cute and nicely animated, but it really made no sense. It seemed cute for the sake of cute. The driving motivation of the characters felt shallow and empty, though. It was like some sugary cake covered in icing. Very sweet and nice to look at, but no filling substance. It was animation for animation sake, instead of telling a concrete story with real characters.

That's not to say it was BAD, it's just you need to focus on connecting the characters to actions for a reason, rather than just having actions because it's cute (or you feel like it should be that way). Ollie Johnston once said "YouâEUTMre not supposed to animate drawings. YouâEUTMre supposed to animate feelings." I didn't get "feelings" from these characters. When the fox was sad, it was sad because it made little whimpering noises, not because inside it felt sad, if that makes sense.

Your sense of design was quite lovely, and in that regard A+. Once you couple that with compelling characters whose actions are real and true, you'll be set! Keep at it, because you clearly have some great skill to bring to the industry. Much luck!

[Rainbow Math Episode Five]

I want that job!

You can get a job yelling at people who are addicted to candy bars? Since when?! I've been wasting my life!

Some fun stuff in here. It seems the audio still needs cleaned up a bit, so I'd work on that for the next go around. Lower the input volume and try to move about 12 inches further from the mic. It should help a lot.

Also here's another quick thing. On a character turn, you can just insert one (three would be best) in betweens and it will work better than just flat rotation. Unless you were going for that look. Anyway, keep at it!

kfdwiki responds:

Yes, I'm going for that whole "paper" look in my animation. So that was intended.

Also, I will have to watch that darned audio. Once you get in the recording mood, you don't really think of what you're doing.

"You can get a job yelling at people who are addicted to candy bars? Since when?! I've been wasting my life!"

Hahaha, I wish that was an actual job. What with all these health programs going around, this job may be available soon! XD

~DJG~

[Rainbow Math Short-Mohawk]

Good start, keep at it!

You've got a good starting point here, with a lot to build on! You're going to want to watch the audio quality, I know that can be tough with just an average computer mic, but little tricks can make sound better. For one, try not to talk too closely directly into the mic. Hold it about 8 inches away and talk right ABOVE the mic. You'll still get good sound but it won't pop and crackle as much.

It's tricky to do lip syncing just on a loop, but if you want to do that it will help if you move the characters more. Make them separate symbols and just motion tween them a bit while they're talking. It will add a lot. Good luck with it, DJ!

kfdwiki responds:

Thank you for their review!

Yeah, I'm a little bad at lip syncing. It's kinda hard and boring and I turn into one of those "whatever, I'll just wing it" moods.

But again, thanks!

[Avada Kedavra]

Don't give out 10's often...

But this absolutely deserves it. Currently the score is sitting at 4.21. I'm not sure what drunken smackfiends voted lower than a 5, but they're absolutely maddening to me. This deserves 5's across the board. What animation were THEY watching?

Anyway, this should be in the top 50 of all time here easy. You should be exceptionally proud, and that's coming from a professional animator.

[Loverboy]

Aspects of the animation were incredible

I watched it three times just to see the incredible frame by frame stuff you put in in several parts. I wish there was a pause button so I could go through it frame by frame and see what you did. WOW. Overall it was well done, but parts went straight into the realm of "absolutely outstanding" so nice job. I'd love to see what you could do entirely frame by frame.

[Age of Kingdom: Trailer]

Looks like it's going to be cool, but...

This is just a trailer, so I can't really give it much of a rating. I'm very much looking forward to playing the game when it releases, though. I think you'd have more success releasing this trailer once the game is out, with a link to the game.

Is it PC only? It seems like it would make an awesome iPhone/Pod Touch game! Hope you'll consider that. Good luck with finishing it.

[Snowy VI: Camp Death]

Merry Christmas

Hey Sam!

Nice work on the animation as usual. I've never been a HUGE Snowy fan (like Tacoman and Bible Stories more), but you can't deny the quality of your work. I'm glad to hear next year will be the final, because I think the "Defeated for the last time!" thing is being stretched a touch thin at this point, as some other people have said. I look forward to next year's finale. One suggestion? I would have ended this one with "To Be Concluded!" instead, because that would have built the excitement even more.

Anyway, good luck with Ebolaworld in 2010 and a happy holidays to you! I know I'll be watching all the new stuff next year.
-JKR