Hnilmik's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Kagemono: The Shadow Folk]

8D YAAAAAAYYY!! I was wondering if/when this'd make it on here! Newgrounds needs more quality stuff like this, so I'm looking forward to more animations from you in the future!

[VO Home Studio : Space]

XD I love the anguished sound comparison near the end.

Most people don't know what I mean whenever I say room echo.

NOW I CAN THROW THIS AT THEM!

[42 Boxes ACT 1]

12 minutes just for ACT I out of how many...?

I feel weird for reviewing this 'cause of my involvement in this, but why not.

First off, I love how everything looks and this is definitely above and beyond your typical sprite movie, as far as animation goes with the mouth and limb movements. It's your kind of thing~ I recall the script for this being ENORMOUS and I worried about this being a drag to listen to. In certain spots, it was, but in others, you definitely got a great cast to make this move by faster than expected~

For something with lines and recordings from maybe years ago (I know some members of the cast have been improving over the years, causing a difference in presented skill), the performances as a whole weren't as bad as I was expecting! My only issue is really with the sound quality. Try getting the volumes of the voice actors to be on the same level or at least louder than the background music, for some of the VA's.

With the entire script written out and recorded for already, it's kinda hard to incorporate the writing feedback for future acts, but if you're still planning on a series, try condensing the best material into shorter episodes instead of trying to cram everything in. That way, the series will be easier to release and follow, instead of giving up after a 1 hour pilot.

Mutteo responds:

Yes, i have had a lot of problems with the audio quality. Even when I tried to amplify the sound, some spots were buried in the music. Eventually I'll figure something out.

People have mentioned to me about the script dragging at times, I tend to have te habit of making things longer than they should be.

On questimate, I believe there is another 16 minutes left of 42 Boxes to make. It's hard for me to make tiny episodes, but I know my biggest concern is the fram limit. Most likely I might have to move some scenes to the credits, and also possibly cutting something, mostly the anchorman, since i figure that was my original problem with the flash.

I'll have to work something out.

[Intergalactic Boxing Loop]

D8 !!

WHY SO AMAZING!?

HOLY CRAP!! I... I...

There are no other words for me to say except for spaz-tacular crazy utter-isms over how pretty this is and how I want to see more from you.

[Magic School Bus: ep2]

Talk about alternate character interpretation!

I like the concept you got going~ The writing is alright, but if there're some things that could use a bit more work, it's some of the tweening and the voice acting (especially the sound quality).

For the tweening, at times it's stiff or "unclean". Like where the arms connect to the shoulders or the forearms connect at the elbow, they sometimes look like disjointed rectangles/shapes with not enough room to actually be attached at the intended point. It's most glaringly obvious when you can see between the end edges of the shapes and when the lines don't connect. A trick a lot of tweening animators use is have something "extra" going on at the pivoting point (like a big rounded knob), so when an arm or leg bends, the edges of a square or rectangle isn't seen.

For the voice acting, I have to say, for people who don't seem to voice act too often, it's passable. Muted and often flat, but it works for a bunch of teachers sitting around to talking to each other. It's when voices are raised that sound quality becomes an issue and a possible reason why the performances seemed held back--Peaking! Oh gawd, when Ms. Frizzle showed up and started talking loud, it hurt my ears because of the mic distortion! The energy is appropriate and I wish she was even more crazy (imagine that), but the volume? Ouch---It's like having my ears screamed into!

I don't know what program you're using to record, but if it's Audacity, its volume control sucks. Trust me, I used it for years and it always failed me when I needed to scream. Wavepad has only 1 editing track, but at least you can change the volume of a clip through its amplification feature and if you're crazy ghetto, you can record things one by one in Wavepad and attach everything in Audacity. As for the mic issues going on, lower the gain of the mic and/or back up from it while screaming. Not sure if you're using Windows or a Mac, but there should be a way to adjust the input volume in the sound settings somewhere.

I hope what I had to say will help you for the rest of the series!

['Rageous 7]

So varied, yet so seamless!

One thing that usually gets to me when it comes to collabs is how segmented everyone's pieces are. Varying styles and personal capabilities aside, it always felt like an interruption from one clip to the next.

I didn't see or hear any of that here, so this wins SO hard!!

[How 2 Make a Ngs Username]

::looks at her username::

...I'm in the "WTF, how the hell do we pronounce that mess of letters?!" category, where a chunk of our usernames are usually our real names backwards or our faces spontaneously mashed against the keyboard.

I totally wish I had this tutorial when coming up with my username, but alas...

LewToons responds:

haha i wonderd how to pronounce ur name

[Flintlock Pt 1]

You're getting better!

I wish I knew how to solve your file size issue, but I will say that sound is the biggest issue in this one. Aside from volume levels being off for the dialogue (some characters, like Julian, were quieter than others), it was unusual to hear efforts and reaction noises but no sound effects, especially when characters got hit in the face or were reacting to their environment. Too much walla/additional voices detracted from what was going on (I heard more people than I saw).

I'm not sure if mixing all the audio into one file first would help the file size problem, since it depends on how easy it is to animate to for the animator, but if you can convey the environment in a radioplay, it can very easily be translated into visual. More important sounds, like dialogue and meaningful SFX, ought to be a bit louder and easier to discern from the background sounds. You know how people can forgive bad visual quality on YouTube but will cringe and ignore video with bad sound quality? It's like that. Right now, the visuals are alright, but the sound is what's detracting from your work. If you're using Audacity, I'll warn you now that mixing with it isn't hard and not too bad if you know how, but it SUCKS at adjusting volume levels (which leads to me using Wavepad in combination with Audacity sometimes).

As a whole, look into what's causing that file size problem. Things got really interesting just as it ended and though it makes me want to see more, I'm still getting an incomplete vibe (when I know better). If you need some help with some mixing and SFX, I can help ya out too~

Kreid responds:

Thanks a lot!
The file size issue is really a letdown for this, but yeah, I will improve the audio too!

[Left 4 Speed 2]

XD Oh gawd.

Awwwww~ Ellis is my favorite survivor with Nick being a close second and yet, Nick just took the cake in this one! Awesome performances all around and the fast-paced humor had me laughing all over the place~ Haha at Rochelle having no personality~ And I never understood how Spitter was scary until the baby... You just HAD to add the baby. ::cringes and yet still laughs at Nick's reaction::

[The Tale of Mr. Carter]

;_; Noo! Not the poor little boy!

Nice writing (I dig the story) and it was presented creepy-like enough~ Neato ending. I have to say though, it came off as too Christmas for a Halloween entry. The voice acting could've been, for lack of better words, more interesting and varied to make the most of the chilling script.

XD That, and I usually associate music from Amelie to general happy or at the most, contemplation instead of happy-to-OMGWHYDIDTHATHAPPEN-OHGOD-WH YDIDYOUUNHAPPYTHINGSWITHTHISTERROR.

Still, for what it is, not bad~

SamuriFerret responds:

Thanks very much!