Aqlex's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Nites Episode 2]

I love the animation of this! That part is definitely shining. So is the color palette and the humor, it's great.

A few things I'd like to see improvement on: Editing. Some shots just hold too long. The shot of the "Nite" reading the tablet? Too long. We can do with at least one less pass of his eyes going over the text, maybe even two. We understand everything we need to about that shot very quickly. It also holds too long at the end. Same with the shot of the nite looking back at the skeleton toward the end. This holds far too long, and the shot that slowly zooms out is also just way too long. Make things a bit snappier. I don't necessarily need, or even want, traditional Hollywood cut-cut-cut style editing, but I think there's no reason to hold any shot longer than the average audience member needs to gather all of the necessary information.

Second, I like what you're doing with sound, but I want you to push it even just a bit further! First off, all of it sounded just a bit low quality. Are you doing all of your sound in Flash itself? If so, I would recommend doing your sound design and mixing outside of it, maybe in Premiere if you've got it. And also, I just want the sound design to be pushed a bit further. More sounds that tell the story, and give us an idea of what is going on in the character's mind. More sounds that tie into the editing, more sounds that give the world a little more flesh!

Lastly, I want to address your shots. I like what you're doing generally with the shot choices, BUT, I think they could get even stronger with more practice! I want to see a wider variety of close ups and wide shots. AND, I want more shots that contain important information in the frame! I like the backgrounds you've got, they're great. But I think that sometimes, they could contain more information to help the story along, or just to flesh out the world. Sometimes it feels like there is just a bit too much dead space in the frame that isn't doing all that much to add to the film. I think more variation in lighting could help too. That cave/tunnel was honestly too bright! It could be darker and moodier. More harsh shadows. More contrast!

I'm only saying these things because I think you're very good, by the way. Don't take these negatively! I just think that giving some thought about things you could add or vary more could help these animations take even another step down the road of polish and perfection.

Feel free to disregard everything, of course, if you want, and keep making what you enjoy making! That's what matters after all.
-Aqlex

Extellus responds:

Thank you very much for such a detailed review. ^^ I too have felt that some parts are dragged out but that was after I published the video. :/ I did all of my sound editing in Flash but the reason it's low quality is because I didn't crank up the publish settings to the max. :S I couldn't wrap my head around it until later on. You have a point on so many things so I'll definitely take your review into account. ^^

[Confusion Through Sand]

Oh my god! I've been looking for this piece forever, and I gave up on finding it, and now I all of a sudden find it on the front page of Newgrounds!

I saw this piece at the Oakland Underground Film Festival 2014 (where it was playing alongside one of my live action films), and loved it. It was amazing, and I can't believe the amount of effort that must have gone into this. Full 5 stars, guys. I'm glad you're putting this up for the rest of the world to see.

[The Stream Forgives]

I definitely like some of the ideas in here, and I think the choice to make it word-less is a good one. BUT, speaking from a filmmaker's standpoint, you need to cut the film shorter. The cuts need to be more activated. There are times when we cut into a scene and have to wait a few beats for a character to show up on screen. We should cut from a scene before the character is completely off it, to a new scene where the character is already entering. I think it would help the flow of this piece. Also, the sound editing needed just a bit of finessing, and it made some of the cuts too apparent (often, we want to hide the cuts. Though this is a stylistic choice, I think this film would benefit from it).

Oh, and one more thing, this piece isn't really for Newgrounds. Newgrounds specifically asks that the videos you upload have some use of flash or animation in them, and this is pretty much straight film. Anyway, I hope this didn't sound too harsh! I hope you keep making films, because it seems like you've got some cool concepts.

Minimeowz responds:

I understand the cuts thank you for the constructive crit. But i'm still not seeing anywhere on the site that says you can only upload an animation. The site actually says before you click on it "NewGrounds, ANYTHING by ANYONE" :)

[Gothic Spoof deux]

Such improvement! Wow, you're getting better so quickly! I wish I could improve at that rate. The walk cycles looked pretty good, and I particularly liked the looping orc animations. Especially the drum one! Wow. The lip syncing is also nice! The sound was good, except for a few times when I felt the music ended really abruptly (also, my microphone quality is clearly inferior to everyone else's). The jokes were pretty fun. There were still a few rough areas, and I would personally advise moving the camera around a little less often, but with the rate that you're improving, I'm expecting things to only get better.

Thanks for letting me be a part of this! Also, the ending seemed a little open... Are you leaving it ready for a possible Part 3 one day?

GagaManMusic responds:

First of all I want to thank you again Alex for taking the time and helping me out on this episode as this was a lot bigger than the first one.

Second of all - Thanks for your detailed review Alex.

Well I always try to improve whatever I can but I still have a looong way to go in order to get where I want to be. The funny thing is that I actually thought that people would like the bowing orc most as I thought it came out the best as far as the smoothness of the animation - but I guess the drumming orc did steal the show as far as grabbing the attention of the eye.

I hope to improve on camera shots too, and also on the script - like I told you in other messages I do kind of write the script all in one go and rarely go back to fixing things, I have to fix that somehow - I also would love to try and talk to you and the other voice actors for help in improving the yet non-existing script for part 3.

So we've come to another point you touched in your review( well more of a question really) - Yes I do wish to make part 3 of this animation, actually I would love it if we could parody Gothic 2 as well as it is a really funny game with a lot more areas and characters to have fun with.

[Brainless]

I liked it. The animation and drawing style, the jokes, I liked where it was going. (I am biased, as I was a voiceactor on this =P). The art style is only going to improve with time and practice, but it's already got a nice start. The main thing I would say to work on is timing. I felt like there were a couple pauses that were just stillness with no movement or sound for just a little too long. If you could cut those down in future projects, I think it would really help out the timing =).

[Green riding hood]

Wow, nice

When I saw the title, I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was getting good ratings so I checked it out. For not being an animator, you did a really good job! You did a better job than lots of people who do know how to "animate" (myself included for sure). You definitely need to keep making animations! And the story itself was fairly original for being a twist on the Red Riding Hood story. The music didn't sound too high quality though, did you make sure to go to "publish settings" and change "Audio Event" to at least MP3, 32 kbps, and check the box to override sound settings? If you already did that, maybe raising the number further could improve the sound quality. If that isn't helping, I'm at a loss for how to improve the quality. BUT, I hope I may have helped a little, and even if I didn't, your animation is great. Keep making them, NOW!

gusana responds:

Thanks for the advice! yeah... i set it in event and it still sounded bad so i left it like that n_n

[Stick ppl fighting]

I'm not sure what to say...

I mean, you obviously put work into it, but then again, the stick figures change sizes like crazy. They go to like double their size at times! And sometimes a face appears on them for such a short time that one can't really see it in time. But you did put sound effects that matched the animation somewhat, and you used a preloader (I think) so that's good. I suggest you keep practicing so you can become better =). And I also suggest you move from stick figure fights, and preferably from stick figures overall. If you're not a very good artist, it's okay, there are still simple characters one can draw that aren't stick figures. Keep practicing though, I hope to see something awesome from you one day! I can even try to help you out a little if you'd like, but I myself am a pretty crappy animator.

OMGACOOKIE3 responds:

Yea..I was too lazy to fix that but i didnt wanna leave a message in the front or else it would get blammed about the pole thing...It went in the gray but i guessed i increseased the width O.o

[WGJ4K: Hottest GameChicks]

I usually don't review...

but I had to in this case. I love your work and your animation, and the amazing rate at which you release episodes. I have to say that I haven't really liked WGJ4K as much as some of your other works, probably largely because it had no real continuity or interesting twists, but this episode makes up for that. I just love the way the episode ends! I just hope that there is something cool behind it, because now I'd love to know what it is. But anyway, this episode is great animation wise (I love Mickey's slow head turn. Is that frame by frame?), and the writing is awesome, and we get a much nicer development to everything. Is there a good reason Mickey has such amazing knowledge of guns? I certainly think so. Great season finale, overall. Also, Eric and June holding hands? Wow. Anyway, I really hope we get more. You are a good movie maker. It's about time you moved on to TV shows. Yup. Great stuff.

[music & lunch]

Huh? What is this?

The art was awful, there was no animation, only a slightly humorous voice. The quality was really bad though. You need to work on your animations, and the stories too =P. Also, add a preloader next time please =)

dimentiodrew74 responds:

sorry i did get the animation but i just started using it

[RedHand]

Amazing, but...

It's really freakin' good. Amazing voice acting, great animation, great soundtrack. My only issue is that when I tried to watch all three parts, it went to a black screen and some "enigmatic voice" talked, and then it stayed on the black screen. I waited 2 more minutes, and then refreshed and tried to go back through the scene selection, but that didn't work, so I just went to go watch Part B, hoping that was about where I left off, but again, it went to a black screen and stopped playing after a few minutes, and I refreshed and went to part C, where I ran into the same problem. I loved watching it, but having it constantly interrupted like that made it very annoying to watch, and not having a working scene selection didn't help that out. I can't really tell if I got to see all of it or not, now? Also, I'm a little dissappointed that you used simple stick figures, but you put so much detail into them that I forgive you xD. They look pretty sleek. Anyway, I loved the animation, and loved every part about it except for the glitchy factor. Please fix those up as soon as you can?

Shayphis responds:

Thanks and sorry, those should be fixed up very soon!