Sheizenhammer's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Putting Vids Into Flash]

You're not doing your own tutorial any favours.

Kudos for trying, but there are a few very large and obvious problems with this:

The quality isn't just bad, it's hopeless. The things you're doing are totally illegible thanks to the low resolution of the video (and the sound isn't much better - I've got my speakers turned right up and I still can't hear it clearly). Since I'm guessing you used you're own way of importing videos here, you're not exactly selling the method very well.

Also, there's the filesize. 7.4 MB, and for what? If this is what importing videos results in (read: a whole lot of nothing), why bother importing videos like this at all?

...For that matter, there's an air of pointlessness about the whole thing in general. All you're really doing here (I think) is clicking a button that says 'Import...' and following the on-screen prompts. Gee, I'd never have thought of doing that if I wanted to import a video into flash. :/

If you want to make tutorial flashes, it's crucial that you actually know more than most about Flash to start with, and making sure you're not just pointing out the blaringly obvious (or what's been pointed out a million times already in previous tutorial flashes) is also important. It's nice to see someone use the 'import' tool for something other than stealing YouTube videos for a change, but at the same time, just drawing / animating the same thing would've worked a lot better than this did.

skeleme responds:

It file size was huge because of the tut vid that I had to import and the quality was bad because i had to resize it a little!!!

[The Hammer Collab]

Lolwut?

I'm sorry... I had to...

This is great for a stickman movie. But then again, I would think that....

Anyway, it'd be good if all the parts had sound effects (the silent ones just aren't as entertaining without all the splattering noises), and of course the animations were pretty simplistic, as per usual for this kind of movie. There are ways of making a stickman flash look more professional, but then again that kind of detracts from the fun of these things (most of the time they're funny BECAUSE they're so simple).

Still, there's a fine line between humourously simple and lazy, and you managed to get it right here, so I like it. I gave it a 4 vote, because there is room for improvement, but it's pretty good as it is all the same. Good job; kudos to everyone who made it. :)

Fizzled responds:

everyone (NEARLY EVERYONE) used sound effects, apart from mack. and someone else. but that's it really. and thank you very much for the honest feedback, i appreciate it much more than the guys who give it a 2 becuase 'it sux'

[King of the Kill]

Um... random much?

I never would've guessed that I'd be starting my day by watching a velociraptor go on a chainsaw massacre. Guess you really CAN find anything on Newgrounds.

The randomness alone was a plus point; this is original even by NG standards. However, there were a few obvious areas that could've done with improvement, most notably the use of such a badly cropped, static image of the raptor. Judging from the rest of the artwork, you could've probably drawn a chainsaw-wielding raptor and it would've looked better than what I'm guessing was the 'easy' option of the static picture. You could've animated a drawn one much better as well.

Aside from that, it was actually pretty good (especially if this is your first flash). The animations of all the drawn stuff were good, as well as the drawings themselves. The voices were spot on and true to character, and the only things wrong with the rest of it were the fact that it was a bit short, and could've involved more gory animation details.

Still, all these little things add up, so it's far from perfect. For a first flash, though (one that doesn't rely on sprite sheets and is over 5MB in size just because the latest Linkin Park track was thrown in it for no good reason), it's definitely one of the better ones I've seen. Keep at it! With practice, you could make some amazing stuff!

DrSevenSeizeMD responds:

hahaha thanks. It was my first real flash. I have a few super short ones which didn't really require any animations. Not animating the velociraptor was part of our inside joke. I can crop him better for future flashes, but you're right that animating him would look better. I appreciate all the advice and will use it for future work. Thanks for the review.

[flash fight sakura wooooo]

Another generic sprite movie.

It's not bad for a sprite short, but that's all it is: a sprite short.

While I dislike sprite movies in general, I've seen much worse ones than this, so it's worth a half-decent score at least.

The last part was indeed slightly out, but that's not the main problem I have with it. The main thing with sprite movies in general, no matter how good they are, is that the only thing they show is the author's ability to cut stuff out, import it into flash, and move said pre-made pictures around the screen. They give no indication as to how well YOU can draw/render your own stuff.

There's nothing wrong with this movie per se, but I'd have to encourage you to start working with your own artwork (since you have two previous sprite movies already). Persistently relying on sprites to do the drawing for you just looks lazy after a while, even if they're animated well.

I think you've got enough practise at just animating things (as this movie is pretty good for animation timings, minor end-glitch or not), and it's probably time to start making submissions you can completely call your own. It may be tedious to do at first, but all it takes is practise.

Good luck!

FLASHISHOT responds:

do you think i should finish this because this is my first flash