ChrisMckiernan's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[ADULT ENTERTAINMENT]

The animation and audio was timed well.
Interesting voice acting.

Though,
Next time you make a video with these characters.
You should make "lemonade" and "latte" more detailed or look more realistic,
instead of a heart with circle eyes and a basic mouth shape that never really changes.

Try making more mouth and eye animations, instead of changing the size of the mouths from big to small to make it match the dialogue.

The animation was extremely basic to the point that there was no animation at all.

lemonadeandlatte responds:

Thank you for your comment.

[Bamboo Garden- Ep. 1]

Good characters designs, backgrounds, animation and voice acting.

But,
You really have to work on timing your scenes and the timing of the dialogue and lip sync.

Each scene or camera angle was about 1-2 seconds long.
It was making me dizzy and cross eyed trying to follow everything.

It was hard to tell where the characters were in the scene and where they fit tin the background.

It also looked like you used the same split second scene repeatedly to add more time or length to your animated short.

The story was confusing and hard to follow.
When your making a story you have to constantly ask the question "why?"

Why do the characters act or think the way they do?
Why are they stealing from each other and for what purpose?
Where do they live and why do they live there?
Why do they fight, train, and live the way they do?

My advice is....

1.Your entire short was "quick cut" and "zoom" camera angles.
Have less "quick cuts" and have longer timed scenes. Maybe 5 to 10 seconds long.
Its up to you
and the length of the scenes should be judged by whats happening in the story.

2. With some of the lip sync, i noticed that dialogue timing was off by at least 1 second or half a
second and i noticed some "shuttering" with the main character's lip sync.

3. Work on your humor and jokes. They were cliche and under developed.

This has great potential if you fix what I had stated above.

Joshuanimations responds:

Thanks for taking the time to watch it, and thanks for the feedback! Yea I actually agree with a lot of the points you made haha, I made the mistake of animating the entire thing before the voice acting so it was difficult to later on try to sync it up haha but yea I do agree with you on the timing issues too and also yea plenty of cliche underdeveloped jokes, when I wrote it and animated it I literally had no idea what a cliche even was haha I was like fresh out of the water, it was later after I had finished so much of the project and started looking at movies and shows differently that I realized I was using a bit too many cliches and not developing them better, but yea even I myself felt that this project is overall kind of odd and not the best, but yea a lot of it has to do with the points you made, thanks for the feedback!

[T E T R I S ' D 4]

There was pretty much no detail and just gradients and flat colors.

This entire animation was monotonous and boring.

Even the choice of background music was putting me to sleep.

KobraEditing responds:

Well a lot of work went into both the music and the animation. The style has been the same since the beginning and it is meant to represent the drab and desolate world that had been created. I couldn't suddenly change it to be bright and colorful this time around, nor would I. It's unfortunate that you didn't care for it.

[Epic Fight]

Good Animation but not great.
It didn't look very fluid at some parts, probably because of the program you used to make this.

This wasn't very epic for me.

h-hakim responds:

Nah, its not the program. Its just i m too lazy to fix it.

[Demo Reel 2016]

Your a good animator, though i'm not crazy about your character designs.

You should also consider giving credit to the musician who made the background music in your demo reel.
Unless you made the music yourself.

Jaxks responds:

Yeah I think I need to work on my drawing skill and that would make my animation better as well. The music is in the Credits & Info

[TRUMPED 2]

If I'm being honest, i'm kind of tired of the whole trump vs clinton thing. Trump won, hillary didn't get over it.
During all of 2016, whenever trump or hillary did something as important as pick their nose in public there was a five page article or a 10 minute youtube video about it.

I don't follow politics and purposely avoid anything politics related, and i still know way too much than i want to because of the news and social media.

Politcal parodies are so over done and stale right now.

There were a few funny parts, like the "corpse hole" and when trump barbecued the baby dinosaur.
The rest of the jokes were cheesy, cliche, and harped on the same old character flaws from the trump, hillary, and the political parties.

Anyway,
The designs weren't very detailed and the animation was ok.

[Toys for Lonely Men]

A good horror short.
The animation style really matches with the theme of the story.
Great character designs.

I love the feel of this whole thing, the loneliness and desperation of the man, and the sadistic playfulness of the doll.

The scratched film effect enhances the dark and brooding feel throughout the short.

An excellent use of timing the audio to enhance the horror.

Creepy and cool.
One of my faves.

misterIG responds:

I appreciate the feedback, man! So glad you enjoyed it :D

[If I was made of cheese]

A good song

Ok designs and backgrounds.
The animation needs to be a little smoother and interesting (complex).

HorseBiscuits responds:

Thanks!
It was the first full animation I made, so I was learning a lot of stuff and seeing what the program was capable of. I was kind of just messing around, I guess mainly because the song is pretty silly.

[Unemployment]

Even though I have a job ( where I'm extremely overqualified and payed garbage),
All this that you are describing in this video seems very familiar and hits home.

Its a common problem with people in their 20's (definitely for college graduates) in the US.
Know that you are not a piece of shit and you are not alone in feeling this way.

Anyway,
I like your drawings and designs.

The animation needs more frames or smoothing.
I'd say this is more of an animatic (animated storyboard) than an animation.

The lip sync in the opening scene didn't match up well with the audio you used.

GrahamDrawsButts responds:

I'm definitely going to have to look up some tutorials on lip syncing! XD
Thanks for the feedback!
I hope you find something that pays better soon! :S

all the best,
Graham

[Why Basic Income?]

Basic Income sounds nice all around.
If it was enacted in the United States (where I live), do you think it would work?

The United States is already in heavy debt (as the whole world knows) and i feel like the money would have to come from somewhere.
Taxing the rich would be difficult, they are already fucked up the U.S. economy, and they'd shoot down any law or program that would cost them any pocket change.

While middle class, people in their mid to late twenties (like me), have bachelor degrees working multiple retail jobs with high school kids and still having trouble paying bills and feeding themselves.

When I go on job interviews for full time work, even though I'm a graduate, they refuse to hire me because I lack work related experience.

I'd be thankful to hear your take or opinion on this.

Anyway,
The argument your trying to make is clear and concise and full of convincing facts and real-life situations.
This video is a good length without being too long.

The character designs are simple but are appropriate.

adamanimates responds:

It might surprise you to learn that the US came very close to passing a basic income in the 60s. Nixon was actually strongly in favor of eliminating poverty until he encountered political resistance within his administration.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/richard-nixon-ubi-basic-income-welfare

If that had passed, other countries would have followed and the world would be very different today.

So it's definitely viable and affordable. The question is entirely about politics.