AloneInTheDark's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hidden Sorrow]

Not as good as your others

Iv been a fan of your work ever since you made that evanescence flash movie. Especially crayon bear i found very good. Unfortunately i was dissapointed by this one.

Another flash movie that tries to deal with the more serious themes. This isnt a bad thing on itself, but the way you executed it was too simple and unoriginal. Depression, suicide, angel metaphores..... Things we are literally drowned with and things that can be only interesting if it is approached in a more original way. Who was that character, why is she depressed and why are we supposed to feel sorry for her? The entire thing didnt really make sense at all, it was basically just a short semi dramatic situation of a girl comitting suicide.

It helps alot if you make it longer and give the viewer time to attach to the main character. Nobody feels sorry for a hopelessly depressed girl jumping of a cliff. At least not if we dont know what the other aspects of her life are like.

The visuals were good and you are definately improving on that area. Very nice sky and great purple tones. The music selection was good too. This may not be as easy as it seems, because it happens alot that a sad flash gets completely killed by the wrong song selection.

Anyway, this criticism is only for this particular movie. I really do like the rest of your work. And i admire the fact that you experiment and try to make flash in many genres. Adios!

AITD

Madelief responds:

Well.. I have to agree with you..
Thing is.. my heart wasn't in this one to be honest.
I'm not really the depressing kind of type..but the music kinda inspired me...
The next one will actually have more depth ;)

I hope o_o... I'm kinda brainless lately, heh.

[Blackman Dead]

Not that great

Ill leave the entire silly ethical discussion behind and ill just review the flash movie.

The first thing i noticed was the great start. Frame by framed against a nice background. When the following scene showed two hands turning with some red blooddrups on it, I even had the feeling this could be something great. Unfortunately you simply couldnt maintain the same visual quality throughout the flash movie and the rest became a fading in/out slideshow with the repeating good beginning scene. Thats not flash, thats powerpoint.

I also dont understand your mixture of styles of sillhouets and realism. Its ok if you choose to make the thing in sillhouets but then you have to be consistent by drawing the entire flash movie in sillhouets. Except, if there was some intended purpose behind the change, which i highly doubt.

The music was very good yes. It was so good that in my opinion it would have been better to show this flash only with the soft music on the background. What unfortunately really killed it was the voiceacting of the poemreader. It was simply not fitting.

I am a fan of subtlety in a flash movie. If you want to make a flash about racism thats fine, but approach it in an interesting way i would suggest. I can think of many, many better ways to animate a flash about this heavy subject than to simply tween some still frames with a screaming man on the background. The artistic value of something does not come by simply choosing a good theme, it comes by approaching it in an original/interesting way.

AITD

[Satisfaction]

swell

You definately have skills in filming and video editing. This thing looked so much like a mtv video back in the early 90's. Maybe even better

It was really enjoyable to watch. Great music selection too. There were a few scenes that didnt quite fit in, like the scenes with the round mouth effects, but others were brilliant though. Especially those of the businessman dancing and of the boy trying to climb up the pole during the intermezzo.

I would suggest to also do more with the song. It has a very repeating beat and melody and maybe you can exeggarate that more with the video. Also, maybe use even more closeup shots. The ones you had were very good though, as was the change of the colors in some shots.

All in all, very good stuff. What i personally would have loved to have seen even more is if you combined animation with real life footage. That would make the thing even more diverse and cool, but you did a great job experimenting. Especially since you are still very young, you definately have talent in creating music videos.

AITD

[Tinman]

That was nice

Reminds me of one of my own flashmovies. Great work in limited colors and nice movement of the robot too. I saw your other work and even nominated you for the 250 bucks price on evolution. Not that i was that blown away by it, but i like how you use your creativity and think about the themes you animate.

As for this flash itself i can say the same thing. Great concept. Somehow i am fascinated by robots. I still havent figured out wether they are a positive or negative thing on our society. Or maybe this flash wasnt really about a robot, but about a love story. Of how a numb person cant feel anything when there is no love in his life. Only you know and if i were you, i wouldnt tell others what you exactley meant. Literal or metaphorical, sometimes its better to just keep the real content of something for yourself.

The music was definately awesome. I used to be a huge underworld fan and i especially loved their faster tracks, like push upstairs (or was it downstairs) and born slippy.

When you have read my review this far, you might wonder why i havent put a 10 in the overall box, since it has been all but praise. Well the obvious flaw is the length of the movie. Its very short. Sometimes a short flash movie is extra powerful, but i felt like the concept was too interesting, complicated to be told within a minute. Because I just got attached to the robot and then it ended.

Another thing that i really didnt like is how you used text in this movie. That is, in my eyes, really the cheapest way out. I personally find it much more interesting to draw or animate those emotions in an original way, instead of just putting 'empty' or 'nothing'. It kind of makes the thing too obvious and simple.

But even though i didnt give this flash a 9 or 10, im still thinking about nominating you again for the 250 bucks price. I like originality and based on your other work also, you definately deserve more recognizition. Looking forward to what you will make next,

AITD

BlackmarketKraig responds:

I wish you'd specified which of your flash movies you were referring to. I've only ever seen Renaissance of the Insignificant before (wonderful, btw).

Thanks for the support on Evolution. I still wonder where I ranked overall on that one for the month... It wasn't in the top 30, but it was certainly fun just to in there.

I think the most wonderful thing about any work of art is that everyone can draw their own concusions for what it truely means.

Yeah, Underworld is still cool in my opinion, even if a little bit dated by todays stardards for electronica. I'd have to dig out my CD's from the various piles around my room to properly define the upstairs/downstairs question, and that could take days...

Hmmm... well I had thought that it might be short. But people often tell me my flash movies are too slow so I figured I was wrong. Maybe I wasn't this time. ^_^

Interesting comment about text... I guess animating scenes to define emotion would have made it longer and more cohesive, eliminating two problems with it... maybe i'll remake it later, but probably not.

Whew! Thanks for reviewing!

[A Demon Tale]

Nice

Beautiful music, original style and awesome special effects. Still the most important part of a flash movie, the concept/idea, i found mediocre.

I bet were inspired by of lord of the rings, with the first scene being kind of the same as the fall of gandalf while he was fighting the demon. I am not really sure what the thought behind the demon transforming in a human was, but i think everyone understood this was a lovestory. Maybe the story showed how love can bring out the best in a person, since the man and woman both turned into angels after they found each other.

Anyway, that was also what i didnt like about it, the entire transforming into angels scene. What was supposed to be the magical, emotional climax, came out as a cliche, unbelievable ending without surprises. I think it would have been much cooler if he as a demon would find another demon he fell in love with, or something like that. When i look at love stories or other art pieces, it is amazing how many times angels are used as metaphores. C'mon use your creativity a little. Because the first part when the man fell into the cave and encountered the weird creatures playing the music was very original.

What also bothered me was how you rushed the thing near the ending. No more special effects and frame by frame work, but tweened limbs and still scenes... Maybe you lost interest in the project. Its a bit a pity, because with drawing talent like that, it could have been so much better.

AITD

Stryda responds:

Well the animation isnt supposed to follow an actual story. There is no sound effects, no speech. What I wanted to create was something dreamlike, sort of in the vein of 'Wizard of OZ' or 'Alice in Wonderland'. The whole thing isnt supposed to be looked upon with seriousness with the story. You talk of cliche, fine. But there is no story, I wanted to create a unique visual feast. That was my goal.

You are observant, the ending scenes are rushed. Thats due to this animation having to be completed for a deadline.
Thanks for your review, but take a chill pill. You dont need to take things so seriously in the future.

[Runawayhand]

wasnt really feeling it

I usually admire it when flash artists experiment and use different media to tell their story, but somehow it didnt really work out for the particular flash.

If you combine different media together, it doesnt mean the entire style and identity of the movie has to change every few seconds. I was really liking the minimalistic style of the first seconds with the few colors, but it quickly became a chaos of different styles that had little to do with the theme. I mean, if the theme asks for chaos and random styles, then it can work out very well, but this thing tried to tell a funny story and got kind of lost between all the exerimenting.

Try to work more in a certain mood and to connect the video/photo and flash more appropriate. Maybe this was all supposed to be funny, but i dont think many of us would think so. Anyway, good luck in the future animating.

AITD

ZekeySpaceyLizard responds:

Why do people keep assuming this was supposed to be a funny cartoon?


Guys.

Please.

[Artificial High 3]

Finally

Heh, after harassing Element for a while by asking him when this thing is coming out, I'm relieved I dont have to harass him anymore now, cause its here!

I was wondering if this would turn out better than the awesome Artificial High 2 and i was surprised that it did. Excellent selection of different artists with all their own unique style. Thats what i always love to see, artists you can recognize by the themes they animate and the way they animate.

I liked all of the 4 flashes and they were mixed well together to form a whole. Somehow i didnt really find it random, but it felt coherent by the kinda modern popartish style with the right dose of humor. Some things i noticed were how sqeezy is getting better at frame by framing and animating movements with every flash. Or how Nanoko can capture great action sequences. And element and rilstix did a great job also, even though i dont know alot of their work yet.

Well, so here it is, a perfect score. Above expectations, while my expectations were already high. Oh and cheers for placing me in the special thanks. Ill remember to harass element every day from now until Artificial High 4 comes out.

AITD

[Bunnykill 2]

Madness ripoff, so what?

Without a doubt this is a complete madness ripoff. In terms of minimalistic style, in terms of concept, in terms of action... even the font and the killcounter on the top left is the same. But who cares really, it is not like the concept of madness was that original or brilliant in the first place.

Flashmovies like these are all about action choreography. And i must say that even though the scenes are without surprises you managed to animate the fighting scenes quite well. The pace of the flash was good, but still i think more spectacular camerawork will make the flash really stand out next time. Just because you copied all the good things from madness, doesnt mean you have to copy all the bad things also (like the monotone boring side camera)

I didnt like the simple backgrounds. Since you use about 5 backgrounds through the entire flash, why not spend more time in making the few you have really shine. You can make awesome ones in photoshop or make them simply more detailed in flash itself.

Well, this is the stuff that people on newgrounds love and i enjoy a flash like this too every once in a while. Too bad the hundreds of bad clones that will follow will probably not be as good.

AITD

[Quest for High Knowledge]

Hey

Hey, another submission by topdrawer, how interesting.

I must say that the semi 3d feeling was accomplished pretty well. Removing outlines and coloring with gradients can help a whole lot in this, as you did. It certainly added a nice sort of 'high tech' atmosphere to the flash, which worked really good with the theme.

The flash started out very interesting and while watching it, i was wondering when exactley the comic note would come in, since this is so recognisable for your animations. Im glad it was there in the end and it was nice how at the same time you left the viewer with some material to think about.

There arent really many suggestions i can think of, since it is all done with much care and thought. Heavy frame by frame work wasnt nescesairy for this particular piece and the way you drew the alien environment and creatures were enough to leave the viewer visually satisfied.

As usual, keep up the great work and there is another good example you can see, where an artist made a gradient flash to accomplish a 3d style. Thought you might be interested in that. Just paste this behind the standard newgrounds url. /portal/view/125610

Adios!

AITD

[Waiting Room]

Profound

I can only think of 1 words after watching this animation. Profound. Very rarely do i see animations on ng of which the ambition goes beyond animating a short fight scene. There are some animations here who try to tackle the more complex, interesting subjects. And of the few animation who try, even less succeed.

But 'Waiting Room' by you is so thought provoking, so clever, so original and so -in a weird way- humorous that this is a very, very rare gem.

What happens to us when we die? Probably the most ancient philosphical question known to mankind. Wether you believe it will be connected to religion or not, doesnt matter. Nobody has ever had the opportunity to tell us what happens, cause we can not talk when we are dead. And the way you captured that mystery and shown us a bit of your fantasy combined with it is brilliant.

But it is not only the concept that is brilliant, it are the details that really did it. The interaction between the main character and the television on the background. And how the main character in his turn, interacted with the viewer. The pictures of different elements on life on the background. Everything made sense and didnt make sense at all. I love it.

The animation reminded me a bit of 'Waking Life'. I dont know if you have seen it, but if you havent, then i would really recommend watching it. I dont know where you as an artist can go from here. Maybe digging deeper in the questions we feel bound to ask or animate something totally different. Its all up to you. But do know, that i will be observing your work very closely from now and that you have 1 fan more ;)

AloneInTheDark

g-p-ogden responds:

AITD,
What can I say? I am very familiar with your work and was honored by your review. Thank you so much.
email me if you'd like to talk more.
g_p_ogden