Fro's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[the Last of the Dashkin]

I enjoyed it.

~ Animation ~

Almost all animations were very smooth. I did notice that when the little Bitey was running away at first that it seemed a bit choppy. Almost like you didn't go into the detail enough to make his legs bend like it showed when he was older. Other than that the animation was very smooth and professional like. You do a great job of using pans, zooms, and moving the camera while the animation is going on.

~ Graphics ~

It was odd in this submission because sometimes I felt like you hurried some scenes and they simply weren't as drawn as well as you usually draw things. Again, for the most part things were done great and the parts that seemed hurried were few in far in between. I love the landscape and the amount of details that you put into things such as the forest and the water.

~ Story/Content ~

From what I remember you haven't ever really included story and it was basically just Bitey running around and causing trouble with the animals around the forest.

Is this because you've gotten so many complaints about story and plot? I've never had a problem with them personally, but I remember you getting a bunch of 0's on Waterlillies because it didn't have a plot to it or anything.

It's what makes a good author though. One that keeps his style, but still goes with what others want. I personally wouldn't mind either way, but I find that the addition to a story really helps and clears things up. This could become a really cool series if it started to follow a story and I can see it really going a long way.

~ Audio ~

The voice was pretty good and was a nice addition. This lacked a little bit of sound effects, but it really didn't hurt that bad since it was more of a submission to tell the background story and everything.

~ Overall ~

I felt that it could have been a bit longer. Also, every now and then I felt that the animation and graphics were a bit hurried, but overall they were done really well. The introduction of the story was pretty cool, but I do hope to see a lot of the trouble making in future episodes mixed in with the plot.

Keep up the good work. First review that I wrote in quite awhile.

chluaid responds:

Thanks for taking the time to write an in-depth review. My responses:
I'm wondering if the choppiness is a result of the Flash player or browser, as this is probably the most graphically intense of my Brackenwood shorts to date. The reason I say that is because much of Bitey's animation is on 2s and 1s, so at 25fps it should be very smooth. I think many people will only really see it at the proper smoothness and frame rate when I've submitted to YouTube.

There are a few scenes that I've cut back on character detail, such as lighting effects (the amount of colours in Bitey's hair is really inconsistent for example), but I've gone a bit OTT with backgrounds and effects.

For story, Bitey and Brackenwood have always had a deep dark past but up until now I've kept it quiet because I didn't want to spoil the big reveals in the feature film. This series of storylines however will be kind of parallel to the feature film so they won't give too much away.

thanks again for the great review.

[Aqua man episode 5]

Needs a lot of work to be good.

~ Animation ~

This was one of the biggest things that needed to be improved in this flash submission. A lot of part didn't contain much of any animation at all and the animation that you had was crude and rough for most of the time.

Not all of it was completely terrible though and you did show a few spots of promise, but you get the all around impression that the submission itself was rushed a lot, which really shows in the animation.

For the parts that were animated well I would take tips from those spots. Remember what you did and what made those spots smooth/look good and copy that. You can do it if you put the complete effort into the entire submission.

~ Graphics ~

I can almost say the same thing that I said in the animations part of my review. Some parts looked "alright", but for the most part this wasn't very easy on the eyes at all. I would work on individual character designs and master each individual character. When and only when each character started looking much better I wouldn't think about making another submission.

Something else that really would help improve the submission would be something along the lines of detail in the background. Again, this comes down to practicing your drawing and taking the time in making each scene look good. A well detailed background can do a lot for a submission.

~ Content ~

I haven't watched any of the other episodes, but I think I can kind of see where this series is going. Kind of generic and nothing that somebody is going to be very interested in following, but at least your going somewhere with the submission at hand.

A more organized menu would really help this submission. With links going back to all of the other movies in the series and also a nice little information section where people can read what has happened up to this point.

Not only the organized menu though, but also they way that the text is lined up. It looks like you just threw some text on there randomly, which is exactly what you did. More organized, lined up, professional looking text will improve this submission greatly.

~ Audio ~

The quality of the voice was terrible. There was a lot of static, which means you need a better mic or different voice actors for your series. The clicking sound on the beginning and end of each voice could probably be gotten rid of with a simple program like audacity, which is free to download so search it and have it become one of your tools.

Not only was the voice quality bad, but the voice itself wasn't good. I'm assuming you did the voice acting and not to be mean, but your not very good at it. I would suggest finding someone else to voice act for you.

The music and sound effects were done very well though and probably the only good part of the submission at all. Even the worst submissions have something good about them in there I guess. :P

~ Overall ~

It really needs a lot of work in almost every category. The animation needs to be much smoother, the drawings need to be done much better, there needs to be more detail in the characters and the backgrounds, and you need to find a good voice actor with a good mic.

I hope that my review helped and gave you some details on how to improve your submission. Keep striving to get better and good luck on future projects.

cackletta responds:

Thank you! I will try my hardest to improve on every category. mostly on my aniimation. I used to use my webcam microphone to speak in but now I se my MP3 mic which is worse I will try to get my webcam working. as far as music goes I know alot of nice sounds and music but none of them fit with my flashes. But I'll get new ones. thanks alot!

[APA TU?! (what is that?!)]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation ~

First off I felt that your cameraman could have been a bit steadier with the camera. :P I also think that you did a great job with the smoothness of the animation, especially with how jittery the camera was. I would think that it would be a bit easier to animate with a stationary camera, so congrats on doing the good work with a bit of a harder environment.

~ Graphics ~

You had some pretty good video quality. I know that flash can take down the video quality quite fast, but you also had a big file size for such a small movie. (I know how it can be though as I have many flash/videos on newgrounds that are actually above 10MB and some are even up to 18 and 19 MB)

The drawing of the little guy was done quite well. Good color, good drawing, good design, and even though a bit simple, it was still quite effective.

~ Content ~

I guess the real downfall was the lack of content in the submission. This would be cool if you could take some video and even add a story line to the submission or at least some sort of plot.

You could have even done something very simple such as have the little guy fall on someone that was walking below and to have that person react so it gives the illusion that he is actually there even more.

~ Audio ~

Thank you very much for the subtitles as I couldn't understand a word that was being said. Sound quality was rather good though, but again quality wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't for the subtitles in this case.

~ Overall ~

Looks like you succeeded in the experiment so why not try and make something out of it now?

~ Review Request Club ~

akoRn responds:

Wow thanks.. I'm now planning to grab some of my friend to make something interactive based on the animation (as u suggested above) and also, better quality video cam (even tho I'm using a cellphone for this)

Thanks alot! :)

[How Not To Make A Comic]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation ~

The animation of the writing was very smooth. It really doesn't get that much better animation wise in a FBF such as this one. It was almost like you were recording the screen as you actually drew it.

~ Graphics ~

Pretty good artwork all around. I've seen the paper background/comic/drawing flash so many times, but it is still one of my favorites to watch visually on the site.

You are great a drawing and there really isn't anything to critique in this section of the review either. O.o

~ Content ~

At first I didn't like where the flash was going. Then you added the sweet essence of surprise with the tasty nature of humor to go alone with it. The boob joke on the side kick made me laugh and then the ending made me lol a bit as it was just the best thing that could have possible happened in this submission. Humor was awesome.

~ Audio ~

I didn't like the voice at first either because I just thought it was someone trying to act like a nerd too much. It kind of grew on me in the short amount of time that the submission lasted though. The sound effects that you used sounded great.

~ Overall ~

A good laugh along with good audio and graphics. That's enough to get a 10 out of me any day. Easter egg was alright, I was expecting funnier though. I had a hard time finding it so I had to cheat with the tab button. :P

~ Review Request Club ~

Assios responds:

Sorry for the late respond, I was away for the last week.

Anyways, thanks for a great review, and thanks for the 10! I'm glad you noticed the smoothness of the writing-animation. The flash runs at 44 fps, wanted to make it as realistic as possible ^^ And the easter egg was just a thing I added like 10min before I submitted it, so it could probably be funnier ;P

Thanks again for the great review, you're one of the best reviewers on NG!

[The Morph!]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation ~

Good for FPF. Just about what you would expect from seeing a FBF of this nature. It does have a little bit of room for improvement smoothness wise, but overall pretty good.

~ Graphics ~

Not the best end results on most pictures. A little rough on the edges, but just like the animation not terrible at all. Has a bit more room for improvement though. Maybe using thinner lines could have helped the smoothness of the drawings a little bit.

~ Content ~

I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more. I like that it started off black and white and then it started to draw the man, etc... I think that you should have went a bit farther though and started slowly drawing a background such as the ground, trees, sky, etc.. After things are drawn out then you could have morphed it with different colors to fill in the picture at hand.

Then when you switched faces around it could have been a little more interesting and you could have even played around with the background changing as well.

~ Audio ~

*by the time I've written that part of the review I've forgotten what the song was*

Ah, I had to go back and check it. :P Good song choice all around for a FBF like this. Really nothing to critique with the music so nice choice!

~ Overall ~

I'm sorry for the lower score, but I thought that a bit of improvement in the animation, graphics, and the content of the submission could have made it a bit better.

~ Review Request Club ~

cheesebizkit responds:

hey man thanks a lot, its always nice to read a big juicy review.

[Samuel and Rosella]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation ~

I enjoyed the slow animation personally even if most didn't. I thought that you exaggerated their speed just enough. They didn't walk too slow for it to become annoying to watch, but it was still slow enough to add a very humorous effect to it.

Some things could have been worked on here as well. Things such as when the old couple stabbed the teenager with the umbrella. I thought that was very jumpy and it could have used a bit of the "in between" animations such as them actually stabbing the umbrella into him instead of it just instantly appearing in him.

Overall animation was smooth in most parts, but it had it's times when it was kind of skippy/glitchy or basically not as smooth as it could have been. A bit rough at times.

~ Graphics ~

The graphics were done very well in some places and not so well in some places. The people themselves were drawn pretty decently. I thought overall they could have been done a bit better, but they weren't bad by any means at all.

An example of drawings that could have been done a bit better would be the example of the newspaper. The paper itself was done very sloppy and it could have been improved greatly.

I also didn't like the use of real pictures too much. They really didn't take away too much, but I do think that if you would have drawn the signs instead of using pictures of the real life versions that it would have looked a bit better.

Overall though like I said the graphics weren't what I would call bad. Most backgrounds and characters were done well and with some fine tuning this could become better graphically quite easily.

~ Story/Content ~

I had personally never heard the song, but it was a perfect song to make a flash along to. You did a pretty good job representing what the song was saying. Like I said, the song was perfect to create an animation as it painted a pretty good visual of what was happening.

I found it funny in some parts such as the reopening of the mall and the destruction of the mall along with it. There was also a nice bit of humor added when you animated the "whipped" part literally even though that wasn't exactly what it was meant to be.

Overall, good job with making this into a flash. You did a great job picking a story and filling it with great content.

~ Audio ~

I know I've said it a couple of times already, but the song was perfect to create a flash for. You synced up the animation pretty good to go along with the song as well. Perhaps the usage of some quiet background noise would have been nice.

The quality of the song wasn't the best. I don't know if that had anything to do with lowering the quality so it could make a smaller size flash or if it was simply the file type you had.

~ Overall/Summary ~

I think that the best thing you could do to improve the submission is just work on the quality of the graphics and the smoothness of the animation a bit more. The story was perfectly fine, but the audio did need to sound a bit better in my opinion.

~ Review Request Club ~

chesster415 responds:

The newspaper gets worse at the flash progresses. It mentions that in the newspaper specifically. I kind of wanted the first attack to come as a surprise if you hadn't heard the song before, that's why the umbrella moves so quickly during the stabbing, but if the flash runs really choppy it might help to lower the quality a little. I'm not usually into animating but I felt like this song deserved a portal entry. I'll try to improve the sound quality too.

[[TT] CD09 -thdrky-]

~ Review Request Club ~

~ Animation/Graphics ~

Did I catch the little black guy on the bottom right hand corner accidentally moving a couple of times? Such as a glitch and not an actual animation. Like he jumped from his position slightly a few times. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Even though the slideshow type format that you used was done well it probably would have looked better if you had drawn the pictures yourself instead of using google pictures.

Some extra animation would be nice such as some movements in the character. Perhaps him walking around a bit, his eye blinking, digging through the trash that he was next to looking for food, etc..

Drawings could have been done a bit better. I know it was clock day and everything, but it probably would have looked a bit better if the drawings were done well. Some of the clock day flashes are very spam like, but have wonderful graphics.

~ Story/Content ~

I'll admit it right now that I'm very racist and this was no where near what I was hoping it was going to be. (That's up to you to figure out if that was a joke or not) Simply a black man that fit all of the stereo types instead of just some of them... hmm, sounds more like real life instead of an interesting story for a flash submission.

I almost felt like someone should have drove by in the background and shot him at the end of the story. It just seemed very fitting.

~ Audio ~

I wouldn't want any other type of voice on clock day. I think perhaps you could have used some subtitles though as the voices can be hard to understand every now and then. I also heard some static, but I wasn't sure if it was my computer itself or static in your sound.

~ Overall ~

What I would expect on Clock Day.. A bit more effort then I had on my two submissions that day.

~ Review Request Club ~

YukariYakumo responds:

It was a lazy, quick, first attempt at Flash and a celebration of the day based on a shitty joke, and you understand that. Thank you for the review, and we'll make something better next time.