GamerTheory's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Fight]

The animation is good, especially the 3D-ish rotation. Seeing as how this is practice, I can forgive the lack of a story or smoother art or anything, but do try to use higher-quality sound effects in the future. The music is all right, but the sounds literally hurt my ears. You can record your own sounds or just search Google till you find something you like.

Also, you may want to select a song that matches the length of the animation. Either that or cut the song when the animation ends. It's a fun song, but letting it carry on after the apparent end just seems unprofessional to me.

DillonBrannick responds:

Thanks for the review.
I'm trying these days to put in rotating camera movements, although at times it does get tricky and confusing, I'm sure I'll get it eventually.
I'm planning to start recording my own sounds as soon as I can get a decent sound recorder.
As for the song I did what you said and faded it out near the end.
I love constructive criticism it's what it's all about, thanks.

[iPhone 5 Ad Parody]

While this wasn't a bad attempt, most of the humor fell flat due to the monotonous voices and slow pace. Right from the beginning, we expect nothing but bashing on the iPhone--which is fine, but the problem is that there's not a single thing in here that I didn't expect. Since I expected all the jokes, they lost their humor, and really, while Cyanide and Happiness is funny, it's not a copy-paste formula.

It wasn't a pain to watch though, and it has its entertainment value. The art was simple, yet smooth. The voice acting, while monotonous, sounds like you actually spent the money on a decent mic, which is good.

I think you'd be much better off bringing something (relatively) new to the whole iPhone parody table. A lot of possible humor lies in comparisons to Android, monthly phone bills, and Apple's music DRM.

I don't intend to judge you based on one instance of plagiarism, but please refrain from copying Cyanide and Happiness (or anything else) so directly in the future. If you can't think of funny jokes on your own, perhaps you're better off writing more serious Flashes--which isn't by any means a bad thing. Also remember that the best humor is often the most unexpected. So writing serious stuff and then having one hilarious joke in the middle of an otherwise-dramatic story could really improve the individual quality of said joke.

I've gone on way too long. If nothing else (or if TL;DR), just don't plagiarize.

MistyE responds:

Thanks for the review

[The Virtual Fighter]

There are so many decent stick fights on Newgrounds that you really have to push yourself to stand out at all. Unfortunately, this one doesn't. On the upside, it gave me ideas. And you know what they say about ideas in Inception.

Anyway, the first thing I noticed was that your speed lines lacked any feeling of motion for some reason. Once, it felt like there was movement, but that was once.

Second thing I noticed was that the dust from the guy sliding along the ground didn't even look like it came from him sliding on the ground. I'd suggest showing the guy fly a little ways, hit the ground, then cue the dust, so the viewer can see that the dust wasn't there to begin with.

I feel like the special effects come and go too fast. They have almost no impact, it seems, and no significance. I'm not quite sure how to explain why I didn't like them. I think that's the best I can do. No impact. Too fast. Insignificant.

The music gets going and the battle ends. Generally, don't you want your music to match the length of your movie so the climaxes are simultaneous, therefore providing a more compete feel to the animation as a whole?

Finally, the credits. Having your name be the only one under every category could be funny if done right, but it goes on too long. If the credits were 5 seconds, I'd like them more. As it is, you could just write "Everything" and then your name.

DJFyatChoonZ responds:

Tl;DR bro!

[SHORT No Knives Allowed]

The last animation I watched didn't have a replay button when I wanted to replay it, and this one doesn't have an ending when I want it to stop.

On the animation itself, the lip syncing is decent. Not perfect, but decent. To make it better, I'd take the sound file, see how long it is, and match the mouth movement exactly to that time.

The animation is mostly stills, and what movement there is, I have no complaints about.

The voice acting is all right for how little of it there is. It sounds just a little fuzzy, but unfortunately, I have no idea how to do it any better.

The other sounds work fine. No complaints.

It's been said, but if you're going to submit an animation this short--especially with no preloader or ending--it must be funny. And it's not, really. I won't talk muchabout comedy theory here, but generally, humor comes from the unexpected or the out-of-place. I expect that knife to go straight into that guy's eye, and that's what it does. I don't laugh. If the knife had been sniped out of the air and the knife thrower shot next, that would have been funnier because I wouldn't have expected it. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that, and doing what I said and nothing more would still be fairly lame. Like voice acting, I'm not sure I could do much better.

RainDash responds:

I also don't find it funny :)
Well I didn't expect such a helpful rewiev, thak you!
Ye, I will have to learn how to add replay buttons and stuff

[Short Stickfight]

Looks like you did this all frame-by-frame, and I applaud you for the effort it takes to do that.

Next time, though, pace it better. Use a stopwatch if you have one or go online, then time yourself throwing a punch. Time yourself taking said punch. Time everything. Flash's timeline shows you what time is at what frame, so see if you can get your timing down. At 24 frames per second, it takes me 12 frames and half a second to throw a quick punch. However, such a punch is light. In a fighting game, that would be your light attack.

Taking the punch example, draw your guy in whatever stance he's using. At frame 12, create a keyframe with his arm fully extended. Then go back and animate your in-betweens. Now do this for the entire animation.

Note: I was trained in 3D animation, not 2D. Flash may be a bit different and you may want to discard this advice if there's someone more qualified telling you differently.

KodexAnimations responds:

Good advice but a bit too complicated for a beginner like me

[Minecraft: Too Much Power]

The music in the background was "The Sixth Day" by City of the Fallen, for those of you who were wondering.

I really have nothing bad to say about this video aside from the voice acting. It's not bad, but it's pretty average: there's not enough emotion.

That aside, how on earth did you manage to make women made of blocks attractive? It's gotta be the hair.

CooliSushi responds:

Its my little secret ;)

[to make you happy]

Did you sing and animate this? You (or whoever sang it) sound a little mic-shy: hitting the right notes, but not letting your whole voice out. The color scheme contains a lot of yellow, generally seen as a happy color, but is that it? Yellow does go well with blue, so why not put a bit more of that in there?

The reason I rated this 2.5 rather than 3 or 3.5 is because, while the drawing is all right, there's just not much there as far as animation goes. Is it happy? Yes. It gets the message across. But what else is there? It's just a guy moving his feet with a lot of yellow around him to go with a song. I honestly think this would have been better off as just a song. Either that or you could elaborate on the animation: make your guy do something happy like eat ice cream or be nice to people. Happy things, like little girls smiling, cute kittens, people helping each other, etc.

It wasn't bad, really. It just wasn't all it could have been. Just my opinion. Feel free to take it into consideration or discard it or consider some parts and discard others. Whichever you prefer.

Khris responds:

you're right this isn't really an in-deapth cartoon like some of my others, i just wanted to take a moment from peoples lives to show them something simple that has the potential to make them crack a smile, i appreciate everything you're saying though :)