Sentio's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Snaily Gump]

I like it!

There are some obvious deficiencies here, mostly in your drawing and animating skill, but the story and music more than makes up for that. In particular the music was fantastically chosen, and really added to the overall entertainment value of the animation. Story wise it was solid, with plenty of jokes (though the final one was a bit cheap and left the animation feeling a bit flat), while I was impressed with the voice acting.

My only real criticism was that the lip-synching was a touch out with the voice acting, and that you can always improve your animations (maybe put more effort into the backgrounds, rather than having them largely stationary).

Still, one of the best animations that I have seen today, so a really good effort.

hankypoo responds:

Hi Sentio, after reading your review i can say that i must agree with you on those deficiencies!! thanks man!! Ahh yes the lip sync, quite difficult but i really want to master it. thanks for the criticism. I agree totally!! I know i will become better. Thanks alot for the review!! I will improve on these things!

[Edward meets Blade]

Sound!!!!!!!

Firstly, there is some decent artwork here, and I particularly like your character designs (well done for avoiding the dreaded stick figure). But there are some issues as well which you need to work on:

Sound! This would be an ok animation with just a piece of suitable music playing over the top, but even better would be some sound effects and some voice acting! As it is it is really quite dull with no sound whatsoever, and there is nothing to detract from the poor animating skill.

Animation is limited, and clunky in a lot of scenes.

The text based speaking is frankly dreadful. Most of the time it is flashed up too quickly to read, and even if it isn't the spelling and punctuation is bad enough that it is difficult to understand anyway. Voice acting would have solved both of these problems immediately, so I suggest this in future.

The overall pacing is just a touch too quick- while this helps prevent it get boring, it is simply too fast to understand what is going on. Jut bring the pace down a little bit!

Keep practising- there is some potential here, but you need to produce a more well rounded animation in future, rather than just certain aspects of it.

[Late nights to bad days]

Not bad, but lots of room for improvement

There is a decent enough plot here, and the artwork is solid if unspectacular, but there is lot that can be improved on.

Firstly include some music! There is a vast source here on Newgrounds in the audio portal if you ever need any, and it would have improved this animation no end. The sound effects were ok, but they don't give any feeling of atmosphere.

Work on your animation skills. There were very few examples of real animation here, with mostly whole objects moving from point A to point B. Try and be a little more ambitious, for example with leg movement, and include a few more moving objects in the backgrounds to give your scenes a bit more life.

Your text based story was solid (barring a few spelling errors- handel...), but it was very slow paced. In particular the animation you used to reveal the text was far too slow, and rather unnecessary. Ideally do away with the text entirely and narrate it with some voice acting- this would immediately improve the whole animation.

Still, some promise here- keep practising and submitting!

[One Million Points]

Excellent!

That was really pretty good, though I have to question how much of the artwork was done by yourself- the car for example clearly was and wasn't up to the same standard as the rest of it.

Anyway, ignoring that it did a great job of feeling like the source material, the story line was entertaining (and oh so true of all the achievement whores out there who probably would drive off a cliff for a million points...), and the voice acting was impressive.

Areas to improve:

Work on your own art work, and try not to take short cuts (the etc. etc. screen was the obvious example). Perhaps next time try something with your own art and animation style as well- really show us what you can do!

[Bubblewrap Boy]

Need to work on animating, but good.

I actually really enjoyed this, but it was more down to the choice of music than the animation style itself. The music used really gave it a strange artistic feel, which meant I could look over the relatively poor drawing and limited animation. Sound effects were also excellent, and I thought the quirky story fitted the music well.

The areas to improve on are fairly obvious then- you need to work on your drawing skills, and in particular you need to keep practising with animation- most of what was here was simply an object moving from side to side- it would be nice to see something a bit more advanced next time.

Still, entertaining enough, and showing plenty of potential.

tinettenolan responds:

Great, thanx :D plenty of hours still to be put in and improvement is to come :) Im a first year student and still novice to it all, but watch this space :) will spend some time on developing intricacies and detail.

[Tutti-Fruity Smoothie]

Excellent!

This is a really impressive for your first work. The animation is basic, but beautifully done, while you clearly have a lot of talent for art and drawing attractive characters and backgrounds. The music was appropriate and sat nicely in the background, really adding to the piece as a whole, and the voice acting was good.

Areas to improve:

The story was a bit slow, and not especially exciting. Perhaps work on your dialogue and make it a bit more punchy- have the characters interrupt each other, or argue- there seemed to be little emotion in it. It would also have been nice to have some sort of lip-synching, though I realise this is very difficult.

It would be nice to have some more animation going on in the scenes. Most of them were simply blinking eyes, which is hardly exciting. Even something as simple as a bird flying across the background (in a repeated motion) would instantly make your environments feel more alive- you don't need to have especially challenging animation, but adding complexity and depth to the background can give the illusion of it.

Still, I enjoyed it. I hope you submit more work here in the future.

[Sleepy Hollow]

I like it! Just a few areas for improvement

Positives:

Some excellent animation in here, especially the way you move the 'camera' around the scene. The characters move smoothly, though there are long sections where everything is too static.

Art style is excellent, and I like your character designs and use of colour.

Some well used music which is well timed, and the same goes for the sound effects.

Areas for improvement:

The sections of dialogue are slow and boring. Improve the script to get a few more laughs, or shorten it entirely to get to the action/point. Some of the speech bubbles are up too long as well, dragging the pace down even more. You could also try out some voice acting rather than relying on dialogue boxes. Finally you could be animating during the periods of speech- everything is completely static in these sections, and even something simple like a hen in the background would instantly make the scene feel more real.

While your music was good, there wasn't nearly enough of it! You could have had background music going on throughout (which would have helped with the slow dialogue as well). Certainly the background wind sound was getting very wearing by the end, while some appropriate music would have been more entertaining. If you need music perhaps visit the audio portal here on Newgrounds for a wealth of material (though obviously it would all need correctly crediting).

Still, a very good effort for a first submission, and plenty of potential for some excellent pieces in the future!

Gogga responds:

Thank you for your advice. Much appreciated.

[An unexpected love story]

Room for improvement

Some good aspects, but definitely some work is needed on this.

Positives:

A liked your animation style, and the character movements were fairly fluid, which is great.

Art style was a bit different, in particular the white stick men, with the scenery visible behind them- I liked this and I think it gives it a more artistic feel rather than having simple black stick men

Excellent choice of music really added to the feel of the animation

Areas to work on:

Very short, and no real story!

Some dialogue would have been nice, even if it was just scrolling text at the top of the screen. This added to the feel that there was no story here, as the viewer was given no real idea of what was going on. Who were the characters? How did they feel? Why did they start fighting? Why did she fall for the second guy?

Sound effects of some sort would have added to the battle scene.

Work on your story writing, and keep improving your drawing and animation skills, but still a very passable effort!