Score: 7
"A Nice Cartoon"
date: August 13, 2009
So, as I had said before, I finally got around to watching this cartoon. And I was pleasantly surprised by the attention to details that are found throughout the work. You can see the places where you went the extra mile in the background and scenes, for instance making the river animate in the stock shots, and having background students do things while the action is going on to the main story. I also saw a great blend between the brush tool and pencil tool to make many of the faces and props, and you did this so well that they complimented each other, (which is hard to do sometimes and can look very awkward), but you pulled it off. The way you had a consistent grasp of using the camera angles was just like what they teach in a traditional film school. You knew when an idea of importance or humor was to get the attention, you zoomed in on the subject, and on parts of action you had our eyes follow right with him (like as he went down the hall in the rocket) or was running from the vice principal. Another element of detail that was very nice was the use of lighting and effects....the smoke twisted and faded, and the part where the principal and that teacher are talking in the darker rooms had red/blue gradient tints to emphasize the mood. I was going to add that you over use the tweens, but then I noticed you DO use some fbf its just so subtle and smooth its overshadowed by the more obvious yanking of the tweens. For example, that part where the teacher in walking and drops his papers...I automatically notice the tween walks (not very good), but then you put all this effort into making the papers flip and float so well it's like "Oh that was done so nice I didn't even catch it...because it wasn't awkward heh". Hope that makes sense. So maybe you should cut down on the tweens and make more elements fbf so it balances out better....and don't get so lazy on the heads and feet haha, some people don't even have knees and I think some had heads bobbing a little too forced. Good character animation knows only to do that on occasion for emphasis of something ;). Design-wise I didn't really like the sharp angle mouths you do...you were definitely influenced by cartoons like Invader Zim, because those characters have the same kind of mouths, "square" heads, with a pointed anime-like chin. It's not bad to emulate a style and make it your own, but use it for a reason. Invader Zim was generally an anime-like sci-fi world fraught with futuristic mechanics so their designs complemented the city they lived in. Here, it doesn't do anything. The characters personality is, in a way, constricted to eye movement and a mouth sliding on a template head...you did a little more on the girl when she was moving her brows a bit, but all the screaming and expressions needed more than an open mouth and static bugged out eyes if you get what I'm saying. For an example, look at Roger Rabbit when he freaks out....his whole head and body get into the action! Try doing some of that next time. The humor was 50/50 hit and miss in my opinion, but that happens with a lot of comedies really...oh well you can't even try to please everyone, so please yourself first, right? :) And frankly the idea of kids hanging out at school and having "shenanigans" is a little on the stale side for me...but that's probably because of all those damn live action kids and school sitcoms that are killing cartoons and dominating the current channels . So no offense that I didn't really get into the series or anything and it's good for you to explore beyond it, because it will get you out of your comfort zone and you can only improve. But just know this; you have a lot of talent and passion to animate a cartoon of this caliber and length. And I can see that this was not some crap animation pulled out in a week. You really put dedication, quality, heart, and soul into what you create, and that's what makes good cartoons. So yeah, I look forward to seeing your next animation whatever it may be.
August 14, 2009
Author's Response:
Wow, this was possibly the best review I've ever read on one of my movies. You dissected this movie like a combustion engine. I'm glad you liked the melding of the brush and line tool, I spent a long time in the beginning trying to get it right. As for the over-use of tweens in this movie, you're totally right, as the movie went on, the use of tweens sort of reduced, especially on walk cycles because I started realizing how bad they looked. This cartoon was pretty experimental I guess. I'm impressed how you were able to find my visual inspiration since it's been masked by a few years of redesigning. But I am branching out and making the character's character designs more dynamic in my next cartoon projects since I'm still trying to identify a good style. As for the humor, a lot of the jokes are really regrettable. Anyway, thanks for spending the time critiquing this thing. :)
