A very cool sketchbook animation?
It was cool this the kind of comics me and my friends draw during science science class. Graaphics are awesome on par with brutality and incredibly fluent. It eould be better if it were longer had some cheesy super hero voice acting. Sound was awesome and cartoonish. Overall a near classic if it were longer!
Nice Work
Two new animations break into the top ten, two new animations for me to review. Most of the arguments that I have seen against this animation are of these two kinds: (1) it lacks an interesting story and (2) while good, it should not be at number one. As to (1), I'm trying to overcome my bias for strong narrative, so I'm beginning to welcome truly distinctive style over substance. As for (2), it certainly deserves the slot more than many of the films which have occupied it recently.
Out of all the imitations of _Matrix_ fight scenes that I've seen on this site, this was the only one that made me briefly feel as though I was watching one of the Wachowskis' vivid impressionistic battles again. How can this be, when this film is entirely in black and white and even lacks the vaunted "crazy rotato-action pan" ("virtual camera" is, I believe, the technical term for 35mm) technique brought to Flash from _The Matrix_ on such entries as "Hostage Situation 2" and the "Bender" parody?
Well, first there's the obvious: the "sketch" style allows for easy manipulations of space and time for the impression of some sort of hyper-reality. Insane knockback abounds, the midair-pauses and instantaneous accelerations are well-calculated. If that were all the movie had going for it, however, it would be in plenty of company. I want to look at the skill with which Mr. mARTins manipulates his film space, something frequently lacking even from the best entries on this portal.
The movie can be divided into two chunks: The alley fight sequence, and what goes before it. The pre-alley fighting shows an well-grounded use of the zoom. ELS establishing shot for general surroundings, LS establishing shot for the two characters: a well-designed introduction to our contest. CU gunshots for detail, but then an well-chosen zoom back to a MS for a killer sense of knockback with Mon's stiff-as-a-board slide backward. To a LS to demonstrate the acrobatic Fita vaulting on Mon's incapacitated body, then back to a MS for detail on the second gunshots. Thoughout this section, while the content is nothing special, Mr. mARTins clearly knows how to use variations in his camera distance to emphasize his content as much as possible.
Now we reach the funny and truly good section of the piece, the alley fight. Twice in freefall the viewer has his expectations humorously violated through the manipulation of off-screen space: first when Fita's prey is stolen by the sudden intrusion of the unsuspected flagpole, and secondly when -- well, this is wonderful, let's analyze it closely. When we last saw Mon, he was lying unconscious on the pole. We follow Fita down, she turns around, looks up (presumably at a still unconscious Mon), and fires. The camera tracks the bullet upwards, but not quickly enough, and the bullet will soon reach the upper limit of the frame -- as we don't expect the bullet to leave the frame, this becomes a sort of countdown to Mon's death. At just the right moment, mARTins pans quickly upward to reveal that, unbeknownst to the audience, massive changes have taken place offscreen to decide the outcome of the fight. It's an excellent use of off-screen space, and it's extremely funny.
Add to this the well-done sound effects and good use of music, and we have a good portal entry.
Well, Raccoon. You're a tough reviewer. But you have class, which is most lacking in some. Thank you for the very in depth analisis of my work, and would greatly appreciate any further reviews. More details of the sound would've helped a bit, but considering the rest, I'll forget about that. Thanks for the respectful-treatment.
-damiAN-
SHEER BRILLIANCE!!!!!!
DUDE, U HAVE AWESOME ARTWORK AND FLASH TALENT!
Good but short and a bit on the DULL/SHITE side
WELL KEWL ANIMATION but.....
it was to SHORT it would be nice in colour or with voice over!!!!!!!!!!
Really good style of drawing. gave it effect
I really enjoyed it. I never knew wat stuff u could do on flash. i guess u showed it. i liked the music (dj qbert). pretty funny ending.