Reviews for Shattered Heaven Ep. 1

[ArmyofDorkness]

sorry guys, I hate to be a dick, but...
this cartoon embodies everything I hate about anime.
lure us in with the promise of fighting robots, and then have humans complaining to each other for the whole time. I was far to bored to care about any of these characters, and there was a lot of them to bore me. You did so much work with voice acting and lip syncing that you would think something good would come of it, but it was all that voice acting that causes this cartoon to fail.

I really liked the history line you laid out in the opening, it is an interesting world that could be developed. My advice would be to concentrate on your fighting robot animation skills, and then cut 80 % of the human characters.

just my opinion.

[SirBladewind]

Okay I'm a serious flash movie buff. I love indie story based stuff, especially when the creators put a lot of time and effort into each episode. Sometimes indie stories are more interesting and thought provoking than some big time cinema. Even simple fight scenes can become channels for emotions and thoughts of the viewer.

This unfortunately, is not one of those pieces. You have so much potential in this world that its a crying shame to say it too. Your art is bland and imprecise. The faces of characters look exactly alike and the only way I could tell the difference was from the fact that they have different hairstyles. Your audio is muffled and doesn't feel very lifelike. Character voices aren't believable, nor do they feel like the actors are putting their emotions and life into the role they play. It seems more like first or second take line readings. Its just overall bland and it upsets me because your idea is awesome but your execution feels so weak.

I hate to say this but this isn't going to turn out to be anything more than some of those bland tasteless series that pollute newgrounds's underworld unless you step up and make a change. I know you can do better too. For example the art in the end credits is much, MUCH better than the actual art in the video. If the whole SERIES was animated like that it'd feel much better to watch and make getting into this world you've created that much easier.
Your dialog can be improved a lot by trying to do less. You pack SO much into a single episode whereas you can slow down scenes a bit and put less dialog in there. While it is realistic to have a lot of talking going on, (because people do a LOT of empty talking in real life) empty talking isn't really important in stories unless it has an overall goal like improving characterization. You throw a wall of information at the viewer and theres only so much they can absorb at a time. Slow down. If you take your time on each scene and make the impact and speech more important then people will be hanging on your every word because every word will be important!

Now onto audio. You REALLY need a better mic or at least some clear speaking actors. Muffled voices are an easy way to remove people from the immersion of your world. You want them to picture themselves there, and to do that good sound effects are a MUST. Old radio serials relied on ONLY sound effects and look how successful they were. Sound is something that can paint pictures where animation or art fails so even if you art never improves if your sound effects feel real a person's imagination can supply what your art can't.

Now onto the acting. Your actors need some serious work. They(maybe you) read the lines off like they were just written on a page and only portray vague emotions in their work. I mean, I don't know if you've done any real life acting but it takes some setting up of the scenes to help actors get into their roles. If a person is supposed to be scared, do something to make them nervous and have them read their lines. My old acting teacher used to point a slingshot loaded with paintballs at us when we read our lines so we'd be nervous and try to read it fast and scared. If a person is supposed to be mad, have another character yell their lines at them and THEN have them respond. Do an audio take multiple times. If you really care about your series you will give it your all. Everyone can be an actor with the right motivation and that is all that you seem to lack in this department. A lot of your dialog seems to be casual, so casually talk with someone as you do your line readings. Get some good conversation in about their day, their dogs, whatever you feel like and then randomly ask them to read the line. They'll be so comfortable with talking that they'll read the line comfortably too and it will come of natural instead of stilted and stiff like it seems now.

You've got a LOT of potential here. Not a lot of people would have the bravery to take on a tough project like this and so you've got guts to try and make this work. But you've GOT to step it up if you want this to be anything great. As it is, its nothing special, but it can be. Put some more soul into it and it will take a life of its own, I promise.

Good luck. I'll be watching you.

[mopey2]

oh joy. Another story about giant robots. How original

[ElEnzo96]

subtitles please

[Kage-Ichihashi]

Well, first and foremost, this story is utterly attrocious. Potential or no, the execution is all over the place. You introduce a handful of characters on screen but hardly a name is given to them before we're introduced to more. It's as if the storyteller expects us to go into this world as omnipotent. How am I supposed to know who the pink-haired girl is and what her relation is to this Sarah person is (who I only recognized because Holly has a distinctive accent and not because the character was notable) if I don't even know her name?

Not only do your characters lack names, but they lack any sort of individual voice whatsoever. Simply casting different voices does not set apart their manner of speaking or identity from one another. You need an editor to keep your story concise and on track, or you really need to start analyzing your own work from a technical standpoint. The writing fails on so many rudimentary levels that it cancels out all of the work you put into making almost 15 minutes of animation.

Secondly, what makes your story any different than the umpteen other successful mecha anime that exist? What sets Shattered Heaven apart? Because as far as I can tell, there is no commentary, no theme, no identity. The characters all fit tropes and archetypes, but no one feels solid or authentic. What is it about the mecha genre that serves the narrative you're trying to tell? Are you trying to make a mecha just because you like mechs or does it actually serve a purpose to your storytelling?

Moving on from the writing, because I could go on about that for a while, the voice acting is subpar, which was a disappointment because you've got a pretty stellar cast. They lacked a lot of direction, and it was pretty clear that this was recorded at various points in the past. The actors seemed just as lost and unaware of their characters as the writer and audience did. Some actors seemed to want to downplay their delivery into a more subtle, nuanced, and realistic performance, whereas others wanted to play up the animated nature of the medium. The best example of that is at about 7 minutes and 45 seconds in, the character of Sean, I assume? The bumbling and idiotic line came across less like someone who realizes their mistake and more like an alcoholic having a seizure. This compared to the scene that follows between Adam and Amy is jarring and unfocused.

Along with an editor for the story, you would benefit greatly from a voice director - someone who could take the work off yours hands and weave together solid performances from obviously talented actors as a cohesive whole. This is why animation often requires teams; a fresh pair of ears and eyes allow for a much better product.

Finally, I am no expert on animation. I recognize the difficulty and level of dedication necessary to complete the amount of work that goes into it. However, for such an ambitious project, I feel that it would benefit you to connect your lineart. It's so distracting to see all of these incomplete lines hanging off of one another and not meeting in any manner, especially when your art style is not spectacular. Everything comes off as flat, there is no depth to the backgrounds, the movement is not fluid or interesting, and your overall visual composition lacks foresight. It would behoove you to take a film class to understand cinematography, as well as an anatomy or figure drawing class. The hands, by far, were my biggest pet peeve. If they were not connected to the character's arms, I would not have recognized them as such.

I recognize your passion and desire to make something compelling and worthwhile. Unfortunately, you failed. Ambition does not matter when you are lazy. You certainly worked hard to complete a product, and I commend you for that, but ultimately, after having seen all your previous work, it does not appear that you are taking constructive criticism and working to improve. You would benefit from doing one of two things with this. Either construct a team to assist you in your artistic vision or begin to condense this massive project and focus your efforts in more concentrated ways. As of this moment, this is far too much for what you seem to be capable of when there are so many questions that you need to answer for yourself and for the sake of your story.