Nice
Very good compared the kind of crap we get from first timers... now go on and try something more difficult...
Reviews for "Michael's Stand-Up"
Not that funny... but not bad at all. :-)
Okay, it seemed like more an "observation of life" session than an actual full-throated knee-slappin' gut-bustin' make-ya-snort-yer-Dr-Pepper-through-yer-nose-all-over-the-s
creen laugh riot. (Though your list of recess options at the end WAS an honest LOL for me. ;-D)
But the main thing is, on your first flash-toon try, you actually TRIED. And practiced until you figured, OK, that doesn't look like a junkfest. Much better than the insipid "ZOMG" stick-figure bloodfests that get my Blam-of-the-Day on my vote quota.
My suggestion? Grab a writing how-to-book from Zucker, Abrams or Zucker, keep working on it, and I hope to see your next work soon. ^_^ d
Bad-Atom responds:
Yeah, it's not really my best material, but I am definitely a writer already. Go to my website, read some of the scripts I've written, and then get back to me.
Pretty good.
Nice graphics, but there's not much animation in there. All you had to do was make him move around once and a while which is pretty easy. Plus the jokes weren't funny at all. And your voice was a little monotonous.
See the zero next to humor?
Yeah, to say it pleasantly, please don't do anymore stand up. If an audience has to listen to the same jokes I just did, blood will gush out of their ears. Graphics were pretty good, actually; there I have to comment you on. Please, please, for the love of God, don't continue your stand-up routine, it sucked gigantic, lice-infested, hairy gorilla testicles.
you haven't done
Watched it. Smiled at various points. Chuckled very slightly.
Then skimmed through the reviews. Listened to it once without watching. Found it to be exactly as funny as before. Then watched it a 2nd time.
It seemed similar in style to Seinfeld (which I watched the first 4 episodes of and wasn't amazingly impressed with).
-- A lot of it is predictable stuff (though the end took me slightly by surprise).
++ The delivery is good though.
I think the pauses and the drama you inject into the mundane was the only real humour for me.
++++ I'd call the audio mixing an awesome achievement. Really clean, and the way you mixed in the laughter and kept filesize fairly small is awesome. Technically, it seems pretty much perfect.
--------- Music or sounds before we click play? Don't do it. Stuff takes time to load. Folk sometimes load stuff whilst listening to other things. Really, it's something that I hate about so many flashes.
++ I really like the bg - the wall texture in particular.
- It would have been a nice touch if you'd made yourself brighter when within the spotlight.
++ I like the title and 'comedy club' fonts.
- The other, not so much.
--- During the line about standing on a box and the 3 foot dude, you rotate yourself horribly from one angle to the next. It looks unnatural and it doesn't really fit in with your semi-naturalistic mood.
-- The lip synching is a bit wonky. Your mouth shapes are off I think.
- I agree with Skaijo - drawing frames between the various arm positions would be good.
+ I liked the attention to the eyes.
+ Also the fact that he was a lot more active than he could've been, moving around and unexpectedly moving forwards near the end.
+ Clean lines in gfx
- Shading would be nice.
==
It's a cool movie. A little slow, but brings a bit of diversity to NG and I enjoying it overall.
I hope to see a similar Flash of your best material. A little disappointed that you haven't done that yet.
Bad-Atom responds:
Yeah, there's a lot of room for improvement, huh? :)
The next one will be 24 fps, which will smooth the movements and make more room for more accurate lip-sync. I barely knew how to tween when I did this, so the movements will be SOOOOO much better. And the lighting will be interactive too.
This is why I waited to use my funniest material - I didn't want to blow it with lousy animation. :)
Glad you liked the audio. On the next one, I'll be adding the option to mute the loading theme. I just can't get rid of it completely - I like the theme and the file size is next to nothing.
P.S. I hate Seinfeld. That is all. :)