it was good but..
where was the voices? the sound?
reading it was alright, but hearing the conversation would have been alot better.
Reviews for "Ghosts by the Road"
one question here....
why is the bird was on the ground, and yet the squirrel was in the air?
I liked the orginality
It was extremely original. It would make a good story, I think, if it has not, in fact, already been written lol. Good job on the animation, very well done. I liked the all white characters. The silence was strange at first, but then I got used to it, feeling as though I was watching a moving comic book since the art and text of it was like that of a comic. Good job.
Fantastic!
Oh, what a nice cartoon! There are philosophical implications here about ghosts that are just wonderful, of course, but at the same time, the real strength in this movie is in the characters' nuanced and playful interactions with each other. This is the type of thing that you may overhear a close group of friends talking about at a restaurant, or in the locker room of a gym, granted if the group of friends in question happened to be four charming animals. They beat around the bush, they repeat themselves, they argue, and they don't really get anywhere with their efforts, but there's something so endearingly HUMAN about the whole process that it's impossible to complain about its meandering.
It's nothing earth-shattering storywise, but that's exactly what's so refreshing about it; it revels in its own simplicity. Something jam-packed with action or some horrible conflict or situation is a challenge in and of itself, of course, but there's still something to be said for being able to pull off something intricate and subtle, just as you've done here. I especially like how the sketchy visuals play up the whimsical and simple story. The animation is absolutely beautiful. I like this story because it makes me feel that cartoons still have a lot to say; just as much as anything filmed in live-action. We need more animations like this.
AkaiHato responds:
Thank you very much for your review!
I love hearing conversations between any motley lot of characters, as you may have guessed. I had given these characters in the cartoon a bit of backstory, so they were a lot of fun to animate. It helped to be drawing mostly by hand, because it was more instinctive. (I tried animating with flash, but I got impatient.)
As you mentioned, the cartoon is not completely mainstream, so I was wondering what would happen if I put on Newgrounds.
I hope other different animations do will spring up, especially with the internet and Flash animation allowing people to directly create for other people (instead of through distribution middlemen). I admit to pulling that directly from Scott McCloud's books, by the way.
I think the influence of stories from Japan is also helping diversity with American 'toons. Ozu's "Tokyo Story" will never be mainstream, but still I think there's more of an appreciation for that quiet, everyday-ness now.
(Incidentally, the "ghost question" has its origins in an older story I wrote.)
great story
just a few things I would change: you don't need to add more music, but it could at least use some background effects (chirping, wind, nature sounds, etc) so it's not dead silent.
and you would say "living people" not "alive people"
out of curiosity: any explaination for the walking bird, flying squirrel and aqua-monkey?
AkaiHato responds:
Yeah, I think I will try and get some ambience.
I also want to draw some more comics or something, because the characters have more stories.