Excellent Short Film.
It's nice to see a few funny TOME clips here and there before the next episode comes out. Hope Episode 2's kickass!
Reviews for "TOME Short: Hackers"
Congratulations! You Fixed Nothing. PART 2
I ran out of room so I decided to leave a second part.
You probably think I hate you, or I am leaving these reviews to be mean, but let me once again clarify. I would NOT be leaving these reviews if I didn't think you had potential, and could fix the things you have issues on. These things are an EASY fix. Just fix them, I'm not trying to control how you do your videos, I understand the fact that you feel I (and everyone else) are trying to make you do it "our" way.
We are not, we just want you to fix some very easy things that we also had issues with. The reason you are not improving is because you are too easy on yourself, and think it is US that have a problem, not you.
Now that I have that out of the way, I will continue.
The humor aspect is a subject I'd of liked to have covered in my review for TOME episode 1, but also ran out of room there. The humor is unbearable. Doing random voices is not funny, doing a French accent and pronouncing words strangely is not funny. If you're going to go for that sort of humor, at the very least you could make it zany and go all out. It is up to YOU to tell your voice actors what you want, you are the director of your work, if you don't like what they do, tell them. If you do like how they did it, then I can blame you for that.
Often whilst watching this I found myself sitting there and thinking, "Was that a joke? Or was that suppsoed to further this characters characters and progress the story at all?" The only REAL joke I detected here was the man about to tell his sexual orientation to his friend, and then getting smashes by a rock. That was sadly the only point where I could tell it was intended to be funny. Which is wasn't. It was so obvious, I was crossing my fingers for a LITTLE BIT of irony, or something to spice the joke up a bit, but no. I got a slap in the face. It was as simple as; "Man is about to tell something important. Doesn't." That was it.
You could've had the man about to tell his sexual orientation, and the rock appear like it's about to smash him, but instead smashes his friend, and he says, "I'm gay". Anything. However, instead you went with a joke a five year old could have written. I was expecting the punchline.
I have another joke you may want to use in a future "TOME" episode or short. "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side" . Use that sparingly, it really kills the audience.
The point of making a video is to get people's attention and entertain. That's the entire reason animators do what they do, is to entertain. How they do that may be different. Some do it for fear, some do it for laughs, others excitement. Whatever you are trying to do as an animator, you do it as hard as you can. If someone told me I wasn't doing what I am supposed to do, I would do everything I could to fix it. You went for excitement, you went for humor, and you went to make the audience more curious as to who they are working for.
You failed in all of those areas. I didn't laugh, I wasn't even anything from watching this. I only felt joy when the end came. You may say, "You're not supposed to know a lot about these characters, YET!". At least make it interesting. Take a show like Breaking Bad for example, where you didn't know much about certain characters but something thrilling happened with them. The whole "mysterious" aspect isn't enough to incite any curiousity.
I have a feeling these two bad guys work for that lock thing in the first episode that told that one guy about his "UNLOCKED ABILITIES" or whatever. If not him, someone else. Regardless of WHAT happens, I feel that "Rockoon and Doubling" will end up joining forces with the heroes at the end to defeat the biggest bad guy. It has been done a trillion times.
Don't say this isn't my cup of tea. I won't stop watching this until you improve which we all know you can. You can do much better and you aren't. Kirbopher, you went to college for this shit. COLLEGE. I haven't taken any classes for this and can tell you basic shit that's wrong just from observing it once.
Advice. Take it.
Not bad at all
I actually found it quite entertaining, and while I had no issues with graphics and stuff *coughcoughpsychicpebblecough* it is, after all, your style in which you build TOME around. Don't listen to the haters, do your own thing!
5/5 10/10 Fav
A good thing to watch while we wait for episode 2!
LET'S BLOW STUFF UP WOOHOOHOOHOO!!!
I love Doubling and Rockoon!!
great job with making their backstory...sorta kinda, at least their initial feelings about being hackers.
Congratulations! You Fixed Nothing.
You would think, you would actually think, after reading the several EXTREMELY in depth reviews left for you on your first TOME episode you would fix something. You would especially think that said things would be fixed after you acknowledged you read them with a response. The response you left me was quite lengthy, and assured me I shouldn't watch anymore of TOME because it wasn't my cup of tea.
Let's start with the artwork. It actually seems like a downgrade from the first episode. This leads me to believe this was quickly done, and that the first episode of TOME was polished which is a horrifying thought. Again you've decided to use dull disgusting colors, simplistic characters, and strange looking anatomy. Your line work is god awful, man. Save up and purchase a good tablet, perhaps a cintiq or something. There is a GREAT tool in Flash called "smooth" which will take care of a shaky line. I mean, good fuck, they looked like they were drawn with a blind man with Parkinson's.
I complained about shading last time and using gradients, which thankfully you have not done, but sadly instead of just shading PROPERLY, you decided to not shade anything at all. Shading takes minutes to do, if that. It gives your characters depth and makes them look not as flat. Your characters look horrifically flat and are actually cringe worthy, shading would make them pop out. Back to the entire COLOR concept that not only I pointed out, but egoraptor also did in his review (which you didn't even respond to). Use bright colors, or use dark colors. Pick a style, and study color theory. Your colors were all over the place and didn't make much of any sense. If you were going for dark, you could use a dark color scheme, but instead you AGAIN go with awkward muddy green/brown colors that physically make me cringe to look at.
When the video first started and I saw you decided to actually use proper lip sync for the raccoon, but abandoned that seconds later and went back to recycling the mouth loop. For Christ sake Kirbopher, I just got done doing lip sync for a scene, and I can tell you it does not take that much extra effort to make the characters look like they're speaking and not a lifeless puppet or something. Hell, you can even RECYCLE the lip sync for individual mouths, but fuck sake at least show that the characters are saying different letters. You didn't even do mouths for the two characters talking to each other (the two humans, one who got smashed by the giant rock).
The voice acting was also another downgrade. I'm not sure what happened, but the raccoon decided to randomly go into a terrible French accent that was inaudible, and then I THINK a Dr.Phil impression? I'm not sure, but it wasn't funny, just really, really awkward. "Doubling" again randomly cursed, which I told you in the last review is alright as long as you don't use it horribly, which you've done again. I hate to sound like a broken record here, but you act like a broken record by repeating your same mistakes that EVERYONE tells you to fix. If you're going to make him swear, have him do it in situations that ACCOUNT for it. You know, because everyone says it that casually. "Man, look it's my fucking dog eating some fucking food, holy fucking cuntshit." I shouldn't of said that, you're probably going to resuse that. Make him curse accordingly, not awkwardly in casual situations.
You're probably going to read that last bit and think, "Well, it wasn't a casual situation, it was intense!". No, it wasn't. There was nothing at stake. I suppose this short was supposed to be some sort of character development, and I really hope it wasn't. These villains couldn't be more stereotypical. The only thing that makes them "badguys" is the fact they do bad things. That is it. Make them have some fucking depth, make them have a reason for what they're doing, make them be bad PEOPLE. Wacky people don't do horrible things. Horrible people do horrible things. I don't know if you know this, horrible people don't act wacky.
I have run out of room to continue.
Advice. Take it.