Troisnyx's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[:the Composer:]

I relate to the message that you're aiming to express in this short.

I say so because I am a musician, yet I have suffered, and am still suffering from the abuse and discrimination my parents and other people around me gave me, particularly in order to discourage me from my calling.

The animation is a product of its time, and it is quite alright. Piano playing in some parts seems a bit unnatural -- the body is often rigid while playing, rather than fluid (as it should be).

The music is where I have to gash points, I'm afraid. It felt a tad uninspiring, and for something along the scale of a person's life story and mission, I always look for the spectacular. This wasn't. To me it gave the feel of something off a soap opera.

My mission is to inspire -- thoroughly inspire. Even with all the limitations I have, I yearn to capture hearts. The animation certainly did set out to do this, despite its few limitations. The music, I know it's no Meat Loaf or Enya or Howard Shore. However, it could still do with a lot more grandeur -- and this really threw off the balance for me.

3.5/5.

[BLISS]

I have no complaints about the animation -- in fact I was one of the first viewers, and one of those who saw your animation to saving stage -- but I decided to give it a revisit and put in my honest two pence.

ANIMATION
Fluid and beautiful. You have a juxtaposition between the colourful and curved elements, and the angular and monochrome ones. There's a beautiful aesthetic all about. No objections here.

MUSIC
Simple, I suppose, but effective. I'm a fan of neither style, but it serves the contrasting stories in the film quite well.

FURTHER COMMENTS
The message about people either 1) knowing the truth and living in fear, or 2) being drugged by whatever it is drives them -- society, education, and in your parlance, religion.

If you ask me, too many people get this message out. It's tried, over and over again, by various people in various media, that the whole message is old and tired.

What about people who live in the gloomiest darkness, everything's out to get them, yet they *conscientiously* see hope and faith because they do not want to sink into the waves of fear?

What about people who decide for themselves how they perceive the world, even if others think these few people are drugged?

Pull me a Tolkien, where people who conscientiously stand for good are in their hour of desperation and nothing seems to work by scientific probability, but with the sheer strength of will, the great good happens and the Free Peoples are saved from harm. You know. Pull me that. Because too few people even try to explore such a theme.

TL;DR
Points for the animation and music -- beautiful animation by the way! -- but I fail to see how the message in this film warrants any extra stars, because it's just plain old and tired.

3.5/5.

[What I Hate About The Clu]

Kudos, you've also shown ME (as a girl) the reasons why I absolutely hate clubs.

1) The music is not only loud, but also very very repetitive, even for months on end! You can't even appreciate anyone or anything with it.

2) I just want to dance -- and I cannot bring myself to dance for one-night stands.

3) Most mainstream EDM, chart and cheese played in clubs is NOT MY KIND OF MUSIC.

4) Drinks. Some people are just out to intoxicate the girls so that they can get notches for their bedposts.

As for the animation -- it was simple, but very well done. I like it quite a lot! I don't think there's much I can complain about here. The voice acting was hilarious, nicely done!

5/5.

itsalexclark responds:

thanks so much for your wonderful review.

[Because, Boobs]

No, it didn't make me laugh whatsoever.
Yes, it made me think of just how much fanservice goes into games and movies.

I am quite sick to the stomach of excessive fanservice (I can understand there being a little) -- and this short speaks volumes of how turned off I am.

By the way, lovely sound. Animation was alright; I somehow wondered what was up with the hands in this video.

4.5/5.

[I don't Know]

Good concept -- randomness in animations is appreciated here -- but there are a few things which gash the whole viewing experience.

It's all got to do with angles and fluidity.

The penguin's movement doesn't look fluid, and the whole thing is taken on one scene (rather than panning or concentrating on certain things on the set, e.g. books, seesaw...).

Now imagine your eyes looking at the penguin. In a real-life setting, try to imagine this being performed in front of your eyes. Now go back to your animation. Nine times out of ten, you wouldn't see THE WHOLE THING being performed in front of your eyes -- you would see the penguin as he moves. Your eyes would veer left instead, if he goes left, or right if he goes right!

And that's the whole purpose of panning, and closing in.

This, I'm afraid, is what made the animation less than enjoyable.

2/5.

speed8327 responds:

Troisnyx, thanx for the review (its very helpfull for me) . really appreciated

[Version 2:Judas Iscariot(]

Well done on self-teaching animation, you certainly have come a long way. BUT: This video makes the whole thing look like a PowerPoint presentation. >_< Flashy stuff here, there and everywhere, it hurts my eyes. I know you're trying to get your heart across here singing about Judas Iscariot's betrayal, and I know where you're coming from, but the graphics used, the brightness of the video and just the way things come in.... makes me find it hard to take seriously.

Think Passion of the Christ, next time, when doing things like these. Seriously.

Plus the music is atonal and feels like it's neither here nor there. Your voice is off key A LOT of the time, there is no structure to it. Pardon me for being blunt, but I have to be honest: this song WILL wind up on Omegeist's "Worst Music on Newgrounds" list.

Build up on your camera angles, your panning, the transitions that you want to make (keep them subtle!) and... improve on your musicality in general. I may have to consider PMing you aside from this video, but it's going to take much more than this review to get good stuff out of you.

1.5/5.

[Hulk vs. Wolverine Teaser]

Now let me lay the record straight.

You don't have a render farm, okay, point taken. And so you show us a snippet of your talent by providing this teaser, which is just two images.

I don't have a PC suitable for making music -- it's literally FALLING APART, the screen hinge is gone, the RAM is low, the processor is awful, but I STILL churn stuff out that sometimes outdoes it, even threatens to blue-screen it.

I don't know what software you use (Blender? 3DS Max?) but if you're not willing to push that computer to the limit and exercise patience to make a full-length trailer, you haven't gone far in our books. A lot of people here have done the opposite of what you've done, sometimes even with very little on their hands. If it should take you years to finish this, so be it. Don't give half-hearted work.

I'm saying this to you because I've learnt this lesson the hard way. In the NG Audio Deathmatch last year it was so easy for me to be a bad carpenter and blame the tools. My PC was overheating, I had no mic, and it was insane for me to do something constructive in just two weeks (which was the deadline for each piece in this contest). I was up against Waterflame, whom I would have soundly defeated had I the skill that I have now. Now with more time on my hands....... more patience, and more understanding, I'm able to churn out much better stuff.

We're very welcome to provide a render farm? NO. You are very welcome to start giving that trailer of yours HARD, SOLID WORK. This, although it's two screens, is kinda pathetic, because it looks more like a fanart display which would be better suited for the Art Portal rather than an animation.

3/5. Courtesy stars for effort.

KiWiArts responds:

I really appreciate that you took your time to write this.
I know where you coming from. But I have to disagree with some things you’re saying.

First, you can't compare audio with 3D production. Anyone who seriously did 3D before knows how time consuming it is. If you render decent quality imagery it would take around a day to get a final image/frame out (all the tweaking and test rendering not included). Obviously if you working on a single middle to high-end workstation like myself.
I'm not the biggest audio guy, but I know that with audio the process is much more straightforward.
You don’t have periods where you just let your computer work by itself on 100% capacity over the period of weeks to months. And that if everything wants smooth with no errors.

Second, sometimes we forget that some people have other things going on beside just one project, real life, jobs, other projects, etc. This started basically as a study for myself in the first place, which I could see having more potential. I tried new techniques out and learned a lot in the process, so for me it was a done project. I was just sharing it. I hope the people who know who things are behind the curtain can appreciate. Little things might seem effortless for the uneducated eye but have in reality a lot of work behind it.

I would be the last one to make excuses by just blaming my hardware. But it’s a fact, that in the world of 3D, things don’t come that easy if you’re aim for a certain level of quality with limited resources.

Nevertheless, again, thank you for giving a such an extended review!

[Ideal People]

Alright, review on this, considering I watched that awful video on iCups before.

1) Why does the voice sound like someone trying to copy Ryan Higa???

2) The music and animation are alright, but read this in conjunction with point number 3).

3) Why only narration? The story would've really hit home if someone wrote an actual STORY along those lines. The narration makes the whole video sound a bit fake (visuals taken into consideration as well). The narration would've been a good set of lines for someone trying to, say, scold another person because he's not recognising the good in people.

4) That having been said, the message is simple and encourages people to accept others for who they are. BUT there's more to it than that.
- If you're not good at something and still want to be good, you can train.
- There are many external factors which lead to people being good at this, that or the other. Let's just simplify it, call it 'nature' and 'nurture'.

So this take, however simple, was a little shallow.

My skill is reviewing... truthfully, and honestly. And with that....

3/5. Courtesy stars for the animation and the crux of the message. Not a hit, by no means -- but certainly better than that iCups video competing against it.

[Apple's Shocking iPhone]

I have to agree with the many other reviews that say this video bleeds pop culture. But here's my take on this:

1) You've got a sales pitch for iPhone CUPS which doesn't really *sell* the brand. It just states what it is. Commercials these days tend to hit home or be shocking, but this really wasn't. This was more..... like an 80's or 90's kind of descriptive commercial, which just doesn't fit.

2) The voices and music sounded alright — SexualLobster did an alright job with this —but beyond that, it did nothing much to impact me. The idea behind it was simply flat.

3) The animation was fine, but it's ultimately going to beat a dead horse. No amount of bells and whistles can make a bad idea look good. AT ALL.

For starters, whoever wrote this needs to make a more catchy, MUCH MORE APPEALING ad, if he's to get this thing across. None of this plain stuff. If you were pitching this in The Apprentice, what would it take for you to PASS the test? Surely something better. This, on the other hand, is dull, dull, dull.

And as a post-scriptum, considering what I saw in the end, this is CERTAINLY NOT rated E.

1/5. Courtesy star because of the alright animation and sound.

ADASport responds:

Thanks for your feedback. We are always looking to evolve!

[Nolwandle's Story]

Commenters: the right is NOT for women to be single mothers, but for them to be treated with DIGNITY, not like they're the property of their parents or the person that'll marry them. Men and women, though biologically different, are equal in dignity and should be treated with equal respect.

Having been put in a similar position myself, I refused with whatever I knew how. Nolwandle tells us about something that goes on, not only in sub-saharan Africa, but in a lot of places -- even the Middle and Far East. (For the record, I originate from the Far East.)

Would you believe it that I have dreamt not only about this short film, but about my own review?

James, I must commend you for having done this video. Sure, a lot of people are going to look upon this with cynicism. That the plight of people in other parts of the world should be highlighted too. Sure, it should, but that doesn't make your cause any less worthy. The music, the narration, the animation -- it was all well put together, and for me, it hits home. Thank you for sharing this with us.

There's nothing I can criticise about the video in and of itself: I watched the raw animation first before listening to the music and the narration. Everything is fluid, natural, earthy and beautiful, just the way the sub-Saharan African aesthetic is.

5/5.