kmau's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Catching Up (Pilot)]

Good work for your first pilot, getting something like this off the ground is a feat in itself and I hope you'll continue. I will split my criticisms into small segments that I feel need some attention. Reads like a bunch of random notes, but it's really hard to organize everything into a nice flowing text:

[Animation]
Animation is very competent, I liked a lot of the expressions and body language. Everything fit the characters' line delivery like a glove and it's easily my favorite element of this episode.
You can tell that each animator pushed it to the limit, given that characters mostly stand and talk. I do feel like the writing and direction actively worked against the medium however, since nothing truly crazy happens both visually and narratively - Even the climax where Rob finally loses it feels very subdued and tame, I would've loved to see some exaggerated shots and acting here and during the club scenes. More crazy camera angles, more deliberate use of color to set moods, and so on. I'm not saying you should copy the Nightclub episode of Sublo & Tangy Mustard, but it's a good piece to study, even in hindsight.

[Art]
The style isn't 100% consistent between different character designs, but afaik multiple artists designed characters for this project. Personally, my only gripe is Clays design; his default face looks a little more basic compared to every other character. I would recommend exploring a few subtle tweaks to bring him more in line with the others.

[Trimming the fat]
The intro scene is a good introduction to the characters, just a bit long-winded. It takes two minutes to get to the title card, which could've been cut down by at least thirty seconds if all the different scenes of Rob reminding Clay came a bit more rapid-fire without all the awkward pauses. The latter is an omnipresent wedge in the pacing of this pilot, although I believe it to be very intentional - It's just a bit heavyhanded and occurs too often to be endearing.

There are some undercooked ideas in some scenes that could be trimmed as well, one example being the dad driving them to the bus. Why does he not drive them to the club directly? The dad not liking Clay may be a setup for the plot of a future episode, but I would still axe the whole scene without mercy for that plothole alone and simply have them start at the bus.
The shot of the protagonists getting out of the car in sync with the last guitar notes was cool, but that idea could still be salvaged for the start of the bus scene.

Another gag that felt unnecessary is the guy who gets denied entrance to the club because of his shoes. This joke could've been cut down to a very fast gag that builds up to the intimidating bouncer bit instead of taking up so much time.

[Writing, Direction]
Buildup and escalation may be what's missing in general. The pilot assumes that the audience already knows what a club is like, so we don't really get to see much of what Clay and Rob envision, respectively.
The bus interior scene could've been used to elaborate more on their hopes and fears, but instead it starts the coatrack plot and crushes expectations too early. The girls asking Rob to hold onto their jackets on the bus feels strange, so it would've probably been better to move the jacket stuff to the club entrance scene. Clay and Rob are just reiterating on the jacket situation in that scene anyways, so it would have the added benefit of trimming some more fat.

Inside of the club, Clay suffers through a few encounters that have no payoff in the end and the alcohol comes a little too late to have a meaningful impact. He verbally confirms that he's enjoying himself when Rob finds him drunk, but the audience didn't get to see HOW he enjoys himself at all - It would've been fun to see him bump back into all those previous encounters while intoxicated, before A and B plot weave together again and they have their final showdown with the jacket girls.

[Sound]
Not much of a sound guy so I can't review it well.. I had no issues with anything but the metalpipe.wav, that one is so notorious that it breaks immersion.

[Conclusion]
That was a lot of would've-could've, but I still liked it overall. I'm sure episode 2 will already be a great improvement if you let the pacing stretch and contract to get a good rythm going.

LSMarkk responds:

Thanks for the response! There's a lot of great notes in here I wanna take in consideration for future projects. A lot of this came as a result of not having a direct idea of what I wanted to do and changing goals as I went a lot, which made for scenes which had more purpose in previous drafts but I didn't have the foresight to remove as the project changed direction! For example with the dad dropping them off at the bus-stop I have Clay ask that same question, with Rob's reply implying that he wanted to take the bus anyways as he felt it was a part of the experience he needed to have, but that was definitely something that could've been made more clear!

Clay's design is definitely something I wanna tweak, I've actually already begun exploring some slight redesigns for him, especially the colours.

The first animatic was originally only 11 minutes but I didn't do a good job at reeling back and cutting things down to their essentials which is what I want to keep in mind in the future.

Thanks again for the feedback, I appreciate it!

[FulpWare Gold]

Really cute!

It can't be that hard to turn this into a proper game, right? Could be the ultimate Newgrounds gamejam where everyone contributes a silly 3-second minigame.. Nintendo patents notwithstanding.

[Monkey Wrench Ep4 - Plague Walker]

Great stuff as always.
This episode really pushed a good direction, like spotlighting a specific alien species and driving some conflict between the protagonists and other interest groups. I went into it with the obvious expectation that this episode would be more self-contained and end with Shrike somehow redeeming himself, so the cliffhanger caught me off-guard and really makes me want to see what happens next.

On the other hand there was almost too much new, crazy stuff going on with the worldbuilding today. I feel like the sheer range of wildly different species lacks a bit of focus and cohesion that ties them together in this universe - a consistent level of logic that they all operate by. You have slug-people in suits that may be scientifically plausible, but then you have the (admittedly great) undead skeletons, object-species and now the shadow paper guy that only adds to the long list of "How do they work?" ayy lmaos. I hope all of those get some elaboration in the same vein as Bulldogs walrus species in the future, even though I don't expect this to become a super-serious lore-driven show. I hope this critique makes some sense!

[Anime impact frames, BRO!!]

I love these idiots.

[Pepper and Monterey]

I rarely come across something that is so flawless. On top of great animation and pacing, the voice acting and voice direction really elevates this short to another level.

[PAIN GIRL (PILOT)]

I can't overstate how much I like your style, the character designs are great and my only complaint would be the scissor weapon of Penni being white against mostly bright backgrounds. The side characters all being dumb blobs underlines their (un)importance, which is a great visual tool for this kind of show.

However, I do think - especially with these nice, simple character designs - the action scenes BEG to be more dynamic, fast-paced and have an enduring momentum that isn't interrupted every few seconds. If you go for violence without much purpose, your number one goal should be to make it as eye-candy as possible.

The role of Tihi also confused me. She seems to get established as a foil to Penni, but simply joins in. Penni is the facilitator of senseless violence already, so why have two? I expected Tihi to be the driving force of a conflict that makes it all come together, for example by trying to stop the chaos from unfolding, inadvertently escalating it and still landing in prison with the others at the end.
In that sense, it could've been about extreme violence WITHOUT purpose (Penni) VS extreme violence WITH purpose (Tihi, causing collateral damage while trying to stop her).

So in summary, my gripe is the lack of a simple, actual conflict to drive the violence.

[SubparGeekGirl96 - Convention Report]

The part at 00:30 killed me for some reason, that's totally how a video like this would be edited.

[JIMMY AND BABY]

Very impressive animation from start to finish, I just feel like the plot drowns in an ocean of distracting visual gags during the whole hell section. Some more restraint and focused direction could've helped there, but it was an enjoyable ride overall.

[Monkey Wrench 3 - Us & Them]

Easily the best episode yet!

The criticisms I had of the previous episodes go out the window with this one, I liked the pacing, tension, worldbuilding and all the character interactions. No need to go into detail really, just seeing this show find its groove is wonderful.

My only complaint is the tonal whiplash I got from seeing how the involuntary manslaughter is handled narratively. The Bulldog b-plot portrays it as a more serious tragedy, while cat and pizza man really don't care that the manslaughter happened at all, right down to the "apology" at the end.
Coming from the rock people genocide of the last episode I already expected this light-hearted approach to death to continue, I just feel like it clashed with the more sentimental tone of the Bulldog fungus interactions.