JazLyte's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Universe Matt Miles: EP0]

Not bad, great effort. But I can't help but get the feeling that a lot of things were intentionally dragged out to make it longer, which isn't necessary in a cartoon like this. Some gags were really funny because they got to the point, others seemed like they made perfect sense on paper, but had this odd "warning" as if you were saying, "here's the part where you're going to laugh" by adding in a really long setup to the jokes with this wacky royalty-free music that's been used in a lot of cartoons. Don't try so hard, let the humor flow naturally, I'm sure you'll find you have a better product at 1/3 the runtime of this one.

Curlypanda responds:

Most of the gags were timed to the music, which is why it feels dragged out. A example of that is the Turtle gag, the entire gag was originally 15 seconds long, but I wanted it to be in time with the song, so it ended up being dragged out to over half the time necessary.
I'll defiantly work on timing for next time, maybe get an actual sound designer to work around the animation, rather than work to animation to the sound.

[Animation Reel 2012-13]

Seems like the skill's there, but a lot of this stuff's pretty undercooked, the really animated stuff is unfinished, and a lot of it isn't exactly what I'd call presentable yet. I'd suggest making a short you can use instead with fully fleshed out animation, even if it's only 30-60 seconds. I like the Japanese sakuga inspiration in the fights though.

Mackswell responds:

thanks, and totally valid advice. I'm dealing with crunch time at school but I'm graduating in a month and I'm looking to rededicate myself to animation and definitely intend to commit myself to projects

[The Fizzy Drink.]

This cartoon's more for you than it is for us, which isn't a bad thing, but it's still pretty obvious. Assume I've never seen any of your previous work, and author comments don't exist, all that's left is the movie; that's where all your information should come from, all your exposition, and unless it has a number on it, we shouldn't have to watch something else to understand or care. Here you have where most of us are coming from, we're here to watch a movie, that's it. I bring this up because these characters are written and behave like we know them already, and that's something that tends to happen when an artist is writing for a character they themselves focus on a lot. This isn't a bad thing, but you're going to have to work a little harder to make a lot of us care.

I don't care about this woman ranting. It comes off like she's just a drunk bartender venting to her friend about nothing. The punchline is that she throws the bottle and he friend is surprised, then the film ends. I'm just never particularly sure why I'm watching this. To go for a more downbeat, "classier" type of comedy, you may want to consider introducing the characters in some fashion to us first so when they do something that's breaking the rules (where we're supposed to laugh), we'll have a reason to laugh, but right now this just comes off like a piece of something much, much larger than this film, which I'm sure it is, for you. You probably have tons of art and stories with these characters that you have and haven't released; It's clear by the character designs, they're very nice and well-developed.

Food for thought. I didn't laugh, and this might be why many people are using the word "pointless," this just feels like a clip from feature-length film no one will ever see, and with no character context here where we're expected to react emotionally, it's hard to care. Also, I saw you started a response with "If you read my author comments." I don't think there's a worse thing you could ever say in defense of your own work, your work should speak for itself. Just food.

TaraGraphika responds:

1. WAAASSSUUPP!! JazLyte! Welcome and Thank you for dropping by:D Love your work:)
2. You are correct. This cartoon is actually more to myself, which what you said, isn't a bad thing at all, but, I need to bring them up to your (the Viewers) Understanding. Right?:)
3. I like it, when people are trying to figure what is happening in a scene...makes them think and wonder...and the results, I could tell you are really fascinating. Some, say are pointless, some say they thought something up with their on mind, some don't care, some say they know there's a punchline somewhere around...I like these..stuff. Yes, You probably came here to watch a movie, and think to yourself, a punchline will happen, or something funny is definitely is up,etc. Evidently the minds of a human being think like that. We love to assume something gonna happen, then after the film is done we think,"Damn, I got ripped off". But, see, some start to think. You might think that it's supposed to be a well build film, that people should be laughing at. But surely this could be something else entirely. Why stick to the same old gag again and again? Know what I mean?
4. Yes, thank you for observing the character designs. You got a good eye:)
5. Probably you won't react emotionally towards the characters for who are they but just a bunch of people talking? It's weird, but this new thing happen. It's like an example of me sitting in a bar looking at them. I don't care much, for I have never met them. But how they act in the scene is something different which makes me intrigue. Maybe this doesn't apply to everyone, but there's always something you GET. And that thing could be entirely anything. Not just emotional reaction. Probably, something that just pop out of your head...like saying that "this film has character that are not dwelled in nicely, that we couldn't achieve emotional reaction to them." That's something that will help me in my animations:) That's something that I get from the interactions from viewers.
6. I'm not defending my own work:) I'm giving them what's needed to be corrected. There's nothing wrong in correcting those who are confused, right? Did you read all of it? He was saying that she was drinking alcohol...Usually, for simplification, the drink that we saw her drinking was in the blue tin can. Why did I color it blue? Cause if I had it to it green, most of you will commonly assume it is beer. Of course tin cans color could be any color. For that, I made it blue. Now, Like you said my video speaks for itself. Probably most people assume it's beer. But here's the fun part. They THINK. Yeah, Firstly people think she acts drunk because of the beer. But than they think again, hold on. Why is she drinking in a tin can while there are a bunch of bottles behind her? But wait, there's more; The Title itself is called The Fizzy Drink. Why is the title called that since she is drunk? Only beer could make one drunk. But you might think, Beer could also be Fizzy. But after you saw the color of the tin can (Blue) and the human mind automatically think. Oh..she's drinking....

Now, you said my video should speak for itself:)
A food indeed:)

[The Reward]

Don't even need to watch it again. I've seen it dozens of times, it's my favorite indie cartoon. Ever. This film is incredible. 9 minutes is absurd for a web toon, and the first time I saw it I watched it 3 times in a row. The character designs, the world you guys wove, and especially the storytelling and the theme are all sublime in my book. I mean, just the way you guys handled everything... The animation's kind of economic for a lot of it, but it's still handled very well, the art direction and thought behind it trumps everything. Fuck me. Please. <3

TalesofAlethrion responds:

You are a great human being ;) THANKS! and for the last part of your message... its awn! Share or support the Kickstarter for the series everyone! We have 3 days left so if it is only a little bit spamming it's okay ;) http://kck.st/ZsMKBW

[-The Explorer-]

Good intentions, but some major storytelling issues, mostly with how you presented it. This isn't a self-contained story, and even though you said you need the prequel to understand in the comments, there's nowhere in the movie where this is apparent. Either this needed an "Episode 2" in the title, or there should have been some effort into making it so that newcomers can understand. Even that could have been forgiven, but unfortunately nothing is really accomplished here as a story even still. Guy finds rock, guy turns orange, guy runs toward a light, theoretically speaking there's not really a story happening here at all. Just food for thought, the graphics/style are nice, and some great ambiance going on here, but I didn't get anything out of it as a story, which is bad even in an episode from a series. There needs to be a degree of closure in every iteration, even if the story is meant to be told in parts, otherwise you're robbing each episode of its re-watch value. Would be glad to see more though.

NeroGeist responds:

That was the main concern I had with this when I finished. It's hard to convey a story to an audience when you have it in mind, you sometimes forget that people don't know whats going on and they can't assume the story like you do. There were many problems with the storytelling and I agree with you on that, this I guess was really a starting point for the series. And now that Step is willing to compose music for this series, I won't be limited music wise which can let focus more on the story. Thanks again for the review though! I'll be sure to work on it harder next time! :)

[Dandy: No Evil 006]

You've made it to the top of my "First things I click" list, and I never regret it. These are great, they aren't obnoxious or trying too hard, just simple light-hearted shorts with fur and country accents. Love as always, and great character designs/drawing style. What baffles me is how you manage to finish so many of these in such short periods of time, do you just go straight for storyboards to final drawings? What's your process? So I can blatantly copy you. I never have time to finish shit these days.

Warlord-of-Noodles responds:

It isn't really that quick if you come to think of it. There are just big spaces of time in the year I'm given no work so I work on these to expose my art and keep from going crazy. SO they all tend to be a whole crap lode within fortnights of one another.... then some months of nothing because I'll actually get work. and I tend to work on several at the same time rather than one at a time... so I don't get sick of one and get lazy.

["The Worst"]

I'm pretty sure that was the best thing ever. Complete and utter indulgence in filth such as this will save animation one day.

Sherbalex responds:

lets hope so

[Fenada 001]

Graphics and sound quality are great, but they're only a means to an end; what's under the hood is something grossly overdone and gut-wrenching to watch. I could almost understand your choice to pursue this idea if it was poking fun at this grotesquely unfunny gag that's so liberally used in lowest-common-denominator Japanese cartoons, but it was literally just a soulless reproduction of it. Pretty to look at, but this horrible cliche wasn't funny when that 87% of anime cartoons did it, and it wasn't funny here.

nalem responds:

Soulless? Ouch!

[Contemplate Life]

No.

While there was an improvement in the graphics from your previous work (implementing lines was a good choice), and the colors were nice, there was still a pretty harsh lack of variety in the animation here. There were alot of tweens, stillframes and loops that took me out of the movie. Your style's nice, but it's REALLY fucking rigid. Try doing more with the animation, it really just looks like the animation is an afterthought here. I enjoyed the instrumental song, but the words over it were poorly recorded and probably just would have been better left out. But that wouldn't have been an option (which leads me the third and most important point, the main reason for the low score) because it's just propaganda. There's no plot here, no subtlety, no entertainment value... It's really just Flash-based proselytism... Cartoons aren't really shit without ideas are they? Truly the crudest art with the most heart, brains and effort are worthy of high praise. You have nice presentational skills, but your cartoons are weak underneath the hood. Personally I like Spud better, at least you packaged the religious dickery under a nice little plot.

Now here's me proselytizing back even though this is posing as a review :D. Your "corruption" is not only your fault, but it's what makes you YOU. If you choose to change anything your life, do it for real, empirical reasons instead of trying to kiss the ass of ancient Middle Eastern mythical beings. And even if anything Christian mythology says was even mildly true about humans being so horrible for objectively moral reasons, it would be "god's" fault. If a programmer creates a game and it's full of bugs, it's moronic to say it's the game's fault. If an artist draws a picture and it's shitty, then it's the artist's fault.

Look in the mirror, not at mythological gods there's nothing looking back at you.
Because cold blooded honesty and awareness are our only real foundations in this life.
You will end up dead one day in your own strength, whether you believe in gods or not. Kick ass and enjoy what little life you have.

Please, forget ancient mythology and love yourself and others,
despite all your differences
and understanding and knowledge, change you.

nahtanojmal responds:

God created us, we hold our own remotes.
Real Christians see what God has done (or what people say He has done) for us and so willingly chose to follow Him. Not to gain for self but to die to following our sinfulness.
And in their willingness to follow God they do good.

Good works are sugar in the fruit, but sugar alone is no good for eternity.

Thanks for the 6 despite all your disagreements ;)

[Villainy - The New Toys]

I can't believe you're actually doing this.

Funny as hell, AND frame-by-frame? I don't even know what to say, this series caught me off guard... Normally I can pick apart a cartoon to death, but I haven't seen anything bad come from this series yet. Weird, evil characters that actually ARE evil and not just Cartoon Network evil, great comedic timing and hilarious acting. You're doing an awesome job, you're already defeating commercial television. Keep up the great work :3

DonkeysBazooka responds:

wow thanks! that really means a lot coming from you.