Feedback Anyone?

[Little Yamori]

Hello All,

I completed this animation about 6 months ago and have submitted to a few film festivals with some success. But, I still know that I'm lacking in areas, some that I am aware of and others that I'm blind to. The more eyes I can get on it that can provide feedback, the better. It's always valuable to get a variety of thoughts to gauge weakness and strengths.

If anyone has the time, I'd appreciate it very much.

Thanks



I've cleaned up some clicks and music volume adjustments for the festival submissions. This is a prior unlisted Youtube version

All animation done in AS 11.2 and edited in Premiere Pro

Update: This animation was Just awarded "Best of Fest" in a recent Film Festival

[NanotechBeasts]

First off the quality of animation is amazing. I know you have been working on this project for awhile. As for areas to improve of, I would say it's more of the sound and the way the story is presented.

The sound bounces from painful realistic and squeamish sounds like eggs being laid to annoying sounds. It is hard on the ears. The baby turtle's soft cries are the only sound that was a balance of these two extremes and came off as more soft and pleasant sound of distress. However as someone who has been force to watch a ton of YouTube kids videos of both professionally done and independently done content I would say sometimes things that sound annoying to adults are loved by kids. So you can take all my suggestions with a grain of salt because kids media varies so much.

As far as story presentation, I would suggest having a narration through out the story as if someone is reading it to you. Now this may seem like a copout to some because honestly the story already visually shows you everything; but there is a jarring sense of flow to the story in-between silly and serious nature clips and the simple narration could help bridge that gap. By describing to the viewer the way the humble more cartoonish gecko feels and making him more relatable. A good example of this is Thomas the Tank Engine.

The other options is to have stronger music to create a flow with a similar instruments or sound throughout.

The animation though is some of the most high quality work for an independent kids show I have seen. I saw you other movie on YouTube. It is very visually pleasing.

[Little Yamori]

First off the quality of animation is amazing. I know you have been working on this project for awhile. As for areas to improve of, I would say it's more of the sound and the way the story is presented.

The sound bounces from painful realistic and squeamish sounds like eggs being laid to annoying sounds. It is hard on the ears. The baby turtle's soft cries are the only sound that was a balance of these two extremes and came off as more soft and pleasant sound of distress. However as someone who has been force to watch a ton of YouTube kids videos of both professionally done and independently done content I would say sometimes things that sound annoying to adults are loved by kids. So you can take all my suggestions with a grain of salt because kids media varies so much.

As far as story presentation, I would suggest having a narration through out the story as if someone is reading it to you. Now this may seem like a copout to some because honestly the story already visually shows you everything; but there is a jarring sense of flow to the story in-between silly and serious nature clips and the simple narration could help bridge that gap. By describing to the viewer the way the humble more cartoonish gecko feels and making him more relatable. A good example of this is Thomas the Tank Engine.

The other options is to have stronger music to create a flow with a similar instruments or sound throughout.

The animation though is some of the most high quality work for an independent kids show I have seen. I saw you other movie on YouTube. It is very visually pleasing.

NanotechBeasts, Wow!!

First off I want to truly thank you for taking the time to watch. These days getting anyone to watch a 15 minute story is tough. I really appreciate your feedback.
Sound recording was one of the things I struggled with the most. I had used low cost desktop speakers and had assumed if it sounded okay on them, thinking then it would probably be okay on most devices, but after getting a pair of quality headphones, to my horror I discovered many of the issues of sound you mentioned, muddied at times and grating at others. I rushed the music a bit as once the animation was finished I worked with my son on his school breaks to compose and come up with original pieces so I could hurry up and finish, but I agree that it's lacking in areas.

It's critiques like this that help so much in that they expose the points where I crossed my fingers on the short comings only to see now that there's no escaping the work that must be done to fix these issues.

Thank you so much for the kind words on the visuals, it gives me hope and some confidence as I work on my next project (in progress) which as it turns out will have a bit of narration from one of the gecko characters.

[NanotechBeasts]

Well I hope you the best on your next project. Your seaturtle was amazing and cute. : ). I do believe a narration over the project will help with the flow of the next video based on the last two videos. I would suggest using it to try to convey the humor and seriousness throughout.

[Little Yamori]

Well I hope you the best on your next project. Your seaturtle was amazing and cute. : ). I do believe a narration over the project will help with the flow of the next video based on the last two videos. I would suggest using it to try to convey the humor and seriousness throughout.

Thanks again for the critique and encouragement. I've storyboarded (roughly) 90 % of the next one and have designed the characters with some rigging already. Will be doing a combo of narration for the intro, and here and there where needed. My aim is to have it a mix of adventure and quirky characters with tighter editing. I plan on posting bits here with hopefully much improved audio.


I appreciate your impressions and comments

[jtscribbles]

Hi Little Yamori,

Sorry for the late reply.

First off, congratulations on successfully completing such a large project! Even though I'm not a professional, I can understand how work has gone into this.

I'm impressed by the amazing job you did with the turtles and how grounded in reality they are, as are many of the other animals depicted in the short! I feel like you could make convincing nature/conservation-themed animation if there were an organisation wanting that quality. I also really enjoyed the music - I found it quite relaxing and fitting the mood of the short quite well.

As an adult, there were a couple of things that stood out to me:

• I found the disconnect between those "realistic" characters and the gecko character a little unusual, but that's me. Maybe I'm just too blown away by the aforementioned animals!
• The main "happy theme" music in the short could use a little more variation - it didn't get too repetitive for me, but it might've if the short was longer.
• The beach grass looked a little too same-y. Maybe even adding a second different version, that can also be flipped, would add a little variety there.

The depth-of-field and blur effects (from After Effects?) really help pull it all together and immerse the viewer in your story. I really liked how your ocean looked!

I really enjoyed your short, hope to one day make something as substantial and nice looking as you have and look forward to possibly seeing more of your work in the future!

[Little Yamori]

Hi Little Yamori,

As an adult, there were a couple of things that stood out to me:

• I found the disconnect between those "realistic" characters and the gecko character a little unusual, but that's me. Maybe I'm just too blown away by the aforementioned animals!
• The main "happy theme" music in the short could use a little more variation - it didn't get too repetitive for me, but it might've if the short was longer.
• The beach grass looked a little too same-y. Maybe even adding a second different version, that can also be flipped, would add a little variety there.

The depth-of-field and blur effects (from After Effects?) really help pull it all together and immerse the viewer in your story. I really liked how your ocean looked!

jtscribbles,

Thank you so much for taking the time, I truly appreciate it.

I think all of your critiques are very helpful and touch on all the things I was concerned with. When putting it all together (there were 198 animated files in this) there is always the nagging feeling of "did this come out right? Is it too slow? Could I adjust it a little better?" but then the tiredness overcomes and says "look, you got it done, move on to the next task" and then after having the reward of actually finishing it all, submitting to festivals and posting here and there, the lump in the throat feeling comes in and says...you rushed to get it out and these parts could have been cleaned up more...and then you hope it's just self doubts and no one else will see it that way....and then everyone does

The more nature characters and my main character "Little Yamori" (yamori is Japanese for gecko) I kinda knew was going to be tough to mesh. My other animations had all the characters actually be "characters" but this one I just felt I had to have the turtle realistic, which created that conundrum of integrating them both.
The music I did last. My son is pretty good on the piano, so while he was away at school I sent him some samples of what I thought might work, and when he came home for break we rushed to record. The other upbeat stuff was a mix of some older recordings we had done and a little new guitar, but I agree I needed more variation. It's just me, but I don't want to use creative commons music, so I handicap myself by trying to come up with original stuff, and then run out of gas, but I have to take that into account because like yourself, people are noticing the repetitiveness, the same with the grass.

Thanks again for taking the time, everyone's input is extremely helpful in helping me improve and not give in to the "tiredness" excuse!!

BTW a shout out to Moho. All the blurs and depth of field were done in Moho using the "allow animated layer effects" option and setting up the Z axis as either - or + for certain layers

Little Yamori
(Aka Rich K)

[jtscribbles]

Hi again Rich,

I just wanted to apologise as I probably shouldn't have used the words "stood out" to talk about those parts of your short film.
They certainly don't "stick out like a sore thumb". I only meant it as things that I noticed and could be potential areas for improvement in the future.
As I mentioned, I'm not a professional at all, so please take my feedback with that grain of salt.

I also wanted to reiterate how impressive to me it is that you have (again?) completed a short of such length with such quality. And to get it shown in festivals!
I applaud your efforts, not just the huge number of shots, but also creating the original music and then all the submissions!
As someone who is just starting to learn Moho, I find myself often getting too distracted in my available time to achieve anything, so please feel proud in your achievements!

I'm also very impressed that all that depth stuff was created in Moho!

Once again, well done!

[Little Yamori]

I just wanted to apologise as I probably shouldn't have used the words "stood out" to talk about those parts of your short film.
They certainly don't "stick out like a sore thumb". I only meant it as things that I noticed and could be potential areas for improvement in the future.
As I mentioned, I'm not a professional at all, so please take my feedback with that grain of salt

jtscribbles, no worries at all with writing "stood out" please don't be concerned with it.
I look at it as everyone who goes to the movies as an audience member is entitled to see things in their own individual way, and every eye will see something different. It's exactly what you noticed that caught your eye that I was requesting feedback on. It is very valuable to get honest critiques, which is why this forum is so helpful.

This software has given me the ability to bring some of my ideas to fruition, I hope you dive in and get it to help you with your ideas as well. I still feel like I'm a novice with rigging etc... when I see Sang's and others work. So this is a great place to get help and learn for us all

[Ronintalk]

I enjoyed this. Congrats on the Best of Fest award , well deserved. I agree with some of the comments about the sound but I see you have adjusted for this already. I noticed it more initially but then I was caught up following the story and it was less intrusive. As someone else mentioned, the way you handled the sea even down to the way the movement of the turtles changes as they enter the water was excellent. My only thought there is adding some spray to the waves as they crash in? I'm not sure how exactly, Particle effect? It would add to the dynamics and contrast with the softness of the calm lapping waves. I couldn't do it but that's not to say it is a bad idea to think on.

[Little Yamori]

My only thought there is adding some spray to the waves as they crash in? I'm not sure how exactly, Particle effect? It would add to the dynamics and contrast with the softness of the calm lapping waves. I couldn't do it but that's not to say it is a bad idea to think on.

I think you're right. I've been looking at more anime style waves and water too in the hopes of improving the look. It's not quite where it needs to be.

Thank you very much for taking the time and your kind complements

[Yosemite Sam]

This is SOOOOOOO good! I love seeing projects like this.

[Little Yamori]

This is SOOOOOOO good! I love seeing projects like this.

Yosemite Sam!!! Thanks so much for your reaction.

I've been out for the last couple of weeks and just saw this post.

Much appreciated!!