Yeah, I know alot of facepuncher's dont really like minecraft, but I thought I may aswell share this short 10 minute movie a friend of mine made.
[video=youtube;aqoEcXux5Ik]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqoEcXux5Ik[/video]
Okay movie, but if you know facepunchers don't like stuff like this why post it?
[QUOTE=Umbra Fidelis;42813575]Okay movie, but if you know facepunchers don't like stuff like this why post it?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Wazbat;42813557]alot of facepuncher's[/QUOTE]
I've seen a few people who ejoy it, but I've seen the reaction to notch's excessive lazyness and vacations in SH
A few pieces of critique; the exposition font is a bit odd, and the grammar in the introduction is atrocious and could have used some checking by a native English speaker. Honestly, that set me up with a bad taste in my mouth which was why I originally wanted to write a hate-filled message before finishing the video.
I feel the effort should have been put into doing it in something other than Minecraft, because the game does not add to the story at all and you would have much more creative freedom without it; there is absolutely no reason to do this within the game, and I honestly think your friend has the ability to learn some animation skills so he can do these videos without using MC as a crutch.
The camera angles were very well done, probably the highlight of the video considering what there was to work with, but many of the scenes were predictable or taken directly from other films, (the elevator scene for instance) but I feel that can pass since the entire video is pretty much a throwback to said films anyway.
The special fx were (relatively) stunning for a video filmed in-game, and I can honestly say that they were part of the film aside from the camera work. By no means great, but definitely better than what passes in MC videos.
The ending was a bit predictable and silly, and probably my least favorite part about the plot, which I feel was half-assed and unsurprising. The "evil guys gawk at the protagonist as he leaps off a building only to be saved by his aerial vehicle" is a cop-out that I feel really hindered what could have been a much more emotional or exciting ending.
There is no character buildup to garner a relationship between the audience and the protagonist, and the conflict is forced and unexplained, leaving no satisfaction when the ending is reached. Ten minutes is more than enough time to build that relationship, but in the end, it felt like more time was spent on 3 minutes of walking; the lack of verbal communication is a reason for this, but there are a number of works that can create a decent, or even deep, emotional bond between the audience and character without any form of audio. The relationship between the girl and boy and the protagonist is never explained, but not enough hints are dropped as to let us assume that they are friends or relatives, or that the protagonist was hired to save them as a mercenary. If the latter is true, then I can understand the lack of character depth, but at that expense, I would have expected a greater abundance of fight scenes with more diversity. If it is a merc, (which I can assume based on the visual clues) the title does not necessarily reflect the video, but if the protagonist is a father, the characters don't react as such.
I must admit, the video started off pretty poorly because of that issue-filled exposition text, but it really picked up, and while it's not amazing, it is very well done if only because of the detail put into the special fx, camera work, music/sound composition, and environments.
Those three things, I feel, make up for the cliche and uninteresting plot and storyline; overall, really interesting, a bit bland mostly because of the lack of freedom given by the fact that it's done in-game, but for what it is, it's pretty entertaining. Good for what it is, but if I were to critique it as a general form of media, without factoring in the medium, it would receive much worse considering the massive issues I feel the plot and characters have.
6/10
[QUOTE=Loriborn;42813720]A few pieces of critique; the exposition font is a bit odd, and the grammar in the introduction is atrocious and could have used some checking by a native English speaker. Honestly, that set me up with a bad taste in my mouth which was why I originally wanted to write a hate-filled message before finishing the video.
I feel the effort should have been put into doing it in something other than Minecraft, because the game does not add to the story at all and you would have much more creative freedom without it; there is absolutely no reason to do this within the game, and I honestly think your friend has the ability to learn some animation skills so he can do these videos without using MC as a crutch.
The camera angles were very well done, probably the highlight of the video considering what there was to work with, but many of the scenes were predictable or taken directly from other films, (the elevator scene for instance) but I feel that can pass since the entire video is pretty much a throwback to said films anyway.
The special fx were (relatively) stunning for a video filmed in-game, and I can honestly say that they were part of the film aside from the camera work. By no means great, but definitely better than what passes in MC videos.
The ending was a bit predictable and silly, and probably my least favorite part about the plot, which I feel was half-assed and unsurprising. The "evil guys gawk at the protagonist as he leaps off a building only to be saved by his aerial vehicle" is a cop-out that I feel really hindered what could have been a much more emotional or exciting ending.
There is no character buildup to garner a relationship between the audience and the protagonist, and the conflict is forced and unexplained, leaving no satisfaction when the ending is reached. Ten minutes is more than enough time to build that relationship, but in the end, it felt like more time was spent on 3 minutes of walking; the lack of verbal communication is a reason for this, but there are a number of works that can create a decent, or even deep, emotional bond between the audience and character without any form of audio. The relationship between the girl and boy and the protagonist is never explained, but not enough hints are dropped as to let us assume that they are friends or relatives, or that the protagonist was hired to save them as a mercenary. If the latter is true, then I can understand the lack of character depth, but at that expense, I would have expected a greater abundance of fight scenes with more diversity. If it is a merc, (which I can assume based on the visual clues) the title does not necessarily reflect the video, but if the protagonist is a father, the characters don't react as such.
I must admit, the video started off pretty poorly because of that issue-filled exposition text, but it really picked up, and while it's not amazing, it is very well done if only because of the detail put into the special fx, camera work, music/sound composition, and environments.
Those three things, I feel, make up for the cliche and uninteresting plot and storyline; overall, really interesting, a bit bland mostly because of the lack of freedom given by the fact that it's done in-game, but for what it is, it's pretty entertaining. Good for what it is, but if I were to critique it as a general form of media, without factoring in the medium, it would receive much worse considering the massive issues I feel the plot and characters have.
6/10[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I agree with you on alot of those points, they did another video, a skyrim-minecraft crossover which had a better story, but I think it would have been better without voice acting.
That was really good honestly... Even though it was minecraft. I do wish he put his effort into maybe a better engine or animation software to gain a much deeper relation to the characters and smoother animations.
I liked it, was something different. Well thought out!
Lovely work your friend did there; it's much more impressive than the usual rubbish. I think it was really clever how beds were used for lying bodies.
Honestly, I thought it was terrible.
Horribly cliche, any real work was rather meh in quality and clashed terribly with the horrible minecraft setting. Overall, I'd have to give it a 3/10. The story and writing were bad, just plain and simple. The only thing decent was the camera angles, and that's not really hard to do at all when you can manipulate the camera in a full X,Y,Z axis with extreme precision.
[QUOTE=draugur;42814845]Honestly, I thought it was terrible.
Horribly cliche, any real work was rather meh in quality and clashed terribly with the horrible minecraft setting. Overall, I'd have to give it a 3/10. The story and writing were bad, just plain and simple. The only thing decent was the camera angles, and that's not really hard to do at all when you can manipulate the camera in a full X,Y,Z axis with extreme precision.[/QUOTE]
Like I said earlier in my previous post, if I were to judge the piece with no forethought of the medium, I would have been much harsher with my critique, but because it was done ingame, and because of the limitations due to that, I was more lenient in my review. I'm not going to let the fact that it's Minecraft immediately define that the video is bad, rather, I'm going to look at what's been done, and compare it to the norm of other videos that use the same form of medium, and not critique based on the choice of medium.
Is the plot cliche and generic? Yes.
Are the characters bland and emotionless? Definitely.
Is the story poorly written and contrived? Yep.
Was the conflict and ending both predictable and unsatisfying? Mhmm.
Has this exact thing been done before in multiple blockbuster action movies wherein the exact scenes here have played out almost exactly like the ones in this video? You betcha.
But, all things considered, I have to give props to these guys for the setting and environments, most notably the city and skyline, which are both incredibly massive and detailed considering this is done in-game; the special fx are very well done and blend in smoothly with the Minecraft setting. The world feels very alive despite the lack of people, which I feel is an interesting milestone. The cinematography was also some of the best I've seen out of a Minecraft machinima to date, especially one that was done almost entirely ingame.
Does the video have issues? Yes, it has a metric ton, but while it has its flaws, they are almost universally in the realm of writing. If you primarily critique the video for its visual and auditory factors, I can honestly say it was very well done.
My advice to the developers?
1. Invest in learning proper animation and modelling, you are severely hindered by using Minecraft; even using SFM would grant you so much more freedom to delve into more intricate scenes. Your story is not based in plot or dialogue, so it is very crippling to do it all in a game with almost nonexistent animations, and a medium without the ability to introduce custom scenes.
2. Voice acting. Even if it's minimal, dialogue is important unless you can convey a story with nothing more than situation and movement and animation, which, let's face it, is very hard to do, and impossible with something like Minecraft.
3. Get a native English speaker to review any text you write in English.
4. Focus focus focus focus focus on either finding a writer, or learning how to write. The story and plot are important, and even though you can get away with it this time because of the environment and camera work, it won't pass in most situations, especially if you move beyond using MC.
I liked how he had to use beds for their death animation.
It's like that one scene in the matrix but with crappy character models and shakey cam
[QUOTE=Umbra Fidelis;42813575]Okay movie, but if you know facepunchers don't like stuff like this why post it?[/QUOTE]
Facepunch isn't a hivemind.
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