Topic: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

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FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Youtube  Youtube (brighter version)


Our entry to the Festival of Souls.

Last edited by BuilderBrothers (November 3, 2010 (07:25am))

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

I think that was good, a little cliche but still nicely animated and plot support mini/smile

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Yahhh!  Glad to finally see this film.  First off, great job BuilderBrothers.  Making a decent 15 minute brickfilm isn't easy, but you guys pulled it off.  The story was quite original.  At least I've never seen this done before.  Even though some of it could be expected, it was still a great film.  It was well animated.  Also, the special effects were nice.  I liked

Spoiler (click to read)

the transformation of the vampire into a bat and vice versa.

Also,

Spoiler (click to read)

the ghost effect was great!

I really liked the voice acting.  Brick7 did an exceptionally good job with the witch.  Some flaws included, excessive hand movement.  I know it needed some, but it seemed a bit much.  Also, the lighting was too dark at times.  For example, when they all get together at the beginning, the witch's face is pitch black.  This may have been because of her hat, and I've heard that YouTube darkens videos.  All in all though, this is a must see.  Brick or Treat really gets one in the mood for Halloween.

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Hmmmm, it doesn't look that dark to us.  Did you watch it in HD?

EDIT: Nevermind, you were right.  We should have remembered that Youtube really darkens things.

Last edited by BuilderBrothers (October 29, 2010 (09:46pm))

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

I don't know why YouTube does that.  It must be really frustrating to go to the trouble to create the right lighting/atmosphere in a scene and have Youtube make it too dark or hard to see.

That said, this film was even better than I expected (and I expected a lot, since I knew the plot).  I believe that this is your best film so far.  The animation, camera angles, and effects were quite well done, and it was very funny too! mini/bigsmile

Thanks, Daniel.  The voice acting for this film was a blast!

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Would it be worthwhile if we re-uploaded it brighter?

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

No, let it be. I could see everything.

RATING

Story: 7,5/10
Animation: 6/10
Cinematography: 7/10
Design: 9/10
Effects: 6/10
Sound: 8/10
Music: 8/10

Overall: 7,4 out of 10 points

Even for that length, I could watch it more than twice. Great atmosphere and voice acting!

Last edited by AncientEngine (October 29, 2010 (11:34pm))

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

I'm so glad someone made a 15 minute EPIC entry!! This is quite impressive I have to say. The animation was decent and the voice actors were great! Although, the story seemed a bit repetitive and predictable after a while, and over all it didn't absolutely thrill me. But of course if it was me, I'd probably switch the collecting up candy detail to just killing as many trick-or-treators as possible, and just have a slaughterfest for 15 minutes. But that's just me. mini/tongue
It was some very impressive work though like I said, good luck in the contest!

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

BuilderBrothers wrote:

Would it be worthwhile if we re-uploaded it brighter?

I think you should just leave it.  Only at a few parts is it bad.  Most of it's fine.

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

I really liked it. it followed the story well. It was really funny. the only part which annoyed me is when they moved their hands whenever they talked. Very well done. *9/10 stars*

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

It was a very good story and it was well done and well animated. My only complaint was, the way the minifigures talked got plain out annoy. Other then that it was really good. I really like the credits.

4/5

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Auquamorph has a point, I cringed at the skeleton's voice, a normal voice would have been fine.

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

RealBrick wrote:

Auquamorph has a point, I cringed at the skeleton's voice, a normal voice would have been fine.

But he's supposed to be a dumb skeleton. mini/tongue By the way, BuilderBrother Daniel "appreciates" your comment. mini/wink

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

That wasn't supposed to be aggressive, gosh.
I just think that the voice would have been better had it not had all those "Duhh"s placed throughout.

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Duh, what you mean? Duh.   Duh is a state of mind, NOT a question.

JK.  We know what you mean.  His voice DOES get a bit tedious after a while.  However, we were really rushed on time and really didn't have time to change it.

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Thank you very much for entering. Can't comment much since I'm a judge, but I really enjoyed it.

Also, Brick7's voice acting talents are fantastic.

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Into the darkness once more. I walk into the unknown. To a far better life than I've ever known.

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Classic Brickfilming, Brick7 was amazing, a few microphone errors at the start (moving towards and away from the mic etc.) but that seemed to smooth out. Some of the voice acting from the trick-or-treaters was a bit so-so, bones (I think that was his name) was a bit over-the top duhhh, hand movements were a bit over-the-top too, but the story and execution were great with characters that stuck because of their simple charactericstics that defined them very well. This is very reminiscent of leftfield studios in the animation and great voice acting, a definite favourite for me.

mini/smile

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Wow! This was very enjoyable and fun to watch. Congrats to Brick7 for her voice acting!
We hope you win this contest. Good luck! mini/sunnies

Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

As others have said, not many people out there have come even close to successfully producing a film of this length.   It definitely takes years of experience of which I do not doubt that you have.  One of the great aspects of this film is the sound, which I think effectively portrays the mood of the film.  I always enjoy your props and appreciate the effort you put into them, especially at the beginning, with the inside of the house and the skeleton artwork.  The storyline is fairly well thought out, although the dialogue could have been improved upon.  While Brick7 takes the spotlight, one of my favorite voices is the vampire's.  I think you could have done a better job at keeping the animation interesting during the dialogue, although it didn't take much away from the film.  After the first few scenes it wasn't as bad, since the plot started to unfold.

Overall, I would round my rating to 5/5.  Great job on this one!

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Re: FOS 2010 - Brick or Treat

Okay, just ran into this film in the Review Queue... and I apologize if I come across as a little harsh.

Technical qualities were fine. The lighting was a little too dark sometimes, but that wasn't really an issue. Some people have already said that the voices were a little annoying, and I definitely agree. Now, I don't think that the voice actors were bad. No, I thought the accents were bad (Brick7 nailed that cackle, though). I'm tired of hearing these cliched vampire/witch/ghost voices, and I really didn't think the skeleton's accent worked well either. The pumpkin guy was tolerable, but seriously, look at films like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack Skellington had an AWESOME, non-cliché accent, and was only creepy when the character needed to be (this is from what I recall of the film after having only watched it once, anyway). The dialog also needed a little work, but overall it was adequate. All that said, I'll move onto the story...

When I see a brickfilm having a total duration of fifteen minutes, I expect there to be there to be some depth to the story. However, the premise of this film was pretty simple, and did not require fifteen minutes to tell; I'd say about six minutes or less would have done the trick. We've got these five characters (several of whom I think are utterly useless, but we'll get to that later). The two first characters we meet have a discussion, find the rest of the group, relay that same discussion to the others, then make plans for a party. This takes up a good fifth of the film. You've set up what could be an entertaining film, but you've taken WAY too long to do it. In the first scene, you should cut it where the witch starts relaying her idea. Instead, have her say she'll reveal her plan once they've got the group together, then skip everything up until they start planning. The character introductions were rather tedious, and didn't bring any new information to the table, so leave those out, or shorten them.

Now we get to the second act, which involves the characters knocking on doors and getting arrested. Honestly, I think this was the worst act. As is, half of it should have been taken out because it was just the same event done five times with different characters. I had a little hope for the vampire's segment, which I was hoping would involve the vampire resisting the temptation to suck the woman's blood, but I got the same story as the last segment. Because of the way this was done, we're left with several plot holes. How on Earth did the police manage to arrest the vampire when he has the ability to turn into a bat? How did the police get close enough to the witch without her turning them all into frogs? This could at least be explained by having the witch not wanting to do that because of her kind nature, but we don't get any characterization, so we don't know if she even has that trait; she certainly doesn't have any qualms about turning the police into frogs later, though, so probably not.

Now, we get turn the third act. All the characters meet up in jail, discuss what just happened, and escape. Here, I'm going to discuss why the ghost character is the most unnecessary character in the whole film. Why? The vampire. The ghost's only purpose in this film seems to be getting the characters out of jail, which could easily be re-written so the vampire turns into a bat (really, this CAN be the greatest perk of being a vampire if you utilize it!), slips through the bars and gets the keys. Or, alternatively, the skeleton could have ripped himself apart, slipped his arms through the bars, and used them to retrieve the keys. The latter idea would have been much more interesting to watch, come to think of it. Anyway, even as it is the ghost seems useless, because we never actually see what the ghost does, and it's implied that he really doesn't do much of anything at all.

Also, before all this escaping, we have the characters discussing what went wrong, which mostly involves recapping the last six minutes of the film. Please, don't do that. We saw what happened, it's not important for us to also see the characters describing to each other what happened. If you really wanted to, though, here would be a good place to stick in some Noodle Incidents for the characters who we don't see trick-or-treating.

And finally, I'd leave out any reference to the party. This is really more a matter of personal opinion, but it still feels like filler.

Again, I apologize if my review was a little harsh (or just long-winded). I personally feel like people don't get enough good criticism on this site, and I'd like to see that change.

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