I must say, I really liked this video a lot! The animation of characters swimming, the ship being torn apart, and the Kraken itself, all very well done.

Very nice and thrilling short, keep it up!

Last edited by Brickcrazy (September 26, 2015 (06:12pm))

...but I thought it was terrific! Well done!

Wow, that's one really epic film! Totally loved every second of it, and must say, your sound design is tops. Keep up the good work!

EDIT: Oh, I meant to say, it must have been super hard to animate on a broken set, with the ships crashing down like that, it was done very smoothly. Fantastic.

Last edited by rioforce (September 28, 2015 (07:42pm))

YouTube • Website

"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

This is what a Pirate film needs to be, it was great!

Great work! Consider me inspired! My only critique is that there were a few shots where the animation could've been better, and a couple of transitions between shots that felt too long/drug out. Aside from that, I loved the audio (like others), and enjoyed the concept and overall execution of the film.

2nd place Darkness and Light entry: The Tree
Behind the Scenes

I said I was going to do an in-depth review, so here we go.

First off, I want to say that this little film really struck a chord with me. I REALLY like it. I've watched it probably 15 or more times since it was first posted. Is it perfect? No, but it's FUN and it has a hollywoodesque scale of action (due largely to sound design, camera movement, and general storytelling). It emulates the style and approach that I myself wish to emulate in my stories and animation. It also does a much better job of it than I have so far.

If you are reading this and haven't watched the film yet, STOP READING and watch the film. There are spoilers in this review!

So, without further adieu, here's the review.

Table of Contents---

Intro.
1. Content
2. Visual Storytelling
3. Animation
4. Lighting
5. Set Building and Design
6. Audio
7. Acting
8. Special Effects
Conclusion

This film really feels like the director's vision is exactly what came across in the film. So to that I say congratulations.

I also feel like this is probably why the film works so well, and it is the key to professional film-making. The director's ability to take what is in their mind and put it on screen. Sketch artists can be judged by their ability to take what is in their head and put it on paper. The same is the case with writing. So creativity in general works this way. Perhaps that is why the french word for director is réalisateur. The better the director, the better their ability to "realize" or bring to life what is in their mind's eye.
(Barely getting started and I'm already off course!)

----- Content -----
The attempt was clearly to make an action film on the high seas of monstrous proportions! The title is transparent. No hiding what's coming! And yet, the intro of the pirates and kidnapped noblewoman are enough of a distraction that on my first viewing I actually forgot that there was going to be a Kraken, until the roar happened (chilling!) and it made the film that much more exciting.

The directorial choice to have little or no dialogue worked fairly well in this film. What little spoken word is in the film felt out of place that I personally would have taken it out entirely, and left the vocalizations of grunting, yelling, and ARGHing as the most complex "speech" in the film. This isn't to say that the film shouldn't have had spoken dialogue, but if you're going to have a silent film save for one line of dialogue in the whole film... that dialogue had better be momentous. (I reference "The Artist" as an example of this). For me personally "Yippee!" didn't fit the tone of "Oh God we're gonna die!" happening around the noblewoman and boy. When he slid down off the crow's nest it didn't feel like they were safe enough for him to have that kind of reaction. This is really nit-picky I know, but when a film is put together well enough, the small details of odd choices stand out even more than if it weren't as good a film.

While we as the viewers are unaware of these characters' lives before this story, the style itself puts the focus on the action and makes the backstory inconsequential. Could it have been expanded? Sure. But the pace would have suffered, and it would have made the movie about these characters instead of about the Kraken. If any backstory could have been added, I think more could have been added about the Kraken itself. Either tales of a monster in the sea that the sailors whisper about, or perhaps show more of the underwater realm where the Kraken came from. Just a shot or two of something big and dark underwater, nothing too complicated. Again though, this could have slowed the pace and really it isn't crucial to the short film's success.

Lastly, the ending was a bit abrupt. We see that a barrel of black powder landed in the Kraken's maw and the noblewoman shot and blew up the barrel (and barrels around the Kraken exploded as well) thus killing the monster in a similar manner to the movie Jaws. There was no lead up to this however. Things were getting worse and worse aboard the sinking ship with seemingly no way out, then OOPS! Deus Ex Machina. The End. It was so sudden that as a viewer I almost didn't believe that it was over.

There needs to be a line from one dot to the next in terms of story. While we know these are sailing ships with cannons, we weren't specifically shown "these cannons use black powder, black powder is volatile, black powder comes in these barrels." I'm not saying that the viewers are ignorant of gunpowder's explosiveness, but as a convention of storytelling we the audience should be given all the pieces to the puzzle as we watch the film. How well the director disguises these "puzzle pieces" is what makes it fun for the viewer. In this film, the puzzle piece wasn't presented as existing, it was instead assumed that the viewer knew barrels of gunpowder were present aboard the ship and that they could explode easily. If I wrote it out as an equation, I'd say we were shown "equals C" when it needed to be written "A plus B equals C". I hope that I'm making sense here!

----- Visual Storytelling -----
The story opens with an establishing shot of the pirate ship and the captured noblewoman. The pan down from the crows nest worked well visually and it definitely is captivating. I will call it the "principle of mystery." We are shown only part of something and it makes the viewer want to see more. What threw me was the change from one scene to the next. Where we see the crow's nest again, and it has a different ship-mate in it. Though the break between shots suggests time has passed and it gives the opportunity to show the title of the film; I don't know that it was necessary. In retrospect it may have worked better to show the title first then start with a fade in of the close-up shot on the noble woman, and then a zoom out to show she's been captured and then pan up to the crow's nest where the ship-mate has the telescope backwards. It would have cut the awkward transition and had only one ship-mate in the crow's nest. If I had to guess, I would say the reason the film is the way it's shown, is due to syncing up with the music.

I do like the visual gag of having the telescope backwards which shrinks the image instead of enlarging it. I was watching it the first time thinking, "he's got that backwards" and then we are treated with a surprise because "yep, he sure does." I laughed good and hard at that joke.

Next we are shown a montage of preparation for the face off, but I still don't know what the guy in the brig is all about. I can only assume it's a reference to Police Chase 3 because it's the same criminal face used in the Police Chase movies you made.

You answered my question about the noblewoman being on the plank, and I wonder if there's any way it could have been communicated better visually that the pirates are threatening her life so as to prevent the imperials from firing or boarding. Maybe the Imperial Captain holding up a telescope and looking at her with the sharks below her, and then the Captain gestures for the first mate to hold their fire? I realize now that is what you were trying to do when the captain looks down at her, but somehow it didn't quite communicate that to me as the viewer. Again, this is the nitty gritty details. It really doesn't affect the film as a whole.

I love how the music swells and then the sharks swim away and then the roar happens. For me this is when the story really kicks into gear. The Captain turns his head, but he turns it in a different direction than where the roar is coming from I'm still not sure where he's looking or what he's turned his head to look at. The kid in the crow's nest is really our best indicator of where the sound came from because up to this point we've been looking at the Imperials on the right and the pirates on the left. The angles of where we have been viewing and where we're looking to have shifted. It's very crucial to keep all of this straight, and storyboarding is usually helpful in this respect. There were a number of points where i think our camera view switches in a direction that confuses the viewer orientation. The shot with the kid turning around made it clear, but the captain's head turn did not. Either way the next couple shots (I liked the "through the telescope shot") show clearly where the Kraken is coming from and where it's going to.

When the Pirate ship gets hit and the girl falls off the plank (facing the imperials), and then she comes up (facing the pirates) I get thrown visually (Even with the imperial ship in the background!). This is probably because for the majority of the story so far she's been facing only one direction, towards the imperial ship. I think a different choice of angles or blocking would have helped this visually. It's a small thing in the overall story, but this one in particular stood out to me as something that needed adjustment.

I love the low angle looking up at the pirates as they race to the port side of their ship and peer down at the water, it's a great setup for the next couple shots, because we look down with them at the bubbling water, and then it cuts to the "over the shoulder" view as the tentacle rises out of the water, and we rise WITH IT! Oh man I love that sequence! It just gives that feeling of how immense this creature really is under the surface of the water (principle of mystery!) The low angle shot looking up as the tentacle towers over the ship is great. I really wish that shot could have been maintained as the tentacle crashes down on the ship, but for technical reasons of how the tentacle is supported structurally I know you couldn't do that.

And one of my next favorite shots is the vertigo dolly/zoom you did for the imperial captain. I wish that could have been done even deeper and a closer zoom, but I realize that would require a very special macro/zoom lens which isn't easy to get. Getting a tighter zoom at the end of that shot would have really looked amazing though. I could tell you were having fun with your new DSLR!

The next series of shots with the Pirate ship sinking worked pretty well especially considering that you were working with Lego. Still, it would have been nice to SEE the ship sinking, instead of cutting back to it as keeps dropping lower and lower below the water line.
Technical obstacles... oh well!

You do something that I really like and I'm going to try and do myself too (I'm taking notes sir!). Your action sequences seem chaotic, but really you're cutting back and forth between storylines. It's the "meanwhile back at the ranch" approach, but it's not from one scene to another, it's one moment for a character to the same moment for a different character within the same scene. I noticed this when you were cutting back and forth between the pirate ship sinking and the two women swimming for the imperial ship.

I love the tentacle grabbing the pirate girl off the side of the ship. It was a nice touch.
My trouble is that we go from one side of the ship to the other and it's not that clearly communicated visually.

I think it would have been REALLY cool to have the camera in the low angle as the noblewoman climbs aboard the ship and then the "camera" rotates around the ship to the other side (maintaining the low angle) and from this vantage point we see the water start to bubble in three places. To execute the animation you would leave the camera in one place, but actually spin the ship which would achieve the same appearance. By doing that type of rotation around the ship, we would "reset" the 180 line. It says to the viewer, okay now were only looking at this ship, and we're gonna look at it from both sides.

I have similar issue with the tentacle starting to reach for the girl, and we cut to another tentacle grabbing a guy. It is the same viewing angle of the boat, but on the opposite side, so it looks like the girl magically transformed into a man who is getting grabbed by the same exact tentacle. I know it's not the same tentacle, but it appears that way due to the switching from one side to the other without clarity. It's less visual rhyming and more in the uncanny valley of similarity.

I think another reason the sides of the ship are easily confused is that the bow and aft of the ship have a very similar overall shape to them, so at a glance it's not easy to tell which end and thus which side of the ship we are looking at. Since your story has a lot of action, most all the shots are quick glances at different things happening and its easy to get all mixed up.

The visual clarity comes back when the noble woman starts climbing to the crow's nest. But then I get more confused because we're looking through a telescope and we see a mermaid observing the whole thing. She jumps in the water, so I assume she's coming to help, except we never see her again, which is even more confusing.

From there things are clear as the mast gets pulled down (really liked the tentacle twisted around the mast-looked really convincing) and the woman and boy jump to safety and tear through the sail. But then she climbs down and starts to turn, but we change angles 180 degrees and it confuses visually again because she was preparing to run left on screen--angle change--and now she's running to the right. At this point I'm lost as to which side we're looking at and where the sunken pirate ship is in relation to this ship.

The tentacle raises up to cut the ship in half and now I see "oh, she's aft, I thought she was at the bow of the ship." From this point on it is clear to the end. I especially enjoyed the rack focus on the gun she's holding. The first barrels rolling down to the Kraken worked, the last one bouncing into it's mouth from the angle over her shoulder didn't quite work for me. I feel like I would have preferred to see it from the side view, then cut to the close-up on her with the gun, then cut to the over-the-shoulder shot as she shoots the barrel.

The action was excellent, the angles were confusing at times, but there were excellently illustrated moments throughout the film.

I still don't know what's up with the mermaid...

----- Animation -----
Everyone on BiM enjoys seeing new ways to animate concepts we all recognize from life, and your film has several animations that I really liked. From a smoothness standpoint it feels like it is animated at 12fps and it's fairly smooth as a result. There's only a couple moments that felt off. Also, animating on fabric for the ocean has drawbacks as well. It moves a little like the ocean, but it doesn't move consistently.

I'll go straight to the big action. The wave of the oncoming Kraken. I liked how the wave rolled over itself as it came at the ships, and I REALLY liked the ships getting hit underneath the water and knocking the sailors off balance. It helped sell the immensity of the Kraken before we even see it. But then it disappears after it hits the pirate ship. We could have seen the wave at least fade and dissipate even though the Kraken has stopped moving (Newton's 1st law).

The appearance of the Kraken tentacle is great, and the swimming animation is wonderful. Seriously the swimming and treading water were really well done. I've done a little swimming animation, but your technique is the best I've seen. I also really loved the pirate girl's waving her arms as she goes backwards into the water with the tentacle.
It's kinda sad too.

I really like the quality of your pedestal camera moves. It's got some really nice smooth movement to it, and I'm curious to know how you accomplished it. I have a tripod with a geared column, but my vertical movements aren't very smooth with it.

There are so many things that I liked in your animation. The ship being torn apart, the gun fire and cannon fire. Even the stabbing of the tentacles with the spears worked nicely. The tearing through the sail was well done. The mast being torn down had a good start, but the end was a little rough, I'm sure it wasn't easy keeping all those parts balanced as they were being pulled down.

The tentacle cutting the imperial ship in half (specifically as it is whipping through the air) worked really well, better than the pirate ship chop. and of course the final explosion using cotton-balls was pretty great. I have been going back and forth on how to achieve cannon fire, and I think I'll try your method with the red light and cotton.

----- Lighting -----
I wasn't sure whether to mention it in animation or in lighting... but there was A LOT of light flicker. I realize this was your first film with a DSLR, so you're still getting the hang of its settings, but I've found a low shutter-speed to be the key to success for me personally. You've got the camera that can do the job, next is getting the lighting consistent.

There wasn't much in the way of mood being established using lighting, but for being on the open ocean in broad daylight, there's not much requirement for special lighting.
If your film was set at night... that'd be a different story though.

Some people are bothered by light reflections, but I'm not particularly bothered by them. I realize a GOOD light kit isn't cheap, so I don't worry about a few reflections. I did notice a few though that were perhaps a little excessive on the ships.

----- Set Building and Design -----
I am not an expert in this department. Someday I'd like to be. Your ships were awesome, and the fact that they came apart so easily worked well for the story (which is important). Also, the interior of the ship actually feels like it is inside the ship rather than a separately constructed set. The Kraken being red was a little odd to me, but I suppose most arthropods can change color, and they tend to turn dramatic colors when they are agitated. Also, if it is a reference to Squid on BiM and his monstrous set making...
Nice job

----- Audio -----
I'm very picky on Audio, and yours was top notch. The sound effects were balanced really nicely with the music.
Usually I get irritated by the use of Kevin MacLeod music (Take a Chance usually makes me crazy), but you used well chosen pieces of music and your scenes fit them very well. Also, the majority of your story wasn't even his stuff, it was a couple other pieces I had never heard of and they worked quite well. I'm guessing that you timed your scenes to fit the music rather than making the scenes and finding music that fit. If I'm wrong let me know, I'd like to be surprised.

Even the creaking of the ship on the ocean was there. Boards snapping as the ships were torn apart, screams and yells (without Wilhelm thank goodness), the ocean waves. People could learn from the layering of audio in your film. It's densely packed with sound effects, but they are layered so that whatever the viewer is supposed to be paying attention to, that is what comes through most clearly in the audio. When you think of movies there is picture and sound. Picture is one half, and audio is the other half. Most people don't treat sound as equally important as the picture, but I appreciate that you did. Very nice work.

I noticed one of the song titles is actually "The Kraken" I'm curious to know if that inspired you to make the film in the first place.
Also, did you do any foley?

----- Acting -----
Normally this would be reserved for analysis of voice acting and minifigure non-verbal acting. This story didn't have real dialogue, and since most of the minifigures were in sheer terror there wasn't much subtlety required.
Although... that one guy laughing as he gets carried away by the tentacle was a bit odd to me.

----- Special Effects -----
I really like how you achieved your special effects in-camera rather than green screening or post production graphics.
I don't have anything against those methods, but if you're going to do something, do it well, and you chose to do it all in-camera and do them well. I could see that you used a red laser pointer for the gunfire, though the flash of light that brightens the whole screen may have not been necessary.
I've got to say you have an eye for chaos.

In Conclusion...
This took way longer to write than I meant (six hours) but your work deserved analysis, and I learned several things from it too. I eagerly await your next project! Well done across the board.

You appeared to be inspired (in part) by Pirates of the Caribbean and perhaps Jaws? I know they did the gunpowder shot thing in Pirate's of the Caribbean as well so you may not have seen Jaws. So many things done well and only a handful of things that were a little out of place.

A welcome addition to your brickfilmography!
-nswihart

Last edited by nswihart (October 4, 2015 (09:26pm))