Re: Egyptian Holiday

Okay, it's been a while, but I'm going to do a full review on this:

After over a year of production and hype, the highly-achieved mobildeli has finally released his much anticipated film, Egyptian Holiday. Now, in order to fully review this film, I had to watch this film 3 times, because the first time I saw it, I was in a hazy state, caused by my excitement of seeing the film for the first time.

I must admit, even on the second and third viewing, the technical standards are incredible. Animation is silky-smooth as always, yet it didn't have the certain "magic" that Ham on Set brought to the table. In the audio department, however, the quality is much better than Ham on Set. The voicing was great, and some lines brought smiles on my face, and laughter in the air.

However, no film is perfect. There are some minor light flickers here and there. And the story isn't as great as hoped. Now, I'm not saying that it sucked, I actually enjoyed it. The problem is that it is cliche, and some characters are weak and annoying. The adventurer was a fresh new spin on the adventurer genre, but his whiney attitude got on my nerves a little less than halfway through. The length of the story, or rather, the shortness of it also bothered me. The ending was abrupt, and anti-climatic, as Jargon put it. The problem about films like this is that too much time is taken to raise hype, which always leads to a little disappointment. This is demonstrated best by AVATAR (please don't hate, it's true and you know it).

All and all, I have to give credit to mobiledeli. He produced an rather enjoyable film while in college, and used real sand in his sets. Is this guy crazy or what? Nobody does that. Nobody. I need to give him kudos for entertaining me with an enjoyable story, lovely animation, and incredible audio quality. This film is an instant classic, and you don't know what a true brickfilm is until you watch one of this quality. I put it up there with Unrenewable.

3.5/4 out of 5

Re: Egyptian Holiday

I still don't get what swearing everyone is talking about. I don't recall any real swearing at all.

bricksinmotion member of the year

Re: Egyptian Holiday

When he's being chased by the spiders, he swears several times once he starts running down the left hallway.

kcirb-- its brick backwards.
Youtube

Re: Egyptian Holiday

Thank you so much, Mobiledeli,  for posting a version of the film without the swearing.  I was able to show it to the entire family, and we all loved it!  The quick pacing didn't bother us, and I personally feel that the ending fits with the "silliness" of the whole story.  We enjoyed your lighting, music choices, smooth animation, fabulous voice actors, and amazing sets!  Congratulations on a job well done! mini/smile

Re: Egyptian Holiday

That was really fun to watch!  It was different than what I expected, but in a better way.  Everything was so perfect!  Sometimes, during the spider chasing scene the camera movements and his running seemed almost too smooth.  I'm glad you were able to finish such a big project.  I know you started working on this quite a while ago, and it's nice to see your hard work payed off.  Thanks for sharing this great brickfilm with us!

Re: Egyptian Holiday

Here there are a few mistakes I found, just a few things that mentally bothered me while watching it.
At around 2:05 the protagonist turns left, in the scene after he's going to the right. Not a big problem, but you could have avoided the mistake (it's just cinematographically wrong). In 2:54, always the main character takes the glass of whine, a few shots later the proffessor still has it (continuity error, I think that's how it is called). I still love it.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

MPfist0 wrote:

At around 2:05 the protagonist turns left, in the scene after he's going to the right. Not a big problem, but you could have avoided the mistake (it's just cinematographically wrong).

Yeah, because pushing the statue from the side closest to him totally doesn't make any sense at all, you know, cinematographically.

"[It] was the theme song for the movie 2010 first contact." ~ A YouTuber on Also Sprach Zarathustra
CGI LEGO! Updated occasionally...

Re: Egyptian Holiday

He could have made the hole in the wall on the other side, and put the camera there. It would have been more correct. There are a lot of solutions actually.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

But wouldn't that be the entrance? Re-watching, the cinematography is correct, I don't know what you're seeing.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/315234895058173963/400133875549995018/Sig1.png

Re: Egyptian Holiday

No, I mean that when he slides the thing, he put the hole on one wall, he could have put it in the opposite wall, so no, it's not the entrance, and believe me, I know what I say: if you see a man exiting the frame going to the right, you expect that in the next frame he'll come in from the other side always walking to the right. I don't know whether I explained the concept well or not. Anyway I'm not criticizing the movie itself, it's just a small mistake.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

MPfist0, the concept you're trying to explain is called the 180 degree rule.

https://i.imgur.com/1JxY79v.png

Re: Egyptian Holiday

I guess it's that one, I just know how they call it here in italy (scavallamento). Well, anyway, you know what I'm talking about.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

There's literally no mistake at all at 2:05. Owen walks in from the right. If you're referring to the sliding of the statue, that's an obvious cinematographical choice to put the camera "inside" the treasure room to make the reveal more visually interesting. Owen makes a slight turn to the left so he can get in front of the statue to push it obviously.
The 180° rule seems broken before that when the cut is made from the shot of the professor and Eiszands to the full shot of the room at 1:51, but here it's obviously to show us the entire scene and to show us where the statue is located. It works because we get to see the entire set. If a cut breaks the 180° rule and it doesn't work, it confuses the audience, because they're not sure who's looking at what or who.
True enough though, that the 180° rule isn't always followed in each scene. It's broken in the ceiling scene when Owen grabs for the crate and the door closes, but it works there because it's meant to be 'scary' and it's meant to be jarring. There's a few things in that scene however, that don't exactly add up, but because it's so hectic, it kind of works.
What I've noticed is there's a lot of instances where mobiledeli cleverly cuts to someone speaking or looking at something to avoid showing the other character in the scene walking somewhere or taking something. Again, it works pretty well. An example is in the showdown with the skeletons where Owen throws the bottle at the pharaoh, walks over to the pharaoh and takes the jewel in his hands. Clever work with shots there, keeping on the doctor to avoid both showing Owen's actions and the appearance of the skeletons. From a logical point of view, if you draw a floorplan, the characters would probably see the skeletons, but it's believable for the audience that it happened during the time we were seeing something else.
What I'm saying is, you might think this means I'm saying it's cheap, but it's what I really like. In a way it's also proof that following the little "rules" isn't always necessary to make a good film, as long as the audience can understand it.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

that movie was amzaing
really good animation.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff491/TheLegoMaker1/signiture.jpg
My Youtube Page              mini/cat              mini/cat                Our Latest video

Re: Egyptian Holiday

Dude!  I hope you're getting paid by youtube for this twenty NAY thirty fold!

Re: Egyptian Holiday

mod edit: no thanks

Random productions
http://mag.racked.eu/image/5003/The+magic+sheep+approved%21/mca.png

Re: Egyptian Holiday

Love how people are trying to find tiny mistakes in things like the cinematography.

You know you have a good film when people are searching for mistakes.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

I'm pretty sure if you watched a really good live action movie you would find tiny little mistakes. Even I, with a masters degree in nitpicking, think you are over-analysing it too much...

YouTube
Max, She/They

Re: Egyptian Holiday

Brickyman wrote:

Love how people are trying to find tiny mistakes in things like the cinematography.

You know you have a good film when people are searching for mistakes.

Totally agree, in fact, I said I love it anyway.

Re: Egyptian Holiday

Well as someone who hadn't heard any hype the opening scene blew me away, fantastic stuff.
Cinematography and the voice acting was also steller and only let down by the animation and story.

Yes I said it, some animation was good but arms going up and down when people speak I find that really really annoying to watch.
I was waiting for the (cliche) skeleton sword fight <sigh> it needed a big finale.
If we have to make film comparisons then I liked it much more than unrenewable (over rated).

Mobiledeli is very talented and this film is one of the best brickfilms of the year.

CrimStories

Other:  DOTBW      Take Out      Crime Stories      Cyclic     YouTube