I replayed the part with the picnic blanket a few dozen times.  The animation there, wow, oh man.

oh man I am crying now
That was so magnificently impeccable I don't even

You definitely made the car scene work well, though. Looked awesome.

I didn't really get the ending though, even after rewatching the original Date With Julie. Why is he holding a Bible? I guess I am not a big fan of works with religious themes but if that is what you were going for then you did a great job at that as well. It's not that I didn't like that part, it's just that it seemed kind of out of place in comparison to the rest of the film

Enough about that because really the whole film was superb and magnificent. I'm not going to say what everybody else is going to (about the animation and technicalities) and instead just congratulate you on making a very touching and sweet film. Good work!

Absolutely fantastic from start to finish. You have started a very nice story line here. I look forward to seeing where it go's to from here. 5/5.

I'm glad I subscribed to you. I don't have very many favourtie Brickfilmers, but you are one of my favourtie.  10/5.

An overall good Brickfilm, with some great aspects - specifically, the car's inside was pulled off magnificently, and the moving background outside was eye-candy, and just little things like the picnic blanket were great too. I didn't find the plot particularly appealing, it was sweet, but serious romance paired with religion is the type of thing I personally don't enjoy in a brickfilm.

Some little nitpicks of mine were; the walking animation appeared a little unnatural at the very start, but improved later on (in the running scene), the car coming to a stop could have benefited from the inclusion of a bit of compensation since it was previously travelling at a high speed, and the end seemed too soon.

I think the biggest issue I had with Picnic was the inclusion of religion - whilst I understand it's an important aspect of your way of life - it just didn't seem fitting and instead proved to be unnecessary. And to echo what Pritchard said, the placement of the Bible seemed quite forced, but I did like the heart rate effect on top. I gather you wanted to portray that maybe the only thing that could save her was faith (?), but it was too blatant and could have been tied in in a much more universally approachable way.

But my previous two paragraphs aside, it was still enjoyable, and something which you should be very proud of.

3.9/5

Before I dive into replying to individual people, I want to thank all of you for your kind words and your critiques. I'm very appreciative of both!

I see a lot of comments about the placing of the Bible and the general use of it. I admit that it may not have been the most "subtle" or natural place to use it. However, I never wanted it to be subtle or blend in. The themes and elements of the Julie & Gary series are about true love. Though there may not be any outright statements of faith or "religion" throughout any of the films, Biblical values and beliefs are instilled within the films themselves. When I set out to create this love story, I turned to a rather famous passage from the Bible concerning love (1 Corinthians 13). It speaks of qualities of true love and I tried to place some of these values into the characters. Things like enduring through hard times, purity, and friendship. Many of these things are overlooked in society today. I didn't want these films to be "in your face" religious messages, I wanted them to be a reflection of my beliefs and values based on the Bible. That's my take on the Bible use. I'm not trying to say that it couldn't have been done in a different or better way, I'm just explaining my use.

On the more technical side of things, you all pointed out some of the many things I noticed during the filming. The car stop could have been done a lot better. The last frisbee toss was also a bit rough. I'm glad some of you enjoyed the parallax scrolling effect used in the car shot, I absolutely loved how that turned out. It's also funny that some of you liked how the running shot turned out, because when I first filmed that, I really disliked it. Okay now onto some more personal replies to individuals:

@Carousel - Most of your comments were the things I discussed above, but I'll comment on what you said about the meaning of the video. I really like when a film is somewhat open-ended and open to interpretation. Those films can make people think and are really good at producing discussion. That is the way the first film in the series turned out and the same can be said somewhat for this one. I did not intend for the meaning to be that the only thing that could save her was faith, yet you saw that and I think that's great. I like to hear other's interpretations of my films. When making the film, I was thinking more focused on Gary's life and what a tragedy such as this would do to him. Perhaps having the next film more focused upon Julie would be a good idea. Thanks for your long post and your comments, I really enjoyed reading!

@Pritchard - First off, thanks for your really in depth commentary on the film. You probably know by now that I love those. Anyways, regarding Julie's "illness". This is probably one of the most questioned parts of the series, even my family asks me what the deal with it is! Her medical condition is never said or told, even I don't know what it is. I don't want it to be said or known. A car wreck seems a little to cliche in my opinion. But, perhaps the falling could have been done differently or in a better way. I did plan it well in advance however, so it was very intentional not to be something specific. In regards to your comments on the Bible, I'm not disappointed at all by your review. I appreciate another Christian's perspective on my implementation of things of this nature. I already addressed a lot of my thoughts on the Bible use above. Having him have a Bible though doesn't make him a "devout" believer though. As I said earlier, my incorporation of Biblical themes/messages were more subtle and I tried to instill the values in the characters. To someone that isn't looking for those things though, the Bible use may be very abrupt, so I agree that perhaps building up to its use would have been a bit better.

@Topit - Thanks for your kind words! My intention with the Bible was to show what Gary turned to in this time of tragedy. However, because of the way I did it, questions keep getting asked about why the Bible. I want questions to be raised by the things I put forth in these videos so I'm glad this has happened. You may already have your answer to your question by my previous comments, but I used the Bible because Gary turns to God at a time of great tragedy. Some people might reject or even blame God at a moment  like this. When hard times come in my life, I usually turn to God so this is a way of showing that.

Okay, I'll for now. I'm not trying to start an arguement or anything like that, so please don't take my comments as such. Questions were asked, so I'm answering them. If you wish to discuss or "argue" any specific things concerning "religion" or faith, I'd be glad to talk, but I'd suggest we do it via e-mail or PM, as the forum probably isn't the best environment for it. Still, I felt that these questions should be answered here as they were asked several times in the thread.

Thanks for once again for all the comments. This film has been a very rewarding project for me. I've already been editing a Behind-the-Scenes video that has a lot of insight into how I make my films, so that should be coming soon I hope.

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It's a really decent brickfilm. There are some flaws but I'm not gonna mention them again cause others already did. The Bible at the end (to me it seems) is a very natural thing to add, people (even the ones who don't really believe in God) end up with a Bible in their hands when their relatives or close friends are in a life or death situation. Old people also tend to convert to religion from atheism very often as they realize the inevitable is coming and it's better to choose faith over nothing.

I'm not Christian or anything, yet it didn't feel forced, to me, the inclusion of the bible. It felt like a natural thing to do in that situation. Though, I agree, just a bit of rain doesn't look like it would cause death.

@Walter - Thanks! That was one of my favorite parts, and the first scene that I filmed. Yes, those are black archway pieces!

@MPFist0 - Who says she died? In fact, if you watch the video that takes place after this, "A Date with Julie", you'll see that she is in fact alive. Whatever Julie's medical condition is, it was brought about by her running hard in the rain. Perhaps she has lung or heart issues that make doing these things not as easy or perhaps even risky? Something like sprinting in the rain for a distance could be really bad depending on underlying issues that she might have. Thanks for you comments by the way, I really like to get the perspective of those who aren't Christians! So thanks for telling me what you thought.   Glad that you were able to enjoy the film.

@AnW - Oooo long post! I love these. Thanks for your comments, AnW. I really like to hear in-depth commentary and critique on my films, so thank you so much! I won't really comment further on the technical aspects mentioned first or the Bible, as I've already said most of what can be said regarding those issues. You bring up an interesting point about the credits however. I heartily agree with you and wish I had have thought about that before releasing the film. Definitely something to consider next time I'm making a more serious film. See, critique is great, because if you weren't willing to be honest about it, I would have probably never noticed that, so thank you. In regards to the music I selected, there was good reason. The song that is in the credits is the same song that you hear at the beginning of the film and while they are in the car, btw. Anyways, I used that music for several reasons. One, I know the artist very personally and he lets me use his music. Two, the original film in the series used one of his songs at the beginning. So, choosing another song by the same artist and music genre was sort of a way of showing Gary's musical tastes and be consistent in that. The song plays at the beginning when he looks at the ring, because it's on in the background on a radio or a sound system. The music plays in the car because they are listening to it on the car's sound system. If it hadn't have been this song, it would have been something else upbeat used in the exact same place. I think the song works well and fit with the series in the way that I said.

I don't have much to say about the advertisement slide at the end. I thought it looked good and provided the information that I wanted in a clear way. It did have a lot of elements on it, but this was even less than I would have preferred. I was wanting to have a subscribe button but opted for leaving it out. I don't find that this is a very relevant issue, as it really doesn't cause someone to want to watch my videos or something directly relating to my video content. It's simply a way of directing people to my other videos and sites. This being said, sure, it probably could have been better designed. But, it came down to the question of how much time was I willing to spend on this end card that only a fraction of viewers would see and care about. Not trying to bash your comments of course, because you are correct that it could have been much better. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't worth the time and effort. Perhaps one of these days if I have enough time, I'll devote some of it to creating a better version. Thanks for being honest about that though, cause it's good that I get some input and feedback about even that. If you have some suggestions about how to make it more viewer friendly, I'd be happy to hear them.

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