Well perhaps it is a bit late considering you are already at part 7, however I still feel the need to review your series (it seems to get good reviews and people praise it quite allot). Having seen part I did part 1 I think it's only fair to review the rest. I hope there is something useful among the compliments and critics.
General
I had the impression this cinematic was a little shorter than the previous one. I am not sure if it is time wise, but it definitely felt like that. I think it has to do with the long adventurous journey in the begin to the guild's town. It was allot of the same running through different area's (the part with the waterfall and the sleeping at night was a nice twist), but it dragged on a little too long for my flavour.
I must say that you devoted allot of energy in the cinematic to create a touching start, however be cautious. I did not get disappointed with the rest but the start definitely stood out for me.
Terrain and Environment
Absolutely lovely scenes at the start of the cinematic. the first scene really caught me (with the night sight of the forest. well done) and the scene with the trees on either sides of where they were running (lovely terraining).
The blue fades were a bit odd in my opinion, I would opted with just regular black or something that has more of color correlation with the scene's color.
Fog was yellow in the first part I guess you used it to symbolize the morning cause it was green later on, however I would have opted for something more white-greenish to symbolize the morning when using green.
As for the rest of the cinematic, the indoor terrains were alright, couple of small things:
- Empty racks @ the cafe, try using paintings/windows etc
- The counter was very narrow, it's a small detail but something to keep in mind
The outdoor cities were the pieces I liked the least. One of the thing I would like to recommend is populating cities a bit more with different things (just look @ pictures of villages or small towns), something like a water puddle, a park, statues, etc.
Conclusively I would like to recommend to decorate the grounds a little more (they were in contrast to the forests really empty), pebbles, shrubs, weed and all that good jazz.
Camera and Cinematic Handling
I must compliment you on the angles you picked throughout the cinematic, felt you thought about that so thumbs up.
There was a part in the starting bit of the cinematic where you panned to allot of different camera's. that is something I would warn you about. it gets choppy and tends to get the viewer a little dizzy when you do it as drastically as you did. (if you want to opt for allot of pans and want to smooth that out, try
Cinematic System by Anitarf.
Apart from that the part where Lina and chase run through the woods (with trees on both sides), you could have lowered the camera so we could see them running.
Handling wise, you did a pretty keen job.
Story and Character Building
I like the fact you unfolded a little of why his dad died to the viewer and why they want to kill the binders.
Lovely flashbacks of chase to the time he was still with his parents, only thing I would have loved to have seen was his emotion. for example if he would have said something along the lines: "Why didn't you tell me anything?". (the reason I state this is cause chase seems to be troubled with the fact that he was left out vital information by his father).
Some new characters were presented throughout the movie, however it wasn't too much. try to build more characteristic characters though, atm most of them still seem a bit plain.
Animation, (inter)action and Effects
You've done a better job with the whole head facing to the right people. The random animations still disturbed me a little however.
A small suggestion is to not always only use the head to do the facing, but use entire bodies (for example when chase asked Lina if she was a binder at the convo between Lina her mother and Chase).
One thing that was odd, was that the guard just randomly ran in, ran out and suddenly Lina's mother had to leave, that was very abrupt. (advise would be for the guard to actually interrupt them).
Music and Sounds
Nice adventurous tunes you have used over the course of the cinematic. The epic music when Thaelrid posted back to Archbishop Benedictus could have been a little less dramatic when they were talking at the balcony but that's about it.
All in all, I liked this piece in some ways more than your first however there is still room for improvement. I am looking forward to watching your 3rd episode and give you a review about that as well.
going to vote this with a 3.8/5 (4/5)
Approved
