Brick Flick: Snake's Gun Reviews

[Honger]

Snake Plissken knows his guns.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Darkdragon
Indexed

[SteampunkDoc]

It works, I enjoyed it.

The scientist's voice fit the character well, but I'm not too keen on the recycling of the Doc Ock figure without any modifications.

The yellow paper for walls worked, but real Lego is always preferred. The diagonal walk cycle is fairly choppy, there were some camera bumps, the animation as a whole could use a bit more easing, but it's not bad by any means. The sound design is well done, and well balanced, but there's one big flaw. I though the thumping at the start was some low drums that were going to build up to something a bit more action-y, but then something happened and the stuff that I thought was music stopped. Turns out it was just the footstep noise. Normal footsteps aren't that deeply pitched, and it wasn't synced up with the action at all. Also, without that, there's no music whatsoever. And this could really use a bit of atmospheric music to help set the tone.

Still, you did a good job, and the punchline....Well, let's just say "It works."

I do see a plot-hole (Sorta) in this, somebody with any gun experience, and at that range, could probably have hit the dummy. Showing the bullet hit right on the forehead marker, (A quick sharpie dot in the middle of the target) would have helped that aspect a lot. Also, shouldn't the dummy fall backwards?

[Honger]

Thanks for taking the time to write such an elaborate response, SteampunkDoc.

I am aware of almost everything you pointed out, but you missed the real mistake. Before I go into that, I would like to explain that this was just a test gone off rails. I have a much more complicated movie in mind, but since I'm just starting with this, I thought it was a good idea to do some small things first as tests. It was supposed to be just Snake shooting the dummy. But as I went along I kept thinking things like: "what if I try this; or this; that probably won't take long." And I finally ended up with what you see here.

I learned a lot of things during the process, for example:

-Don't use a camera that can't be controlled through software, I had to press a button on the camera to take a picture. This made the camera move slightly, even when mounted on a tripod or locked down with blu-tack.

-You can't trust the focus in the view finder.

-If you want your camera to move in a shot, you have to build some kind of rig for your camera. Moving the tri-pod or sliding the camera across the table is not going to look good. That's why all the shots are static.

As for you "complaints" :

I used yellow cardboard as a background because it was just supposed to be a test, just something to hide my messy room. But the cardboard comes from a Lego store display, so technically it's real Lego.

I did not have the luxury of beeing able to compare frames during shooting, that's why it's not always as smooth as I would have liked it to be.

The footsteps sound, what can I say, you're right! I had planed to add some music at the beginning and at the end, but I somehow forgot.

The fact that Snake shoots the gun at that range is part of the joke.

Not seeing the bullet hole is part of it too, there is all this build up of that 'special' gun. So when it's fired you expect to see something big, yet there isn't even a hole.

Maybe the dummy should fall backwards, but I think falling forwards is funnier.

The big mistake you missed is that Snake is holding the gun in the wrong hand in the last shot.

I'm glad you enjoyed it and thanks again for you reply.