So, let's talk.

[MRat]

Last I checked I never once mentioned hating anyone. Please, do not read into things that are not there. My thoughts on the human character of an author are entirely immaterial when considering the value of his work.

What is to be thought over here, however, is how one can write, for example, this sentence "And so with a final push, the bag was securely compiled amongst the personals of the men and women around Ronald in the cabin of the plane." and then think to himself that it is perhaps not going to please people and change it to, say, this, "Ronald crammed him bag into the overhead compartment on the plane between a woman's purse and a man's laptop." Both are entirely valid phrasings as they are, but going from one to another for the sake of the audience, and not the sake of the story makes them both worthless.

Here is what I mean for the sake of the story. As a gathered body of work a novel, film, game, etc. must be paced, toned, and such in a consistent order that relays the desired emotions in the way most befitting of the content. If the work is meant to be a brooding example of man's willingness to casual tragedy for personal gain, then you as an artist are duty bound to make every part of the piece thematically relevant.

The thing is, you cannot do that, at all, if you stop thinking about the themes in the context of the work and instead consider that the audience maybe won't like to see a man's face crushed with a boulder so that another man can take some sort of valuable item.

I'm not saying that you can't want people to like it. Everything has an audience. What you can't do is try to pick a specific audience then tailor a story to make them happy. What you need to do is make the story itself and let the right audience find it, or let a publisher or distributer market it to draw in an audience.

Here is an example. When the movie The Dark Knight was finished, and Heath Ledger had died, they played it for a test audience. The scene with the Joker in the body bag drew disgusted remarks from many of the middle-aged women in the audience. To make the movie more pleasing for these women, Warner Brothers tried to force the production team to cut that scene out of the movie, deeming it inappropriate regarding Heath Ledger's recent death. Christopher Nolan, however, did not back down and fought tooth and nail until the studio relented. The scene remained in the film, and happens to be very important. Without it and entire facet of the character of The Joker would have remained unexplored, and the film would not have had the same balance.

It is utterly disgusting to make a work for the sake of money, popularity, etc.

[ZekeySpaceyLizard]

PNGS GUYZ

HERE TAKE EM
NOW EVERYONE CAN BE AN ANIMATOR

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THESE SUCKERS DO ALL THE WORK FOR YA

DAILY FEATURE HERE I COME

FUCK DAILY FEATURE ACTUALLY


WITH THESE I WILL WIN THE RIGGED OSCAR FOR "BEST SHINING SOUL PARODY"

KAWAII

[MRat]

Here's a neat example illustrating what I'm getting at.

When I was studying film, I asked the question, "What do we do about ratings and the MPAA? I mean, alot of the imagery I would imagine to appear in my work could jar some people."

My professor said, "Just make the movie."



The same thing happened when I gave a lecture in the English class at my old high school. One kid asked, "How many words should my novel be?"

The answer is, of course, "Write the story and however many words you have when it's done is how many you needed."

[Cambo]

Here's a neat example illustrating what I'm getting at.

When I was studying film, I asked the question, "What do we do about ratings and the MPAA? I mean, alot of the imagery I would imagine to appear in my work could jar some people."

My professor said, "Just make the movie."



The same thing happened when I gave a lecture in the English class at my old high school. One kid asked, "How many words should my novel be?"

The answer is, of course, "Write the story and however many words you have when it's done is how many you needed."

Cool, I think I get where you're coming from now. You're agreeing that it's tailored for the Newgrounds audience, but you think that tailoring anything for an audience is negative IF it detracts from any artistic purity or statement. And so your problem is with Kirbopher specifically (and people who do that), and not with all sprite movies as a genre. Like, it would be completely possibly for a sprite movie to tell a story with themes and excellent writing and stuff (however remotely hypothetical). Is that right?

[MRat]

Cool, I think I get where you\\\'re coming from now. You\\\'re agreeing that it\\\'s tailored for the Newgrounds audience, but you think that tailoring anything for an audience is negative IF it detracts from any artistic purity or statement. And so your problem is with Kirbopher specifically (and people who do that), and not with all sprite movies as a genre. Like, it would be completely possibly for a sprite movie to tell a story with themes and excellent writing and stuff (however remotely hypothetical). Is that right?

Yes and no. Because the sprites are all of Mario, Link, etc. they are worthless for anything in that respect unless they were doing it under contract for Nintentdo or what have you. I haven\\\'t seen a single well written, or well animated, or well directed sprite movie yet anyway, but supposing I saw one I would still consider it a waste because it was be all these familiar characters, which would kill  the whole thing.

It\\\'s the same thing with sequels in Hollywood. Unless a sequel is from the same team that made the original, it\\\'s worthless.

[ZekeySpaceyLizard]

lets all talk about my great new avatar

[MRat]

lets all talk about my great new avatar

It's great.

[bcube]

lets all talk about my great new avatar

in klonoa two, I had to use those things for one part where I had to throw it to the ground, grab a lightning monster, and jump up to a small platform with a heart.

It was impossible. I mean pretty much just impossible to do, for the game didnt let you reach  the lightning monster unless you threw the monster at the exact peak of your jump and you also have to reach for the lightning thing at the peak of your throw. Then you had to throw the lightning monster in the peak of your grab.

After hours, I accomplished reaching the platform using this method.


only to find that in the next room, there was a switch to lower the platform ( or something like this)

[Cambo]

Cool, I think I get where you're coming from now. You're agreeing that it's tailored for the Newgrounds audience, but you think that tailoring anything for an audience is negative IF it detracts from any artistic purity or statement. And so your problem is with Kirbopher specifically (and people who do that), and not with all sprite movies as a genre. Like, it would be completely possibly for a sprite movie to tell a story with themes and excellent writing and stuff (however remotely hypothetical). Is that right?

Yes and no. Because the sprites are all of Mario, Link, etc. they are worthless for anything in that respect unless they were doing it under contract for Nintentdo or what have you. I haven't seen a single well written, or well animated, or well directed sprite movie yet anyway, but supposing I saw one I would still consider it a waste because it was be all these familiar characters, which would kill  the whole thing.

It's the same thing with sequels in Hollywood. Unless a sequel is from the same team that made the original, it's worthless.

Aww man I really thought we were going to agree. See I don't think that it's familiar characters not being used by the creators and thus worthless - if we work on the presumption that there has been some amazingly well-written, well-directed and funny sprite movie made, and people really like it, then I'd say it's not worthless because of the quality of the writing and the direction and that its funny. If for no other reason than people like it, and that gives it some value. I don't think you'd say that because a movie uses sprites it cannot categorically be well-written and it cannot be well-directed, would you? But from where I'm sitting it seems like you'd have to do that to simultaneously say that if a well-written sprite movie did exist it would still be worthless - unless good direction and good writing and stuff like that is not worth anything to you. It seems like if you're saying a sprite movie that wasn't tailored at the expense of the work, that was really well-written and directed and had required heaps of talent to pull off, if that was even a potential creation, that that COULD exist, then you don't think all sprite movies are worthless, you think the ones you've seen are.

Honestly though I could be on really shaky ground here so put me in my place if that's wrong.

Also I'd like to point out that I'm thinking really hard about the potential artistic merit of sprite films on the internet, how cool am I.

[MRat]

We're never going to agree. I would not ever say, though, that anything is categorically bad. So we can agree on that.

[Cambo]

We're never going to agree. I would not ever say, though, that anything is categorically bad. So we can agree on that.

Cool, well while we agree on that, I'd say banning sprite movies (or anything that isn't categorically bad) from winning awards and money is pretty unfair when it's possible for a really really good one to be created and deserve one.

[MRat]

We're never going to agree. I would not ever say, though, that anything is categorically bad. So we can agree on that.

Cool, well while we agree on that, I'd say banning sprite movies (or anything that isn't categorically bad) from winning awards and money is pretty unfair when it's possible for a really really good one to be created and deserve one.

The thing is, to me, anything 100% original in terms of production is automatically better than anything not so simply by default.

[wps]

i want to leave ng, i really do

then just do it already

A few months ago ashford pride made a movie with a foreboding title. It was called "Awesome Grounds".

Well ladies and gentlemen, that's might as well what this site should be called (at least right now), with the top row on the front page slot dedicated to an "awesome" movie and an "awesome" parody, an "awesome" t-shirt in the newgrounds store, and pretty much every "awesome" movie in the top 100, along with han's "awesome's creed".

I can't go to newgrounds with seeing something not about egoraptor or his coveted video game parody series. It makes me wonder sometimes if pursuing anything but half-assed cartoons making mildly funny observations about video games laced with profanity is even worth it. Truly, they are what bring the masses of 13-year olds to this site, and thus increases traffic and competition in the internet world. But you have to ask yourself, with this sort of two-bit audience increasing in numbers, are they really interested in watching anything else?

I understand that it's a dog eat dog world in the online entertainment business, and to compete you have to pretty much put up content that a majority of internet browsers would click on. This includes either women or video games. Things they already know they want. And that's all they want. They sign up, watch more, and come back and do it again later. They're trained to know that what they want is easily accessible and is promoted all over the site.

Original content is often shuffled off to the bottom of the page, or never gets any attention to begin with. Now comes into play the whole 'they won't click on it unless there's a boob for the icon', etc etc. That's because they've been fashioned to think that way.

I'm not saying i have all the mysterious answers to the way people's minds work. But this much is true - if all people click on are breasts and video game icons, and you give them breasts and video game icons, you're not pushing the envelope.

Newgrounds is the epitome of user-generated content. We already have a massive advantage over youtube in the fact that making a cartoon involves so much more creativity than snappily editing your webcam footage. So instead of 200 cartoons coming out every minute, we have 200 cartoons coming out every day. That gives someone a better chance of breaking out and being discovered for his hard work, and a reward for a job well done.

But in the same way that viewers are trained that they don't have to go out of their way to avoid original content they would otherwise enjoy, authors are becoming more and more disenchanted with their personal creations and are turning to nerd culture icons and cheap tactics to get viewers.

I can't tell you how many animators I have spoken to that have shunned their own creations in favor of sub-pop culture parody and disjointed scripts sprinkled with toilet humor and profanity. a cartoon catering to everyone who's forgotten what cartoons are all about. And here we are shoving away everything about cartoons that was originally appealing and magical, because we're pretty much forced to.

I'm not pointing the finger at any one person here. I think it's part of the bigger picture - bigger than Newgrounds, too. But if people really care about the future of cartoons and animation, we wouldn't be seeing this kind of blatant favoritism.

People will find what they want if they want it. They don't need to be spoon fed it all.

For thirty years animators who strive to create something genuinely unique have gotten nothing but a slap in the face. It's sickening and it has to stop someday, before they all disappear.

Lastly, this post is not about me. I'm not writing this out of self-pity, bitterness or spite. I'm being honest. I care a lot about the future of animation, and what I see around me is very troubling. The industry is bad enough, but where the future lies is in the small corners of the animation world. Newgrounds is one of them. I spend a lot of time trying to encourage and teach frame-by-frame animation, and creating your own characters and scripts. That is what is important to me. If I really cared about being popular, my list of flash cartoons would look a lot different.

Below is a lovely review describing the bright future of newgrounds.

[Fuzz]

Everyone's posts are getting too long to read... I LIKE TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES!

[Philip K Dick]

Everyone's posts are getting too long to read... I LIKE TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES!

and there you have it

[Rina-chan]

Most of the points debated in this topic will be covered in the upcoming Newgrounds documentary.

[wps]

Newgrounds documentary.

walking with nerds

[Rina-chan]

What?

[sQueef]

lmao hey rina-chan use this song as the intro 2 ur flash documentary

damn new page son

[wps]

THIS IS GOING TO BE AN IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY ABOUT PEOPLE'S OPINIONS ON THE ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY ON THE INTERNET