Divided Soul

Uzbeki · 10-14-2008, 10:54 PM

Class: Warrior
Category: Story-Line
Author:

Presentation:
Kareth and Sarlek have known each other from childhood, always standing together. However, as time passes by, the inevitable clash between strength and weakness will decide their common faith...
-> Click here to view this movie

DrPikkles · 10-15-2008, 01:57 AM

Its sad that this is yet another bad storyline with mediocre presentation.

As stated in my review the plot line is boring and very predictable. I knew what was coming in the first few seconds. It wasn't unique or creative nor did it interest me in anyway. Just like a bad anime.

I like to use that analogy alot with these kinds of films because it fits perfectly! Both story lines are easily predictable and long winded, combat is fast paced usually breaking its own laws and abruptly stops for more monologging.

One of the only story line machinimas I like is Kenion's Blackrose! This was a wonderfully painted portrait of a cynics perspective of love! Ending with betrayal and heart ache you create a hypothesis and have it completely obliterated. Truly a master piece if you have the time I urge you to go see it.

That is an example of what a good dramatic machinima should be. Not just some new form of failed attempts at creating a deep and compelling story.

The excuse "well the editing was good!" is completely irrelevant because anyone who has done machinima can do pretty much the same things he did making the animation of this film mediocre.

Martinfalch · 11-25-2008, 11:43 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong; on one hand you complain about the animeish themes of some of my machinimas, but on the other hand you refer to Kenion's Black Rose as an example of what you enjoy? Granted, I think Black Rose is an awesome machinima, a completely different genre from Divided Soul for instance, but nonetheless an awesome machinima - but at the same time, Black Rose is a class A anime-inspired machinima - I'm not really sure what it is you complain about in this regard.

About the story, I sincerely doubt that you had the entire storyline figured out within the first few seconds - Admittedly, I wrote the story in approximately 1 week while I was away in Spain on my holiday, so I wasn't spending eons of time on the script and of course that shines through - try making a machinima for a contest in 3 weeks and come up with a brilliant, original idea for it

It's not that simple, which you'd probably figure out if you gave it a try yourself.
Anyway, the script isn't extremely original, though it leaves room for people to get their own ideas of the underlying symbols/hints in the movie and in general people are allowed their own interpretation - sort of like back in high school when you're asked to analyze a fairly simple essay. Just like then, you can either view the story as plain and simple or use your own interpretation/imagination to add depth to the story. And just like back then, the people that just dislike this concept from heart and decide within seconds that the text is plain and simple, would also be the ones who were able to read the least into the text and ended up disliking it afterwards as well. So I'm not surprised that you dislike it since you've been critical towards any of my work, at least based on your previous comments on my other movies.

Whether a person enjoys a machinima or not depends alot of whether a person "wants" to enjoy it or not.

Just a quick note about your other points:
- in regards to my combat choreography (or whatever you want to call it), some people like it, some people don't - I could've made it in a different way and if there was some "golden way" to create a combat scene that everyone liked, I'd prefferably go for this. Should I have increased the combat-length? With the limited animations etc this might have gotten slightly boring - especially if I have to stay true to all the physical laws that you claim I break (which I personally think I handled pretty well, making a fight that wasn't based on the animeish theme that some people complained about - apparently didn't cut it for you).
Maybe I should've made the fight shorter or have cut out the mid-talk as you say? Well, in that case people might complain that it's anticlimatic and cutting out the talk wouldn't work either; When creating a script, I ofc think through the various possibilities and in order for the script to make sense and not have holes, I had to include the part that was spoken in the fight; if you'd rather have had a looong talk scene after the fight, that could have been done too, but it just wouldn't have worked that well.

About the editing; no, not everyone can do the same kind of editing. I'm not trying to appear arrogant here, but again you have to consider that in 2,5 weeks, some of the experienced authors on WCM would indeed be able to make "the same editing" (here I'm not gonna argue with your implicit statement that all authors can imitate each others editing with no problem), but it's not something that everyone who's made a machinima can do - with full respect to all the authors on WCM, I think that your opinion is a hilarious statement based on complete lack of personal experience with machinima editing, in particular modelviewer-editing.

Finally, I think it's great that you go discuss this in here rather than in some WCM post, props for that. I'm afraid, though, that you just thoroughly dislike my way of making machinima and the results from my work - other people enjoy them with the same passion that you seem to hate them, so for that reason I'm not going to change the way I do it. I think it goes for most of the other authors as well, but I prefer making something that a few people truly enjoy, rather than trying to please a broad crowd of different people with different opinions, leading to the point where my machinimas would be above mediocre in everyone's opinion, but not truly enjoyed by anyone.

Best regards,

Martin Falch

PS: I don't hope this post seemed too harsh and in particular I don't hope it appeared arrogant; I'm simply stating my opinion about this subject. In general I think some commenters on WCM comment without having any idea what goes on "behind the scenes" and it's kind of irritating to spend alot of time on a project and get a fully negative comment with no sort of constructive feedback thrown back

Anyway, hope this clears things up a bit. If not, I suggest reading my blog-guides for a further look into the work put into making machinimas.

10-14-2008, 10:54 PM	#1
Uzbeki Moderator Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,261	Divided Soul Class: Warrior Category: Story-Line Author: Presentation: Kareth and Sarlek have known each other from childhood, always standing together. However, as time passes by, the inevitable clash between strength and weakness will decide their common faith... -> Click here to view this movie

10-15-2008, 01:57 AM	#2
DrPikkles Initiate Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 5	Its sad that this is yet another bad storyline with mediocre presentation. As stated in my review the plot line is boring and very predictable. I knew what was coming in the first few seconds. It wasn't unique or creative nor did it interest me in anyway. Just like a bad anime. I like to use that analogy alot with these kinds of films because it fits perfectly! Both story lines are easily predictable and long winded, combat is fast paced usually breaking its own laws and abruptly stops for more monologging. One of the only story line machinimas I like is Kenion's Blackrose! This was a wonderfully painted portrait of a cynics perspective of love! Ending with betrayal and heart ache you create a hypothesis and have it completely obliterated. Truly a master piece if you have the time I urge you to go see it. That is an example of what a good dramatic machinima should be. Not just some new form of failed attempts at creating a deep and compelling story. The excuse "well the editing was good!" is completely irrelevant because anyone who has done machinima can do pretty much the same things he did making the animation of this film mediocre.

11-25-2008, 11:43 AM	#3
Martinfalch Hall of Fame member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 71	Correct me if I'm wrong; on one hand you complain about the animeish themes of some of my machinimas, but on the other hand you refer to Kenion's Black Rose as an example of what you enjoy? Granted, I think Black Rose is an awesome machinima, a completely different genre from Divided Soul for instance, but nonetheless an awesome machinima - but at the same time, Black Rose is a class A anime-inspired machinima - I'm not really sure what it is you complain about in this regard. About the story, I sincerely doubt that you had the entire storyline figured out within the first few seconds - Admittedly, I wrote the story in approximately 1 week while I was away in Spain on my holiday, so I wasn't spending eons of time on the script and of course that shines through - try making a machinima for a contest in 3 weeks and come up with a brilliant, original idea for it It's not that simple, which you'd probably figure out if you gave it a try yourself. Anyway, the script isn't extremely original, though it leaves room for people to get their own ideas of the underlying symbols/hints in the movie and in general people are allowed their own interpretation - sort of like back in high school when you're asked to analyze a fairly simple essay. Just like then, you can either view the story as plain and simple or use your own interpretation/imagination to add depth to the story. And just like back then, the people that just dislike this concept from heart and decide within seconds that the text is plain and simple, would also be the ones who were able to read the least into the text and ended up disliking it afterwards as well. So I'm not surprised that you dislike it since you've been critical towards any of my work, at least based on your previous comments on my other movies. Whether a person enjoys a machinima or not depends alot of whether a person "wants" to enjoy it or not. Just a quick note about your other points: - in regards to my combat choreography (or whatever you want to call it), some people like it, some people don't - I could've made it in a different way and if there was some "golden way" to create a combat scene that everyone liked, I'd prefferably go for this. Should I have increased the combat-length? With the limited animations etc this might have gotten slightly boring - especially if I have to stay true to all the physical laws that you claim I break (which I personally think I handled pretty well, making a fight that wasn't based on the animeish theme that some people complained about - apparently didn't cut it for you). Maybe I should've made the fight shorter or have cut out the mid-talk as you say? Well, in that case people might complain that it's anticlimatic and cutting out the talk wouldn't work either; When creating a script, I ofc think through the various possibilities and in order for the script to make sense and not have holes, I had to include the part that was spoken in the fight; if you'd rather have had a looong talk scene after the fight, that could have been done too, but it just wouldn't have worked that well. About the editing; no, not everyone can do the same kind of editing. I'm not trying to appear arrogant here, but again you have to consider that in 2,5 weeks, some of the experienced authors on WCM would indeed be able to make "the same editing" (here I'm not gonna argue with your implicit statement that all authors can imitate each others editing with no problem), but it's not something that everyone who's made a machinima can do - with full respect to all the authors on WCM, I think that your opinion is a hilarious statement based on complete lack of personal experience with machinima editing, in particular modelviewer-editing. Finally, I think it's great that you go discuss this in here rather than in some WCM post, props for that. I'm afraid, though, that you just thoroughly dislike my way of making machinima and the results from my work - other people enjoy them with the same passion that you seem to hate them, so for that reason I'm not going to change the way I do it. I think it goes for most of the other authors as well, but I prefer making something that a few people truly enjoy, rather than trying to please a broad crowd of different people with different opinions, leading to the point where my machinimas would be above mediocre in everyone's opinion, but not truly enjoyed by anyone. Best regards, Martin Falch PS: I don't hope this post seemed too harsh and in particular I don't hope it appeared arrogant; I'm simply stating my opinion about this subject. In general I think some commenters on WCM comment without having any idea what goes on "behind the scenes" and it's kind of irritating to spend alot of time on a project and get a fully negative comment with no sort of constructive feedback thrown back Anyway, hope this clears things up a bit. If not, I suggest reading my blog-guides for a further look into the work put into making machinimas.