A Life of a Sheep

Here we have the first movie from aspiring director Raider. It's about a restless sheep who decides to hop his fence and go out exploring. It's not a bad movie... but it's not awesome either. The movie's main flaw is in its presentation. The idea of the movie is interesting, and with the right directing and animating it could have been quite entertaining. The story, sadly, is dragged down by chunky scenes and sub-par animation. This does not stop one from enjoying the movie though, oh no. It's still a nice watch.

I'll start with the scenery. The ground is made out of tents, the trees made out of totem poles, and everything else out of props... mainly the sphere. It's simple... in fact that describes a lot of this movie... simple. Does it look bad? Not really. Could it be better? Yes. A default scene is also used (gasp, the horror!) for a very short airplane scene. When you see this, you will most likely cringe and think, "Wow, this guy sucks." Truth is though, as time passes, you forget about the plane. I don't really know where I'm going with this. It is simple scenery, sometimes a bit too simple, enough said.

There is one thing I did notice with the scenery, and it made me laugh. When watching cheap cartoons, I've always notice recycled animation, which is the exact same animation used at one point in the episode used once again. I noticed this at two parts in A Life of a Sheep. It doesn't kill the movie or anything, but it starts to give me the impression of a rushed released; that or just being lazy.

A few specific scenes did bug me. When the sheep first jumped over the fence, I don't think that fading scene change worked. It was too slow, and the escape wasn't that dramatic. Afterwards, I realize he was trying to make the sheep move slowly to the ground, but it just ended up looking silly, seeing the sheep jolt around like that. The first person perspective was a nice touch when the sheep was sleeping in the cave and that whole part, but other than that it was not needed. The scene cut to the first person perspective too many times. It's perfect for that one scene and that once scene only.

The main character of this movie is, obviously, a sheep. He's a cute little bundle of spheres with a nose for adventure (despite a clear lack of a real nose)! The animation for the sheep, whom I will now refer to as Sheep, is a bit jumpy at times, and quite simple. Depending on how close the camera is, Sheep will be either less detailed or more detailed. When zoomed out a fair distance, Sheep is one or two sphere. Personally, I don't think it would have been that much trouble to copy and paste a few more sphere on him to add that fluffy look Sheep has on his close shots. I don't know whether to blame this on being lazy or being content with it anyways. Either way, I think that could have made the sheep more cute and realistic (in a cartoony sense).

The first piece of music used in this movie didn't fit at all. It just didn't go with what was happening, and made the escape scene less enjoyable. The chase scene though, when Sheep meets the black sheep, that music fit. So did the ending bit, when they were both playing.

There's something I really liked. It was subtle, but added so much. When the black sheep and Sheep are playing on their way back to the pen and then the black sheep rolls into the stream, then he comes out white because he was just dirty the whole time. I loved it. It might have been planned all along, or just spontaneous, but either way it was awesome.

Truthfully, I did enjoy this movie. I found it entertaining to see Sheep escape his pen and have a nice little adventure. It's not great, that much is true, but one thing must be kept in mind. This movie is a stepping stone for Raider, and with practice and dedication, he could make his way to the top. He's got the initiative, he just needs time. When he's eventually improved on his skills and directing eye, he could make something astounding.

So good job Raider, keep up the good work. And hey, maybe when you've improved and tweaked your skills, you could make a sequel. I'm sure it would be great.

6/10