Review of Salvador's Film

Universal Ninja   by  Salvador Nunez

The story is about a ninja who betrays the trust of a goddess and goes behind her back to stop her quest for immortality from happening.  Upon finding out, she turns him into a living statue.  Forced to be forever aware of his surroundings but unable to move or die until the next planetary alignment.

From talking with Salvador about his film I believe the principal reason for the creation of this film was to bring to life, a story he's been working on for a long time.

His Influences

Comic books

Marvel

Cap com (aka. Street fighter)

Ninja turtles

Characters

This film uses live action to portray Salvador's idea.  In his mind each character is from a different universe.  To convey this he overlays a different masking technique onto each character. 

The Goddess, Karolina, has a celestial star-like image over top her character to give her a more heavenly and majestic feel to her.  I think her design is quite beautiful and really shows off her character, my only comment on her would be that it's unfortunately we don't get to see her face and the make up that is so much apart of her personality. 

The ninja, Coaltix, is completely black and white with no grey tones in between to emphasize that his character is a shadow.  Salvador would have preferred to do the ninja in 3D; however, he didn't have the time to do so.

The second female character, Selina, is in tones of grey which gives her a more earthly feel to her.  I also found her style interesting because unless one looked closely at her, she looks as if she had been done in 3D. 

I think this technique is a very effective way to differentiate the characters.  My only suggestion is that he maintain this separation throughout the entirety of the film so as to keep continuity within his film.

Camera/Editing

I think the camera angles and editing is working so far.  As we discussed previously the film would definitely benefit from cutting back and forth between the ninja and goddess while the other is speaking.  That way the audience can see the other characters response to what they're being told as well as makes the film more interesting to look at. 

Sound

He is torn between using spoken dialogue or speech bubbles for the dialogue of his film.  He would like to give his film more of a comic feel to it by using speech bubbles rather than spoken dialogue.  My opinion would be that he stick to spoken dialogue because I believe that he already has captured that comic-like feel and having speech bubbles might end up looking a little awkward within the live action. 

We didn't discuss sfx much but I hope that he does use basic sound effects such as footfalls and ambience to help create a more real world for his characters.

My Personal Response

It made so much more sense when I could listen to the dialogue with the visuals.  I think it would be smart to show people a version with the sound so they can understand it and it would also save Salvador some grief of having to hear that people don't understand the film. 

I really enjoy the different textures and visuals that he is using for each character,  especially the Goddess character.  I also really like the make up design for all of the characters.  

I think the idea of having the pyramids moving as if they are alive is a really interesting idea and hope Salvador is able to do this.  My only concern is that people might not understand why these structures are moving.  If it's not already planned my suggestion is that he think about a way to explain the significance of these structures.  Or if the structures were randomly shaped, disfigured structures that moved and pulsed, rather than being pyramid shapes, people might be able to more easily connect them to living things.

I really liked how he animated the ninja being 'flown' up to where the Goddess was in the storyboard he presented to the class in the beginning of this semester.  He seemed to be having a bit of trouble figuring out how he was going to have the ninja 'fly' up there.  It would be really nice to see something similar in the final cut of the film.