Congrats on making blendernation.com, I knew it would happen! Your dedication and hard work has made a wonderful piece of art, and hopefully now you’re getting some of the acclaim you deserve. Well done.
I think this is awesome, and an incredible effort. Some of the effects you pulled off were quite dazzling (the fire, the sun). I thought your characters had a lot of personality, and that your cinematography was quite dramatic.
I might be in the minority here … but I don’t think sound effects would be a good thing. They would just take away from the music, which was the inspiration in the first place.
Great job!
Somebody needs to create a Blendie Award Show … just for stuff like this.
i have to strongly agree with the previous poster. this film’s major strength from an amazing choreography between the music and the animation.
while watching i kept trying to imaging where sound effects would fit in, and if they would enhance the film. but i came to the conclusion that they would be taking away from your efforts. for example when the flutes play - the stars appear. when the goat falls during flight - the horns sound a descending scale. there were many excellently matched details and nuances.
if you have any doubts, go ahead and watch fantasia 
your main character has a great balance of colors and they simplicity of textures gave a feeling of a well drawn cartoon. but there was one thing that bothered me throughout the film - the lack of detail or contrast on the enemy characters. they were just… blue. the monster character concepts were really original and neat looking but they just looked like blue unfinished works in progress. the big monster in the end could use some contrast/detail as well.
i really enjoyed this original piece and hope to see more from you! good luck with your film submission!
-scatterbrain
yeah, this is really well done, I would say put in the effort to get some credible sound effects in there. My animation is about half as good as yours (if that), but I did show it to some people before it had sound, and they couldn’t even discern the plot, and once I added sound everyone seemed to completely understand. I think this could have legs if you get decent sound effects in there. It’s too long to just have music.
I work with foley a plenty, and I half-agree with both parties. Sound effects are needed in places, but don’t overdo it. footsteps will help when there are no visual cues. I doubt that you planned on it, but voices would be bad. Some good fire sound, a good sound for when the goat is trying to catch the oil on fire might be good… but I personally enjoyed the mystery of that scene without sound - i couldn’t figure out what he was doing until after it happened and then the realization I came to was amplified. Adding sound would just shift the intense feelings of the viewer from “realization” to “suspense/anticipation”.
The ending of the score is very dramatically triumphant, and I gather that you feel guilty about killing the goat. It wouldn’t be out of the question to add one more shot at the end in silence if you want to do something for the goat… Maybe the boy can lay the scarf down on the scorched ground where the goat would have been… and then it flies off spinning in the wind… But it is a cliche’, and you’ve done right to expect the viewer to mourn over the goat for themselves.
I could ramble more, but it’s just a good movie. Change it or not, and it’s still a good movie.
Edit: ps, i was watching for 7:20 when the “hand painted motion blur” would show up, and when it did, it literally scared me out of my seat! great timing.
That is a most awesome short. And at 20 minutes, as a one man show, it’s amazing.
Wow… I’m smelling gallery 
Very nice, i dunno how i missed this thread till just now.
I’ll agree that the film is pretty rough around teh edges, but the visual style is pretty cool and there are some shots in there that are just 0_o awesome. You’re right, the sunset scene really stands out, as does the opening shot and the running-through-the-city bit at the end. You’ve definately got a good eye for camera angles. The tunnel scene was especially well shot.
Pretty awesome. An inspiration for everyone here.
Moved to the gallery.
BgDM
Martin-
Really lked it. While there were almost no textures there were occasional cinematic flourishes that more than made up for it. Very well done!
When you say it took you a year full time was that 40 hours per week full time? Just trying to get an idea of how long it would take someone to make something like that.
Inspiring and a work of art! This is the sort of thing that makes me believe that with enough thought and effort I can do great things with blender.
I don’t think it needs sound effects per se… What I would like though is to see a higher resolution version. The youtube one is not really suitable for viewing full screen or on a tv.
great imagination, man. Really liked it. Keep it up.
WOW 5 stars like hell
Very nice. Great Story. Well done!
Just plain amazing. This is what we need more of, to spark the animation side of Blender even further!
If you need professional server space to hold the full animation in whatever quality you produced it in (for free of course :)), let me know. I have the space and want the full quality to be available to the world!
That was really cool!
Wow, great short film! I can’t believe it was turned down by so many. It really reminded me of those old Disney cartoons that just told a story with music and animation. If you add sound later, don’t put any kind of voices; just add sound effects, and only when needed. Otherwise, I think it might lessen its charm.
Normally, I would criticize some things like certain parts of the animation, and places where a little texturing would have been nice, but this was really long and you obviously worked very hard on it. I wouldn’t worry about improving this film. I would just learn from what you didn’t like about it, and focus on making your next film even better.
Great Movie - pity someone else stole the limelight!
its verry good, the charictor animation isent bad at all!, a few of the scenes sempt to be longer than nesoserry and cased me to get a little board, but besides this its excellent:).
personally i find the materials to be rather plain, but then i like very bright culers that most people would find overpowering;)
a very nice piece of work. I’m not suprised that it was turned down as it does seem like a very impressive student work as opposed to a finished ‘professional’ film-there is a big difference!
You have to remember that you’re competing against studios which can devote dozens of people and hundreds of thousands of pounds to films even shorter than yours!
particularly for an animated film, you really need a ‘wow’ factor, which means -detail,detail,detail! the city has to be perfect, the costumes have to be fully researched and detailed, the movement of the characters, every little gesture no matter how short, has to be completely believable etc etc. (perhaps above all, the story has to absolutely watertight and brilliant!)
I really hope you don’t lose heart because you didn’t get quite the success you had hoped for. My advice would be to do a much shorter film next time, Use what kudos you’ve got from this film to try and form a team around you, and produce something that will really knock em out!
Good luck!