Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is the follow-up to my look at Suburban Knights and this time I'm doing something different. I've been trying to think how best to use this blog, and I came onto the idea of the open-letter critique.
Let me explain.
Most people who have given in-depth feedback of homebrew reviewers follow one of two paths. Either they provide the feedback privately, or they do it publicly and with intent to ridicule. I think there is room for respect in public critique, and that's what I intend to bring with this and future Breakdowns.
And how I do that is by bringing the voice of the video's creator into the conversation.
Every Breakdown I will start with a profile of the person behind the reviewer and allow them to talk about the ideas and processes behind their show. Then, with unflinching honesty, I will look at an episode of their choosing. Before posting I will give the reviewer the chance to preview the article and respond to the criticism in their own words.
In this way I hope to challenge some preconceptions and, hopefully, to give other homebrew reviewers and videomakers insight into their own shows.
INTRODUCING TJOMEGA!
In real life, TJOmega is Tyler James.He has been an avid collector of action figures and plastic collectables for close to ten years and writing about them since 2005.
In his own words: It's something I share with my dad. He got me started on Transformers when I was a kid because of how much he liked them. But aside from that, it's a source of inspiration for me knowing there's 28 years of characters that are all unique. It's a reminder of how unlimited creativity can be!
In late 2007, dissatisfied with the majority of toy review shows on the internet, Tyler started his own, Plastic Addict, on YouTube. Since then his channel has accumulated nearly 9,000 subscribers and averages a respectable 20,000-30,000 views an episode.
On the chopping block today is his second show, TJ TV, which Tyler started in early 2010.
As he describes: I was doing toy reviews on YouTube for years and decided I needed to expand with something more mainstream and approachable. Since I never gave up on cartoons just from age I figured it was where my depths of knowledge gave me the best source of material for reviews.
When I first did TJ TV there were no critics for cartoons and TV shows. Even when the Nostalgia Critic did a cartoon it was rare, but that's where my nostalgia was; waking up at the crack of dawn for my Saturday morning shows.
Tyler asked that I look at his eleventh episode for this breakdown, a review of the Double Dragon cartoon from the 1990's.
BEHIND THE SCENES
INSPIRATION:
In a previous review I had created an evil me from the future and ended up having so much fun portraying the character that I wanted to reintroduce him as something I could bring up more often. Looking through my available cartoons, this one seemed to be the best vehicle for giving him more screen time, and I knew I could do split screening well.
- Writing took 6 hours
- Filming took 2 hours
- Editing took 14 hours (4 hours longer than average)
To make the split screen work as cleanly as possible I had to consider lighting placement and intensity, eye lines for discussions, and timing. It was challenging making sure the humor was balanced in the writing. Also challenging was keeping up a harsh voice for that long. By the end my throat was on fire, and I was a sweaty mess from Evil TJ's leather jacket and the filming lights on me for so long. The final struggle was actually the series itself since the whole climax of the review was the fact that episode two of Double Dradon completely discarded episode one. I had to be careful to properly explain the show without giving that away.
ADMITTED FAULTS:
If I could do it again, I'd better explain the events in Season 2 as the show degenerated into a shameless toy shill. I also regret not mentioned how Marian as the damsel in distress is one of the few things the show got right from the games.
The split screen also isn't perfect, there's a slight seam and the bowing gag which was one of my favorites in the episode should have been edited better to avoid the changes in shadows.
BREAKDOWN: DOUBLE DRAGON (TJ TV EPISODE 11)
Here's the episode if you'd like to follow along.
TV PRE-ROLL THROUGH INTRO (00:00 - 01:00)
The first image of any video helps to set the tone for the viewer's experience. Here 30 seconds are dedicated to non sequitur clips and 30 seconds to the title sequence, meaning it takes a full minute to get to the video proper. As I plan to talk about in more detail later, a long intro for a web show will often bring down the quality and can lower potential viewership of an otherwise decent show.
In proof that every rule has an exception, this intro works for me. The non sequitur clips pay off the 'TV' portion of 'TJ TV', and the title sequence is both appropriate to the concept and visually interesting. Even the music with it's build up more relaxed pace suits the flow of the show. Everything in this first minute builds towards setting the right tone and putting the audience into the proper frame of mind.
Minor pixelation around the edge of the television image used does break the illusion a little.SERIES RUNDOWN (01:00 - 05:30)
The opening shot immediately proves little thought was put into the set or framing. There is a bed, a curtain behind it, and the uninteresting half of a sword. This communicates nothing about the show to the audience except for an overwhelming sense of green. In the filming of a review, where often the entire review is filmed from one camera angle, it becomes even more essential to make what's seen on screen work for you instead of just being there or even working against you.
Assuming the location was restricted to this room, the bed will be cited as being in the way of any other frame. This is an empty excuse as it is perfectly acceptable to pick the bed up and move it into the hall for the duration of filming. Or to place it against a wall. In this way, more space is freed up to find an interesting composition.There's also too little head room (the space between the top of the subject's head and the top of the frame), but this is an improvement over the tendency of others to place the actor's head in the dead center of the screen.
As far as the rundown of the series, this section flows well. After the title sequence, no time is wasted getting into the rhythm and the episode's subject is introduced after a well-handled 15 second segue. The writing towards the middle could've been tightened up, and the bit comparing the Rastafarian tiger to Jar-Jar Binks went on longer than it needed to.
TIME-TRAVELING EVIL DOPPELGANGER (05:30 - 08:00)
And so we're introduced to TJ's descendant from 1000 years in the future. For all intents and purposes, he is an evil doppelganger.
Okay, there's a lot I need to address in this shot.- There's nothing to visually tie the previous location to this one, so there's no way to give any indication of where the two characters are in relation to each other. Remember, you create what's to the right of the character; it's more important that it feel right to the audience than it be accurate to the actual space you're working in.
- No seriously, even the color schemes are different. The frame with TJ Omega was sparsely set-dressed and dominated with green and white; this frame in contrast is densely packed with toy shelves and dominated with browns and muted colors. Without the reaction and sound effects placing the Evil Doppelganger somewhere on screen-left of TJ, he could be in someone else's house.
- Evil Dopp... screw it, ED's position is leaving nearly half the frame unused. It would feel far more natural to have him further screen-left, giving more room towards where he's oriented towards than where he's oriented away from.
- With the camera placement and the shelves pointing into the corner, Tyler's created some decent leading lines (lines that lead the eye). Unfortunately, those lines lead past the frame's subject and into the corner. Placing ED visually in the corner means the eye is more naturally led to him.
- ED's coat is blending into the background on the right side of the screen. Adding a back light would help the character stand out.
- Head room's a little tight.
In the real space this makes sense. But for the audience it feels off, and I'll tell you why.- The Evil Doppelganger is in a medium shot (head to waist) where TJ is nearer to a medium close-up (head to chest). Because of this, TJ feels like he's closer to the screen with ED feeling further away.
- The first frame is dead-on TJ with him looking 90 degrees to screen-left. The second frame has ED at a 3/4 angle looking ahead.
- As stated above, there is nothing that gives a sense of placement between the two locations.
The interchange between ED and TJ is quite well written and well paced. I really enjoy the word play, with my personal favorite line being "This is not the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past and possible never-tense.".
There is a minor logical issue where after the music is established to be source (heard by characters) and not score (only heard by audience), it then suddenly shifts back to being score. (established as source from 06:10 - 06:35 and contradicted shortly after 07:05 for those following along at home).
It should be mentioned that the editing, pacing, and audio work are all handled well, with the character exchanges making up for shortcomings in other departments. Tyler avoids the trap that many beginning editors fall into of always cutting to a character when they start talking and only cutting away when they stop. That praise applies to the rest of the video, too.
THE FIRST EPISODE (08:00 - 15:45)
Now we get to the MST3k section of the video. Also known as Summary/Snark.
The split screen effect itself is actually quite decently handled here. I had to look for the split. The shadow projected on the curtain does occasionally break the illusion, but not as much as you'd think.
The shot feels crowded because of how close ED and TJ are to the edges of the frame. This would've been solved simply by moving either the actors... um, actor away from the camera or by moving the camera itself backwards.
The snark itself is fine but feels too long. There's little of it that really jumps out at me as being either exceptionally funny or especially poor, but it's an inherent issue with this style that going through an episode beat by beat can be tedious unless those beats themselves are interesting and/or the snark being especially insightful. Especially so given this style is so prolific in the homebrew reviewing community. This section could easily have been cut in half without effecting the tempo.
REVIEW SUMMATION (15:45 - 17:00)
The reveal that the first episode had nothing to do with the rest of the series was a good lead-in to the review portion itself. No major issues.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The format of having half the episode devoted to talking about the series as a whole and the second half doing the now more traditional Summary/Snark approach is a good shake-up of the formula.
Though the inclusion of ED generated some of the highlights of the video, everything ground to a halt in the middle of the for nearly a sixth of the video's total run time to make the character's introduction. Beyond that I didn't feel his inclusion added much to this review. During off-screen snark, I kept thinking Tayler was trying to imitate the voice of one of the show's characters before I realized it was supposed to be ED.
I think there be a missed opportunity of playing more with the 'TV' concept in the body of the episode itself. Specifically imagining that the video is playing on a television controlled by someone who obsessively changes the channel periodically. The current format is fine, though.
Likewise, the writing could really have stood to be tightened up.
That's it from my end. Over to you Tyler!
Tyler's response coming soon.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Though every effort has been made to preserve Tyler's original intent, the quotes he provided have been edited for both brevity and clarity. Also, given the fairly critical stance I've taken here on the technicals I feel I need to reinforce that I do actually like 'TJ TV'; it has more going for it than against it.
That framing thing can be pretty easy to get wrong. So many web series are one-man shows and we've become accustomed to seeing and emulating this kind've editing with a "well that looks easy, even I can do that" attitude without actually studying it closely. I haven't actually watched many of TJ's stuff before, I should fix that. Great article, look forward to seeing who you analyze next!
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