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WhiteLightning
I like to think of things that make me smile, then bundle up those smiles into silly, semi-violent, cartoon-shaped packages, and then give them to people over the internet! SMILES FOR ALL!!!

Kyle Sullivan @WhiteLightning

Age 31, Male

Filmmaker

Austin, Texas

Joined on 11/27/07

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I Miss Newgrounds

Posted by WhiteLightning - January 5th, 2016


Hi guuyyyss... how's it goin?

I haven't been here in a while, because my friends and I have been making videos over on Youtube. It's weird saying that now, back here on Newgrounds, because I can suddenly remember when Youtube was our secondary platform. And the reason for the change has little to do with the merits of either site, but is just because animation takes a really long time, and I learned that I prefer film as a medium. 

Still, as we've been slowly growing our Youtube channel and trying to widen our reach, I've found myself missing the community here on Newgrounds. I actually still try to visit the site daily, though I haven't been interacting much. There's always been a sense of equality and mutual support on this site that you just can't find anywhere else, and to some degree, I miss the days of being able to share my work with like-minded artists before putting it out to the general public.

I've frequently thought that it would be great if Newgrounds had a video portal of sorts, but one that was limited specifically to videos with a lot of effects and general artistry, keeping in theme with the site's animation, art, and writing focus. I would personally have a lot more to submit if that were the case. But, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's a terrible, terrible idea, and I'm just totally missing the reasons why. Maybe I'm thinking solely of my own cartoonish film style and not actually considering that it would be a limited system for anyone who's not me. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Aside from that, I don't really have a point or a message or anything. Just kind of openly wishing there was a way to reconcile my non-animation work with the community I loved being a part of. Hope everyone else is doing well, and that Newgrounds continues to find its footing in this new-age internet world. I'll still be around, if quiet.

The best of days to you all,

Kyle


1

Comments

They have a forum here where you can submit videos.
If you submit them there who knows what could happen!

Hey, you should try appealing to some of the upper newgrounders because I had a friend who was posting live action videos with permission. But nobody liked his stuff anyway.
Like I said, who knows.

I actually did talk to Tom Fulp about it a few months back. He had some expected concerns - storage space, spreading the site's focus a bit to thin - but also seemed interested in the potential of having a "film" section that encouraged artistic shorts and the like. So who knows, maybe it'll be a thing some day.

That'd be great if we got a Film Portal.
Best of luck to your plights.

I see what you mean I'm still learning more about both film as well as animation but want to do more with everything I'd like to see more art films on this site so that would be cool

I would like to see Newgrounds have a portal for some live action stuff, or maybe just videos which don't fall into conventional animation. I have a bunch of weird videos on YouTube which I know I couldn't post here, and that's kinda too bad because here actually is my motherbase.

Anyway I miss you too. The other day I went through all the live action stuff you've been up to (finally) and I gotta say, you're still really killer. Whatever endeavors you pursue, I know you'll do great with them and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

(also I'm a voice actor, cast me sometime okay thanks love you <3)

Aw, thanks :D I'll keep the voice acting in mind.

I feel like I come here to get away from the crowd that live action videos drag in.
Same thing when someone suggested the ability of multiple comments in review sections.
I feel these things would just drag NG down into YouTube land...
However, I doubt others feel that way so a live action portal will probably get shoe-horned in should NG give in to pressure.

I think it would depend greatly on the kinds of videos they let in. Newgrounds has always been more artistic, so there's definitely no place for the gameplay and blogs that populate Youtube. But if we're talking about narrative shorts and sketches just like the animated videos, still moderated by the site's user-powered crap filter, I don't think it would be detrimental.

I enjoyed your live action videos. Your camera shots were well thought out. well the ones i saw, maybe as a whole they are horrible!

No, they're all good. Whichever ones you watched were clearly an accurate sample, so you don't have to check the others.

well it's still here so drop by anytime m9 :D GL on you youtube channel

Maybe down the line if you have ideas that might only work in an animation, you could either make them on your own, or get an animation studio to work on them, such as Studio Yotta.

Also, checked out a couple vids on your YT channel and am digging them.

Civ 5 Dibs on the Ruins was exceptionally acted and framed, though the 3rd angle shot of the messenger wasn't color matched with the rest of the scene, can your video software color correct? Otherwise, try and keep the same settings on each camera, use white/black boards/strung up cloth/material to control what you can of the ever changing lighting.

I don't have a YT account, think Google's evil, but do appreciate good video productions. It's something I did just before joining NG around 2000, which was the first death knell of TV and the rise of indie on internet, and not local cable/broadcast TV... anyway, I hope to get back to it someday.

I'd certainly forgive you if you occasionally embedded a video in a newspost, from time to time ;) Best wishes mate, feel free to vent or slum here anytime!

Thanks for the support :) I'm actually colorblind, which as you might guess, makes color correction insanely difficult. I should be getting some of those enchroma glasses in the mail soon, and then maybe I can fix that problem.

I partially agree with you. I think that the writing is still the most important thing and animation is simply a medium to tell the story. So in that sense i believe whichever medium you choose to tell the story with doesn't matter. Animations share a lot of the same principles with film, today more than ever. CG, practical effects, writing, directing, It's all creative input.

My concern with the idea of submitting movies to newgrounds however is that the danger lies with one of the reasons you mentioned. That It's easier and less time consuming than animation. What happens when everybody decides that they rather do film. Won't that suppress the amount of animators even more? Also the quality of the kind of material matters. If it were video's like harry's 'ace ryder', oney's videos and your videos for examples, than yes. But i'd imagine every 10 year old filming stuff with their phone and putting it up here unless the entries of the video portal would be selectively picked. Which is too much work.

It all seems complicated and risky if you ask me.

That may be the case. I certainly think film is easier, but that also may just be because I enjoy it more. Other people might argue that even doing it poorly takes too many additional people and resources, whereas animation only requires a computer, flash, and a tablet. It's hard to know which way it would go.

I do think that if some kind of standard level of quality was established from the get-go, that Newgrounds's peer-review system would still be able to handle entries the same way it does animation. I've seen plenty of 10-year-old's "My First Flash" cartoons in the submission list, but that's always the end of them.

That's the thing, even in the flash portal a lot of stuff gets through simply because people go for their b/p rank. Knowing that 'well this shouldn't pass, but it probably will, so i'll vote protect too and get my points'. The 'my first flash' and 'i do not own this' submissions always get blammed simply by writing so, they make the choice easy. Moderators now remove a lot manually. Imagine the time it takes to submit a crappy flash compared to a crappy video. Not everybody has a drawing tablet lying around in their closet and acces to the necessary software. Phones on the other hand.

Don't get me wrong, i'd like to see film based submissions. But i think a different approach is necessary to ensure control. Maybe like the art portal have a first line of defense to video submissions so that they won't enter a public portal before establishing some sort of quality. That way at least the bottom gets filtered. I won't guarantee absolute quality, but it will minimize the very worst. Just food for thought.

Oh yeah, I had totally forgotten the art portal worked that way... That probably would be a good way to go.