Amberose's Live Thoughts on Your Stories

Thank you so much, that means a lot!!! :heart_eyes::blue_heart:

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Bump :rose:

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@JackAttack95 - Rasors: War and Peace

Whoops, I am a liar! Here we are four days later, anyway…

  • Your story starts with “The End” and I was like huh?

  • The bodies “pop” in after the scene. I’m not sure if that’s what you wanted with the first lot, as a way to kinda play a trick on the readers, but when you pan to zone 2, it would look better if they were already there. An example of the way I do this is:
    &BODY1 spot XYZ in zone 2 AND BODY1 faces left AND BODY1 is animation
    &BODY2 spot XYZ in zone 2 AND BODY2 faces right AND BODY2 is animation
    @pan to zone 2

  • Nice job with the LL version of Isaac.

  • “Were not tools of war… Were tools of…” - did you mean “we’re” as in we are?

  • I briefly mentioned the ellipsis thing with season 1… If you want a character to do an animation you can do: @CHARACTER is animation, they don’t need to speak any line of dialogue. If you want them to do it for a few seconds, you can add @pause for 3 for example, on the line underneath.

  • Both Bandit’s have default looking faces and it’s such a pet peeve of mine. Please just change a couple of features around.

  • Tenshi looks great in LL too!

  • Yelena does not look how I expected her too - it’s really fascinating to see your interpretations

  • So the backstory bit between Yelena and Donovan felt a bit rushed, and I think it’s because you only had the black background to go off of - now that you’re using cinematic, there’s a lot more you can do to show actions instead of just narrating while someone’s on screen. I can totally picture a flashback montage, using white fade transitions and maybe even a sepia filter too - it would look epic.

  • Wait, no! Even better suggestion for the flashback - FADE your CHARACTERS in and out. This would be kind of advanced, and since your just starting out with LL and cinematic, it might be a huge thing to learn, but now that you’re not limited, you could totally pull this off - PLUS it would give someone who’s read season 1 something extra, since they already know the whole story.
    Anyway, if you want to consider it, here’s a quick guide on how to do it.

  • Sorry, still kinda on that same point from above but the fade technique would also look amazing for Yelena! (If this is something you want to do but really don’t understand how to do what I’m saying lmk, I can help you out over a pm than I can here)

  • “Hope this city has a bed or something. Because I’m strapping you down and riding like theres no tomorrow.” - Ok, first of all: LOL :joy: … Second, “theres” needs an apostrophe: there’s. Third: not a major deal, but consider putting the second half on a new line so it comes up as a seperate speech bubble, since it’s kinda long.

  • OMG Queensland? Did you make this up or are you… a fellow Aussie? :laughing:

  • “Were from Queensland.” - should be “we’re”

  • When Tenshi does the abridged version of her backstory, she uses the same angry animations, which can get tedious since she has about 10 lines.

  • @CosmicIvy (I see what you did there)

  • “Were one of the only communities that does the…” - should be “we’re”

  • Look, idk if the Queensland thing was intentional but totally makes sense that Elysium would be around there. First they get all the good theme parks, then they have affordable living and now in a fictional story they have Elysium and Eden. Such a Queensland thing to do

  • Episode 2 - the zooms are way off. I am guessing you didn’t reset the zooms at the beginning of episode 2 so they are still remembering the last zoom percentage you used in episode 1.

  • “Hate being the un-nerdy third wheel here” - Tenshi is MEEEEEE! I was totally not understanding any of that “nerd” talk which is how I felt in high school when all my friends picked science subjects while I did drama lol

  • The way you explained how this planet was found and tied it in to the Cold War was good - it makes it feel real and possible.

  • So now that you’re using cinematic too, just be aware of what characters who aren’t speaking are doing on screen. I always try to have my characters doing some kind of animation so they don’t look stuck or frozen in a pose, or I zoom close up on the character speaking so the readers can’t see the ones who aren’t.

  • Party scene - same as I mentioned before. Place your characters before panning.

  • When Ivy’s asking if they’re having fun, maybe you could add a scene of the crowd?

  • OMG - I was the same as Isaac. I thought the threesome was a joke, then I was like, wait, are you actually going to go there? Hahahahahaha

  • The next day, Isaac all of a sudden pops in.

  • :hushed::hushed::hushed::hushed: Donovan?! :hushed::hushed::hushed:

*Beginning of episode 3 - place all your characters in the scene before you fade in.

  • In the jail scene, you might want to spot direct Isaac’s thought bubbles because they move around a lot

  • Not sure if Ivy and Isaac are supposed to not be looking at each other while they talk about Yelena, but it looks kind of weird after 3 or so lines, so I’d have them turn around at some point.

  • It’s a little awkward when Tenshi goes in for the hug and Isaac just stands there. lol.

  • When Selina and Katya hug, it would look more realistic if one of them does a hug rear animation.

  • Katya’s backstory confused me a bit, but I understood it more when Selina talked again. I think I would have wanted more for that flashback, the black background just doesn’t really do it justice.

So, to summarise, I still think you have such a great plot, but for season 2, you need to get out of the “spotlight” mindset. Try using less narration and more animations - go the extra mile do depict what’s happening in the scene. Also, now that it’s in cinematic, make sure to place all your characters at the start of each scene and to keep the ones who aren’t talking animated.

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Thank you for this lol. I never thought I’d see a day where I have no current requests hahahahaha

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Pretty much me these past few days waiting for your review :rofl:

Yeah you can pretty much track the level of “I have no idea what I’m doing” to “Eh I’m kinda getting the hang of this” as far as directing the more you read. Honestly the only reason the flashback is there is to give readers what some “returning” characters would look like since LL is a different format. Though I agree I can do a bit more with that sequence. I’ll have to check the guide out you mentioned. If I have trouble, I’ll definitely let you know!

Yeah the @CosmicIvy bit when her and Ivy first meet is one big easter egg for our real life friendship. Though she’s a major character. Not just a comedic easter egg. I have a lot in store for her >:)

Yelena is going to come in MANY different forms, so far you’ve seen just one interpretation of her :slight_smile:

But this definitely helps. Thank you so much. I just need to take my time and slow down. Directing needs to be on point from here on out because this season is gonna get…ugly with some topics that are pretty heavy :confounded: Even though he’s the protagonist, Isaac is going to do some pretty awful shit this season :zipper_mouth_face:

So no pressure right? :sweat_smile::scream::cold_sweat:

PS: Sorry to disappoint but I’m not an Aussie :confused: I swear all the name locations were unintentional :laughing: But I think Queensland being the name of all female community sounds cool though :slight_smile: Hopefully your real life Elysium is a bit…different compared to the one in the story :sweat_smile:

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so i’ve been doing some stalking of my own, and i adore your reviews! your approach is so unique, i love it — hence me being here, haha. :smile:

i’ll definitely be checking this thread out often!

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Yeah, lol, honestly I was so drunk over the weekend and ever since this thread started getting attention, I feel like I owe it to people to be sober…ish, so I waited until Monday. But ooooooh off topic ramble, I need to do drunk thoughts for featured stories :bulb:

Oh damn, I’m so Australian that I didn’t even consider there was another reason behind Queensland lol! But damn, that makes so much sense.

Honestly, this is soooooooooo me and probably a lot of other people too. But you’ll get to a point where you’ll look back at earlier episode and just be like “when did I actually get good at this?” - just takes practice. I give you mad props from going from spotlight ink to cinematic limelight though because I find limelight a lot harder to code.

Also, maybe offer the choice for the flashback then? If you’re only doing it for that reason, some people might want to skip straight to the good stuff.

Anyway, good luck. Keep me posted because I’d love to see how you up the directing. You have such a good plot that I know if you take the time to do it justice, it’s gonna be great

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Thanks! I love comments like these because I want to get up to 10000 replies so it helps me get closer if other people comment. Maybe I’ll see Once More With Feeling here one day? :wink:

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I posted Episode 4 of Daughter of the Blue Dragon. Just wanted to give you a heads up!

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Thanks, I’ll check it out soon :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thank you! Just note it’s one of my longest episodes.

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Bumping again :grin:

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Bahahaha! :joy:

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It’s currently hidden as I’m revamping, especially the first one :woman_facepalming:

Title: Trouble and Lies

Description: Rose a 16yr old girl. Secrets and lies will be uncovered about herself and family.
What will happen when she learns the truth?

Style: INK

Author: ams007

Chapters: 9 (ongoing)

Cover and Link
COVER%20ART%20SMALL%20(Ams007)

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@Spes guuuurl! So. Many. Notifications :joy:

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lol

Thank you! Hehehehe

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Title: Sentimental Heartache

Style: Ink

Description: After Arianna “coincidentally” meets Lucas, they start talking to each other more frequently. Soon enough, they realize that the more they talk, the more they fall.

Author: Jessy

Chapters: 14

Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6084450064138240

Cover: (My cover hasn’t been published yet but this is the cover.)
SOGOOD

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Hello Amber, I’d like you to read a story I’ve recently revamped :slight_smile:

I’ll PM you the link if you except to read a story by lil’ole me :3

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Of course :blush: Send it over

@talesbyrose all your bumping has paid off!

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Wait, do you need the link to my story? I totally forgot to give it to you since I updated the story.

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