#Catching Up LSMark | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

channeleven · 2 years ago

Text

LTA: Saturday's Off, How Bad Is It?

You know those YouTubers you discover from ongoing drama, that you subscribe to for more of the same only to discover they don't make content you're particularly into? That was my relationship with a lot of YouTubers, DaftPina included.

DaftPina, he gave off an aura that I didn't particularly like, and it wasn't until years later that I discover he's not a particularly good person, to put it nicely, and this goes beyond his little fits with storytime animators. I don't know how he could possibly redeem himself, let alone how people can continue to associate with him when he would go as far as indirectly encouraging Just Stop to make an ass of himself by communicating with LSMark in confidence... in public. Well it must've been Daft's idea, I doubt Just Stop would through his face into an open flame like that.

It turns out two years ago, Daft worked on an animated pilot, so why talk about it now? Well I'd say it was a year or so after it came out that his reputation began to crumble, so anything of his is fair game. He made a video discussing Enter's failed Growing Around project, and it seems like it's petty to bring up, but let's put it like this:

"If I make a video poking fun at someone's failed attempt at launching an animated series, perhaps this can elevate my own."

It's a coincidence, sure, but interesting to think about. That aside, the big thing behind the pilot is that it demonstrates Daft's drawing skills. I reiterate, Daft, an art critic who demonstrated to have rigorous standards, is given an opportunity to work on an animated pilot, designing the characters, and we can see how he applies his own standards.

Short answer, people began to seriously wonder, but we'll get to that at a better time. The pilot has a higher like ratio, but the dislikes are slowly catching up. But, art aside, maybe the pilot is good enough for me to overlook high standards gone wrong? Also this counts as me giving LS Mark another chance because he is in with heavy prominence.

The Pilot Itself

youtube

Follow along right above.

The pilot, at least from what I'm getting now, is going for a slow feel. An immediate comparison I could make is to it and something like Dr. Katz or Home Movies, shows that made use of limited animation and relied on improvised dialog.

If that seems like a stretch, it feels like... green dude and purple dude? Are having an improvised conversation, about current events, I mean I guess, and the animation is somehow worse. Let me reiterate, animators with the most basic experience could replicate most of what Dr. Katz and Home Movies did, those made use of limited animation, and this is more of the same. As far as improvised dialog goes, those shows either act as some variation of a stand up routine like in Dr. Katz, or just serve as following a rough outline that is used to drive a conversation, perhaps at times going for edgy subject matter to get people's attention.

They kinda try to do that by discussing the news, but it feels forced, either that or the delivery's so flat I can't even be bothered to get into what they're saying. If there isn't an overarching plot then that would be fine, though not necessarily good in the long-run. Think 12 Oz. Mouse without the surrealistic wit.

The schtick behind this pilot is that it is divided into seven segments based on each day, a collection of non-sequiturs, but let's see if an overarching theme is present, or if anything interesting can come forth. We get an indirect reference to Bob's Burgers, why else would we be in the office and a co-worker asks the main character if they signed Jason's birthday card?

Also the green guy is named Mikey, now I know. If Mark is playing the Mikey as well as the blue guy, I'll admit, he has range, and I guess Daft wanted him to capture the life in his videos.

Monday night, I feel Daft missed a good opportunity in relation to discussing eyelids, purple beanie guy is uncomfortable with the discussion of seeing eyelids when you shut your eyes, I feel there was an opportunity for a joke of any kind, but they don't and turn it into something philosophical, hold any irony or humor. Maybe Mikey could intentionally annoy purple guy by comparing shut eyes to a blanket over a bird cage, purple guy pulls the beanie over his eyes and Mikey makes an analogy relating to it, perhaps the drive thru guy could get in on this, I dunno.

The payoff to this is getting the drive thru guy to freak out, I can't even respect it as a joke, and for perspective, right now I've had two beers and the buzz isn't making things better.

Okay, I have the feeling people focus more on the animation and art direction because the dialog gives me absolutely nothing. If you want to portray real life with improvised dialog, fine, but you can't just stick with that alone. The only time this would work is if, I dunno, someone recorded IRL interactions and decided to animate them. This begs to be based on the real world, and Daft just uses an artificial layer.

I don't care about anyone or anything in this pilot, okay that's a stretch, I guess the boss lady, co-worker is kinda interesting, whoever played her has what it takes to be an actor, she suits the supporting character role well, that's about the nicest thing I could say. Something tells me this is made for the sake of establishing characters and dynamics for a full series, at least that's what it feels like, because even less is happening here than in any show that has a very loose plot keeping it going.

So the pay-off, I guess, is that Jason died in a freak accident and that such a thing was alluded to in the start. The problem is that the dialog is carried out so dry and slow that you can't pick up on it. I'm more interested trying to figure out what species of animals they're supposed to be, I guess it's koalas.

Animation

So, the backgrounds look to be very well drawn. But, you wanna know what else had well drawn backgrounds? Allen Gregory. Cosmetics while helping to make something look good is like covering a dog turd with bleach, the smell is gone but you still see the turd. You can be a talented background designer but be lacking everywhere else, The Christmas Tree, being a perennial cautionary tale.

It's impossible to discuss DaftPina without art being a part of the conversation, and that's where most of the outrage lies. The character designs, while not totally awful, fall well below standards Daft had established. They look like they were made for the sake of being prime for marketing, get your co-worker girl plush over on RedBubble starting at $10.99. The tell is how each character looks more or less the same, attempting to be as familiar as humanly possible, but what do I know?

Then there's the animation, even by YouTuber standards, it's not very good. It feels like purple guy and Mikey are pasted onto the backgrounds and given the same looping animations, things look stiff and repeated, if this were anyone else this would be fine, but again, this is Daft "You should give up on ever drawing again because you suck" Pina, surely he could take blunt criticism like he dishes out.

For perspective, let's bring up one of his old targets, JaidenAnimations. Is her animation better than Daft's? Well, that's up to you. A collection of animated stories against what is intended to be a series has a loose connection to one other, but for someone who has to keep up with deadlines while taking shortcuts to ensure she could keep up a good schedule, and seeing what commission work can do, there is more life to her animation than what Daft could do. I'd be saying that no matter my allegiance.

I'm not saying he's trying to act like he's better, I'm just pointing out the irony in those he criticized managing to outperform him however little.

Final Thoughts

The worst thing about this series is how boring it is. Noting peaked my interest and I am uninterested in seeing where the characters will go from here. About the only nice things I could say about this is that I underestimated LSMark's range and that co-worker gave me confidence she could be an interesting character.

The best way I could sum up the art and animation is that I'd like to see someone overlay audio from Daft's reviews of other artists. If you want a good slow series, I'll kill two birds with one stone and throw in an example and a recommendation.

Out There is a series that has a similar theme of bleakness and dry dialog, but a lot more happens, also furry animals. It's up on Hulu and it's up to you to determine if I'm making sense.

But one last thing, whether or not Daft can ever do better if he decides to revisit this, I think it's too little too late, not because the pilot is so uninteresting, but because more and more people are catching on to what kind of person he really is.

0 notes