AJ Spencer is an author and digital artist best known for their series The SnowRaven Chronicles. You can find their self-published audiobooks and graphic novels on AJ Spencer’s Amazon.
With experience as an independent filmmaker of animated short films, AJ Spencer has ventured into bringing new life to his graphic narratives.
They have created a series of short films that have been doing the rounds on the film festival circuit, as well. Just the sight of the laurels on the short film thumbnails already tells you that you’re in for a great viewing experience.
As such, we took it upon ourselves to review one of their works, The SnowRaven Chronicles: Bride of Death.
Note: This review contains spoilers.
The opening scenes immediately catch your attention as we get fully immersed in the story world.
Firstly, there’s a bit of a disparity in how detailed some animated aspects are versus others, which made part one slightly confusing but this confusion doesn’t last long and gets resolved by the part’s conclusion.
In part two, we get some narration that finally gets the storytelling going after the monstrous motifs in the first part. The narration lacks some depth in terms of voice acting but is well-aligned with the visuals on screen. However, throughout the film, it felt like the moments that needed narration were abandoned and that it was used more for unnecessary moments that were already well-portrayed visually.
There is also room for improvement in terms of editing; minor things such as sound mixing (blending one sound to fade into another), smoother transitions between shots (linking action in one frame to another), or even timing the editing cuts to the background music. However, none of these HUGELY take away from the story. Naturally, some adjustments in this technical aspect would make for a smoother and more enjoyable viewing experience, though.
The parts in the story as a whole feel discombobulated (it feels as though a bunch of scenes made individually have been strung together and there is no real cause or effect for the first while) but if you look at the big picture the narrative is decent. We follow Saskia’s journey after being quite literally castaway and see her contemplate marriage – emphasized as an institution that will simply tie her down – before reality hits that her love is not what it seems and she has to put on her fighting armor (or should we say strip down).
She enters into battle and this turns into the highlight of the entire production as it is the most cohesive and gripping part of the story.
The next best part of the entire film was the diverse animation techniques used and the quality of most animated aspects. You could see the attention to detail incorporated particularly into the characters and no viewer is likely to take that for granted.
Whilst some of the technical aspects break the immersive experience a little bit, if you look at the film holistically it’s quite solid. The film is quite thought-provoking. The message about love taking the form of betrayal (or vice versa) was quite profound. AJ Spencer’s creativity knows no bounds and it’s exciting to think of the narratives that they will create next.
The SnowRaven Chronicles has a lot of potential to reach huge audiences at the rate that AJ Spencer is going.
What did you think of The SnowRaven Chronicles: Bride of Death? Let us know in the comments!
Make sure to check more works like this on AJ Spencer’s YouTube channel.