Review
-I honestly wish the file size of this could be made smaller without screwing with the quality but alas I really doubt that is possible even if you load this externally. Some people with slower computers will get annoyed with the load time and just bypass it(took somewhere around 45 seconds for me but I had several windows open and it would of probably went a little faster if it was just this one page open). It will make it much less likely to be widely viewed by people and they won't get to see how great of an animator that you really are.
-The preloader is pretty snazzy in my opinion. It's not a generic Newgrounds loader or some plain looking one that you made. You actually dedicated some time to make it look nice. The words have that nice spray-painted on look pasted on the brick background. I'm not sure what the caution tape is for but still it looks cool. Actually it probably is a mental barrier holding them back or something along those lines. Quality controls are a nice addition too and help out some with people with slow computers. The little movie editing buttons on the bottom were quite useful since it allowed me to get to certain areas of the video that I thought needed to be watched again(i'll get to this later).
-The drawing style was quite interesting to me as i haven't seen too many animations drawn in this way. You may have used pictures and still frames for backgrounds but they were well picked backgrounds. You also had a wide variety of scenery and dimensions in the pictures you chose to use. Even though I don't think i've seen your previous animations I think it's safe to say you did a great job with the backgrounds. But with that you brought such a drasticly different drawing style into the mix with the characters and the many prop type items that the characters were using and/or around them. The characters were a bit messy but that's how most teenager/young adults are these days. They don't take a ton of time getting ready and have that just rolled out of bed look. Your drawing style really brought that out in my eyes and made everything seem more realistic and drew me more into the actual characters.
-The story is hard to keep up with honestly. It setting changes quite often and it's difficult to keep up with the characters and what they are doing. They look very similar to each other and I was confused as to who was who a couple times so I had to re-watch certain parts over a couple of times. It's a minor setback in plot fluidity but it's not a big issue as far as the concept goes.
-Probably the most perfect song you could of picked for this. It fit so well and helped smooth everything together a lot better. Without the music it would of been dragged down by two much voice acting and would of been a lot choppier. But the fact that there was still just a little voice acting involved in some areas made it more believable. Everyone was so animated throughout and really showed passion in some way, shape, or form towards what they were trying to achieve.
-As mentioned there are some minor flaws but what are meger flaws compared to the giant of what is this animation. It goes above and beyond to convey feelings without words. Something that is very difficult to do and requires a lot of facial and body expressions that are very tiny details but take a lot of time to do. All in all it's a giant leap above most people. Just try and vary characters a little more in the future so it's easier to tell them apart. Other than that it seems like you accomplished your goals with this amazing animation.
-Review Request Club