Extremely Well Done Directing
Okay, I'm not gonna TRY not to write 3 friggin' pages.
I really liked the direction of this piece. It was really well done; not too drawn out, but definitely not short and trite either. The animation was a little choppy and disproportional at some points, but overall it was really well done (I also appreciate the fact that the only tweened movement I really noticed was when someone breathed). The soundtrack was incredibly well picked, but the voices did sound very scratchy from the low-quality microphones.
What I appreciate most out of this one is the way the whole ordeal was presented. It did seem SOMEWHAT sympathetic, but in my opinion, as someone who was torn apart in junior high by similar abuse, they should have gotten more sympathy before they did what they did. The sad truth is that now that they'd committed a much greater evil, they're now considered to be completely undeserving of ANY sympathy.
And fuck that guy who was all uppity about the "Belief in God" reference (did you notice that he spelled "terror" with a capital "T"?). Besides the fact that God likely DOESN'T exist, it wasn't meant to characterize EITHER side of the issue, nor was it suppose to distinguish who was right. SUPPOSEDLY, WHAT WAS SAID WAS REALLY SAID. GET OVER IT.
If it's the only thing I found wrong with this production as a whole (and not enough of a matter to deduct points), it's the stupid shit at the beginning and the end of the movie that I find unnecessary and distractive from any other movie that has it. Number one is the stupid warning label at the beginning. It's a flash movie, presented on the INTERNET, about COLUMBINE: Even if you feel it's imperative to put a warning on it, do it either in your "author's comment" section, or on the loading screen, so that some poor dial-up viewer doesn't end up waiting half an hour to see a stupid "Rated-R Warning". And my second complaint is the caption at that end that underlies the names of those who were killed. If you're EVEN going to do that, make it something less banal and hokey than what you wrote. The author's comments needed to be spellchecked, and the writing there needs editing as well (sorry man, speechwriting just isn't your thing).
Other than those few flaws, this was a really well done piece. Good work, and while I'm glad you pulled of a ballsy move like a dramatic piece on Columbine, I hope to see other films by you on more creative subject matter.
