People say things.
I've seen a few people, even those less than impressed with this submission, crediting it for it's stellar animation. Well... I've come to let you know:
The animation ain't that great.
The confusion here is differenciating between art and animation. The art is pretty damn stellar -- no doubt. The backgrounds are quite nice and the charecters are well composed with a modern Disney flare.
However, as for animation. There wasn't much of which to speak. There's enough to fool the viewer into thinking he saw a well animated film... but, for the record, you didn't. Highly stylized stills and motion tweens ruled the frames here people. A few quick cut fbf's of a hand grabbing or a girl pulling... but no stellar animation to speak of.
Besides that, of coarse, the lack of truely interesting charecters or plot takes this submission down off the mantle. Maybe it's going somewhere -- but I doubt it. Honestly, this looks like a prize piece for the authors to throw around to prospective job offers. Little more.
And that, my friends, is how 9+9+8 = 7.