Half a cup.
This is your 2nd submission to Newgrounds. Welcome back!
The title "Java Jive" refers to the club in which the character, presuming to be a representation of you, enters the café and becomes fascinated with caffeine. This flash is bizarre. It is like Fantasia, meets Walt Disney, meets the Muppets but it is actually nothing like any of them. My early predictions were that it was going to be a music video of happiness. There is a real pleasant aura throughout and it is quite dreamy.
Unfortunately, and this is clearly obvious, the flash is very short. This is disappointing because I was very excited on my first view to see what happened next.
I certainly like the concept. It is very easy to watch and is blissfully relaxing. It holds you in its warm arms. The combination of colours blended the cups and the girl very well. There weren't any ideas I didn't like; there wasn't much that I could have disliked. The idea is fresh and invigorating to the mind although I estimate that it would have gotten boring if there was nothing but mugs with faces. There is a risk of the concept being limited so a successful longer version would require a good imagination. Go for it!
Graphically I was impressed - although it isn't perfect. Some of the lines don't match up flawlessly and are curved and ugly. However comparing it to the work of an amateur is foolhardy; you are definitely a cut above the rest and it shows, for a brief moment.
Your animating skills are fairly competent although one should not overestimate here. Not everything is animated and there are still a lot of images that are static, however the major focuses look alive which is more than what can be asked from any inexperienced flash artist.
Details. There is quite a lot to see - eg. kissing hearts, swaying red hair, eyebrows on the mugs. You've put in some very good effort that would largely impress even a professional animator. Although the background image seems deceptive, it looks like a picture and although it is easy to overlook the result is dull. The pavement and sky in the first scene looks slightly odd too. Is that a picture or an interesting attempt at creating a realistic snow feel using flash: it looks hard to guess but the greyness is slightly daunting.
The audio sounds like something I would hear from a 1920's radio; but it was cool and it has a distinctive traditional feel. No sound effects, {which led me to guessing it was a music video} but that is okay - sound effects don't work so well in a music video and they are not expected. The irritating thing is that this flash is extremely short, but the fading of the music makes it seem even shorter.
It would be more bearable if the flash was looped, therefore it would go over and over and not tempt viewers to stop watching it so quickly. If you did this I am sure many would watch it more than once.
Overall the quality is good, but the length is bad. It is like a huge box of Thornton's {confectioners} wrapped up in a beautiful ribbon and finding that there are only a few chocolates inside. They taste nice but I want more, I feel teased and cheated. I would prefer the same chocolates over and over than having to manually open another box to get the same chocolates. Basically the point is that it is very good quality but "torturously" short.
However putting that aside there is a lot of potential here and your work looks extremely exciting. If you can make something longer then you're in line for some great criticisms. Don't scrap and restart - resubmit it! - it would be sweet to see a longer version. Whether or not you decide to do that is up to you, but it was a cosy little gem to watch.
Sammi
* * * * * { 5 - 10 } "Reasonable"
