
Now for "The Promise"....
First off, the black bars on the top and bottom are a no-no. You want to have them when submitting to contests, but make sure they're gone when you release the final product.
Now, when you chose to take on this song...you chose a pretty massive monster to fight since quite a few people associate it with:
(I know I do >.>;;)
In addition to the song choice, just about any Shinkai movie is known for being so overused to the point where most can see it in their sleep x_X
To put it simply...ambitious choices were ambitious.
Sadly, the video didn't do it for me. You've got a beautiful song that almost creates a feeling of flowing water moving through you, so you expect nice movement to match it. Yet immediately there are scenes that are completely still or have very little/incredibly slow movement.
The overlays probably weren't the best choices either. The one at 0:59 is almost funny with how fast it's in and out. When it comes to syncing with all the little noises and goodies that you used the overlays for, it may have been a better idea to do something a bit more simple. Syncing with actual movement or lighting/coloring effects...nothing flashy of course, but just something simple and moving.
Once the song kicks in, the overlays become a bit more bearable but still look really out of place. And the footage still isn't connecting properly to the beautiful flow that the music is projecting.
The cookie cutter effects you did when the beat kicks in even harder weren't a bad idea but they needed to move a lot smoother and be blended better.
But by the end of the video, your editing slows back down again and you just kinda show the end of the movie. Nothing too much more than that

Ambitious choices but sadly, you just couldn't seem to pull it off.
I look forward to your future videos
