Figured I should also apologize here. I DID NOT MEAN TO UNDER VOTE, I simply wheeled down one to many on my mouse, and accidentally hit two in my tired posting last night. I changed it to three, sorry again about it. I wouldn't post two long posts and then go and gib you a rating, that doesn't seem fair or even ethically right. I still support the vote of three, to me the cinematic seems nothing outstanding, and a 3/5 is still to me above the average rating of a general cinematic. At least to me.
The voice acting everyone is saying it's good. It's not. It's honestly to me more annoying than just reading subs, because with subs you could use loads more music and effects for timing. Ironically the smaller roles are the better sounding ones (the best (still not being what I would consider 'good') would probably be the guards outside the tower, there's at least some attempt of energy and such in the dialogue)
I will agree for the most part that the animations on the models are very... irritating, however this is mostly because for the bulk of the sequences people are just sitting there, so they stick out more than they should, in more action-specific scenes as opposed to story-telling scenes (with story-telling flash backs as well) the stances themselves wouldn't be that bad, however the hunching of both the main characters was getting really annoying, at least for me.
You're aware of the minor terrain flaws with the clipping, but I didn't notice them that clearly, so I still say minus the clipping a really amazing job on the look of the terrain.
The camera movements always seem aesthetically correct, and nice and smooth, and are very well done, it was one of the few things that puts this cinematic higher up on the things out there, smooth camera movements is one of the most important things, as fast jittering cameras just are eye-sores for the audience.
The story was questionable, the premise, and on pen and paper it would look good. Unfortunately you're not on pen and paper, you can't say "I am the creator so I'm telling you, you feel to trust this man." You just can't do that in a cinematic, it doesn't work out. Again using some blended sound effects (even with the poor voice overs) could add a lot of emphasis to the whole conversation with Gheege, and make the audience actually believe what he is saying. For this whole cinematic (and maybe your whole mini-series) you NEED the audience to believe this scene if this scene isn't well established with the audience you'll have us second-guessing your whole story line "So he assassinated a king over a monotonous necromancer that couldn't deny his allegations?"
The actual English for the most part wasn't bad, but there were several parts where it was too blocky, you tried to explain the environment too far, (or in a poor manner) and actually killed the tension of your vocabulary use, and your descriptions. You also have to remember it's a cinematic, not a story, we can sort of see, and feel the environment (I know you're explaining it to a character, but it still didn't have to be as in depth). Your explanation of the environment should be your terrain, not your dialogue. I'll try to pop out an example for you, at the beginning when you're describing the fog as Henry tries to sneak into the castle, he gives a (decently enough) explanation of the fog, and such (still with no energy in his voice). Then you say "also it was cold" That line, KILLS, literally obliterates the nice description of the fog, if not what was happening even ten seconds ago, that one line is so blocky, it sticks out severely, it doesn't flow, and when something doesn't flow, you make it flow or you cut it, you can't leave blocky dialogue in a short-ish cinematic, it will not work for you, it kills your audiences, it really does. Cinematics need flowing dialogue, and I'm assuming English isn't your 'mother toungue' however, get someone who speaks English as their first language, to read over your scripts and correct the (sometimes blatantly obvious) blockyness of your script.
It's been said your stage directions (and random animations) should be triggered. I have to agree here, or cut out some of the crazy animations via mdl. For example, your sisters character, sometimes she stands on the one leg and does that demon hunter thing with the swords, that animation is not valid in your cinematic at any time as far as I'm concerned, yet it appears several times (which again kills tension and kills the flowingness of your cinematic.)
You should also remember, you can set units animation (and movement speed) lower using triggers // effects, this is a good idea for walking, as opposed to running, as when someone says walk, and the sprint to the other side of the room to look in a pot, it again is blocky, and aesthetically doesn't feel right for a cinematic.
You seem to be able to use the sounds and such, to a decent extent, use them more! Ambiance to a scene is almost as important (if not more important) to a scene than what the characters are saying. Want an example? Go watch a horror movie, with no music, or effect-building ambiance, the movies effectiveness would be cut at least 70%.
20% of the other 30% of a horror movie is in the delivery. Your cinematic (as I've said) has nice camera movements which help the delivery, but the stage directions, and weird animations again, make the cinematic very blocky, and not flowy, and kills the interest in the audience with these small errors.
As someone else said "Being stealthy while talking full voice" There are a lot of aesthetically incorrect errors in the cinematic, like talking loud while stealthing, or yelling help in a noticably different voice, and still fooling these guards.
I really liked how you used the storm tower, however, your character really jumped on those steps and was really noticeable. Try placing a ramp and then making it invisible (or lowering it beneath the terrain.)
A tip as to why your voice overs suck. You're all afraid of talking into a mic (I'm guessing because of family or friends in your house//dorm over hearing you.) Too bad. You need to talk loud, you need to emphasize, you NEED the people around you to think you're nutters, it is the only real way to make your audience believe what they're saying the need to be loud, they need to be energetic, they even need crescendo's and decrescendo's, you need fading effects on the voice while leading back into flashbacks, echos in this huge prison made of die-cast stone. You're mousing these voice overs (specifically you and your sister) if your sister was louder, I would probably say her voice overs were fairly decent. Even for your guest-voice-overs they're too quiet, they need to have the guts to make everyone think they're a schizo, otherwise the effect to the audience is lost in the hard attempt of voice overs.
also @ Mecheon, it's nice to see someone that agrees with what I think without being a rampant troll about it.