I think I'm still looking at assignments the way I look at jobs. I got my grade and feedback for the second film project (Printing a Shirt). The grade was good enough, but not great. I wouldn't care at all except 1) I'm inherently competitive with myself and I got straight As in Ithaca and 2) I need a minimum GPA for my scholarship. (Not in jeopardy, I'm fine.)
It's my reaction to his feedback that I'm noticing. His comments were all pretty valid - though not all fixable - so it's not that. It's more my gut reaction of just tell me what you want and I'll give it to you. We had a critique, he gave us feedback, and then we had 48 hours to make changes and turn it in. Then in the final feedback more than half of what he said he could have said the first time and I would have given it to him. I wasn't attached to this project. They were decent comments, though not all of them would I have done if I were my own client. Well, none of them clearly, but only a couple that I disagreed with subjectively. But even those if he'd said them at the first critique I'd have given him.
Herein I think lies my problem. He's not a client, he's a teacher. We're meant to be making films, not jobs. I should have learned this lesson back in Oswego taking Photo II and then Color. In Photo II he gave us a list of assignments and I went out and shot to his list and tried to give him what he wanted. I got a C in the class and frankly it was C work. I knew it even then, but especially looking at it those prints over the summer when I was packing up my house. Then in Color (same teacher) I took his list of assignments, took my binder full of negatives from my semester in London and summer Eurailing, and found things that matched. At the end of the semester I got an A and when we were reviewing my portfolio he said, "Maybe color is just a better medium for you." And I thought, no, it's because I was taking pictures for me and not for you. He never noticed, or at least never commented, that I spent the semester showing him my summer vacation photos.
I suspect I'll do better on my final project now, though perhaps not grade-wise because I'm sort of cheating. But I'll have a better film because I'm sort of cheating. I looked at his assignment and thought here's a film I want to make that comes close to what he's asking for. He might ding me on the grade because it's following the letter of the assignment but not the spirit of it, but if at the end I have a film I want to show people I won't care. We're looking at the rough cut today and it's so rough it's almost unwatchable. But I see within it the potential to become what I want it to be and I have a few weeks to get it there.
Yep. He isn't a client, this isn't a job. The critique is meant (I hope) to make you think about you film and make it better. Not by doing only the suggested edits, but by being critical yourself on your project and the suggestions are just a start.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of when I was in design class, back in the dark ages, at RPI. The teachers would come and critique your design, and then you would make changes to make the project better before you finally had to present it in front of the class. In the end you learned to stand up for what was meaningful design for you, rather than reacting to every comment you were given by changing the design. I never got an A in design (no woman did back then), but I did learn what elements were important to the design statement I was making. I particularly agree with your comment the other day about scripts. And, having seen the rough cut, I think your finished film is going to be very watchable.
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