Joe Schoen — Crit Assignment

I feel that critiques are very useful for improving one’s work. After working on something for a long time, you start to become too close to it, so it’s good to get an outside perspective to pick up something you may have missed or have not considered.

The only instance that I feel I participated in a true critique was in my Visual Foundation Studio class. In that class, each student would hang their work on the wall and the class as a group would look at each piece of work one at a time and provide feedback. I found that this was very helpful in improving my work because I would receive feedback from the entire class. It also helped me become better at determining what feedback would actually be helpful and what kind of feedback I could disregard.

I was in other classes that had critique sessions as well, but I feel that they weren’t as effective because the only people who would provide feedback were a handful of people who volunteered so the feedback would usually not be as helpful.

In the critiques for this class, I hope to get feedback that will make the final result more enjoyable for those who view it as it will ultimately be a short film. I feel that the repeat back crit style would be the best approach. This is because since everyone is doing something unique and that they are passionate, I feel I would not be able to offer sufficient advice or pointers for the technical aspects of their projects because I do not have as much experience. Because of this, I feel that trying to repeat the idea in their own words is a better indicator if the student is getting their project across in the way they are intending.