The Hitchhikers Guide to Giving and Receiving Good Feedback

There's good feedback and there's bad feedback. The best kind of feedback is when we use positive and negative feedback hand in hand to build up and help the filmmaker. An example of this would be saying something that you liked intertwined with things that could be improved. A steady stream of negative feedback has serious potential to put the author on the defensive side, and can really be discouraging. If we are tactful in our giving of feedback we can be great aids to our classmates on their projects. This type of criticism and feedback can build trust. I believe that trust is a huge part in giving and receiving feedback. The person giving suggestions needs to trust that the person receiving those suggestions will not be angry or offended by he/she has said; just as the person receiving suggestions should trust that the feedback he/she is receiving is valid, genuine, and done with their best interests in mind.

I also think that often times we are prideful whether giving or receiving feedback. Remembering that we are all on the same team trying to help each other out is huge part of feedback. We can't take someone else's work and compare it to our own trying to defend what we have done and how it is better than our classmates work. This can seriously impede our ability to effectively criticize, and give good helpful feedback. Also as the receiver of feedback we cannot get offended. Right now a lot of our work is just simply uninteresting, dull, mundane, and overall not very good. It takes a lot of work to become good filmmakers, and not taking good suggestions from people who are trying to help us is sheer foolery.

In reading about feedback my thoughts about their necessity were established. Good feedback can help build and create incredible films. We need help from others, and if we never try to improve with the help of others we are what you could call "a lost cause." In class I realize more and more that the best feedback is the feedback that touches on specific things, and is coupled with positive and negative criticism. We are in a funny industry where everyone is a critic and has something to say. More often than not it is intended to hurt, tear down, or make fun of. To avoid this we need to trust each other and work towards the same goal. We need to respect that some people are simply better at some things than we are and we need to take their suggestions. Feedback is the best, and without it we are nothing!