 Welcome back. And today I want to talk about how to give feedback. And this time I'm going to flip it over and it's all about how to give feedback. But before I do, hi, I'm JD. I do acting analysis clips, animation analysis clips, review reviews, product reviews. I post my feedback for my workshops on here. There's all kinds of stuff. And if you like this, feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button so you don't miss any of my uploads. So feedback, I have a whole list of items here I want to talk about when I group that into if you have time and if you don't have time, which is much smaller. So I want to start with more general ideas around feedback and then go into more detailed stuff. As I said, this is all about when you have time, time to watch, time to discuss things, time to give critique. But even then there's a difference between a life class and something you record for someone. So life class could be now Zoom because of the lockdown or on site, one-on-one work with a group of people. So let's pretend you are in the life class in person or online. There's a good chance that you're going to watch the clip for the first time with the artists in front of you. And they will see your reaction. So this generally would be mindful of that. So if you see something that you don't like, just go, that was weird. Might not be the nicest thing to say. At the same time, if you like something, just don't hold back with your reactions. We're like, oh, that was cool. I like that. Like the initial feedback, the initial reaction is a fun thing to see for the artist that submits your animation. So having your honest reaction in terms of a laughter or something like, oh, that was cool and excitement. That is cool to see for the artist. Now, if it's not live and you're recording it, then a couple of things. You either don't record your first time of watching an eclipse that could be boring. So the students going, what is this teacher doing? Kind of silently watching. Especially if it's a long clip, it could be boring. Unless you tell your students, maybe it could be at the beginning of your class as you explain how your class works. Listen, I'm going to watch this for the first time. This might be boring, but I'm going to watch it. I'm going to have my reaction to it. And then I'm going to go through the points. So maybe if there's a disclaimer, it could be OK. Now, if you watch my feedback on my channel, I do watch it silently. That's because people who might watch this, they don't know the shot and they need to see what is the shot about. To just think about where are you? Who's seeing this? Is it necessary? Is it time consuming? And is it boring or not to watch a clip in silence for the first time? So just kind of look at that environment. Now, actually, before I watch, I ask the animator, what am I supposed to look at and what is the stage of your shot? So is this layout? Is this blocking? Is this polish? Because that will change the way I look at it and what I will critique. Because if I see a shot and that there's no disclaimer, I'm going to go, all right, well, no, there might be this, this, this. And then later on, the person goes, well, this is just layout or early blocking, then, you know, I haven't touched the fingers or the face yet. So it's important to know the context and the state of the shot. And at the same time, it's also good to ask if there's anything you as the person critiquing the shot need to focus on. So let's say, ignore the face, ignore the fingers. This is just body mechanics, ignore the surrounding characters, ignore the left arm, I don't like this something. So you need to know what is the stage and what you need to focus on. And if you look at a shot that has been critiqued already, you might ask, what did you implement? Did you address all the notes? Is there something you weren't able to do yet? And I should ignore to kind of look at the stage of the shot, the timeline, what they've worked on, just kind of get a better sense of what the shot is and what you need to focus on before you just launch into a five hour critique session. No one does five hours. I also ask if the shot is an exercise or a demo reel. So if it's an exercise, sometimes you kind of ignore all kinds of things. It's just there for fun. You practice, you just kind of go through the motions or focus on only a certain thing. Versus if it's for a demo reel, you have to kind of look like, how does the shot fit within the rest of the demo reel? What are you showcasing in that shot? The specific skill set you want to showcase, look at the presentation. So there are different criteria, at least to me, if there's an exercise versus a demo reel shot. But also not every shot needs to be super polished. It's also okay to just do a shot for practice and for fun. So again, ask for context, ask what this is for and what the goal is of the shot. So once you know all of this, it's good to go broad and then detailed. Because you don't want to look at a shot and go, okay, well now the finger there and the overlap there and the eye blink and the squishiness and all that stuff, none of that matters if the general body mechanics are not working. I want to address the bigger points first and then save the detail for later. Mostly if it's a shot shown for the first time. Now, if you've gone through a couple rounds with your students and you're in the polished phase, of course, you can go into details again, context is super important. Now, a common thing for critiques is to do kind of the critique sandwich. You start with something nice, then it's something more critical and then something nice again. So it's positive, like, oh, that's cool and you want to point out what's good. Now, okay, we got to fix this, this and this and not leave it on like a downer. Like, oh, this is so much to fix but you can still end it with, no, that's good. And then that works and blah, blah, blah. So it's kind of that critique sandwich. If that's your style, I think generally you definitely need to mention what is good and what works and not just go into this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. Which is important for the students to learn what they did well and what worked and not just focus on, again, this doesn't work. It just gets very negative and just focus on what doesn't work. So there's a big difference between criticism and critique. Also, don't just say, this doesn't work and then leave it at that. The student's going to go, okay, why? Hopefully they ask why. So when you point out something that doesn't work, offer solution, offer fixes, offer resources. Maybe suggest ideas, but make sure that the student has somewhere to go. So when they know that this doesn't work, well, what could I do? Here is a selection of things that will help you. So overall, try to make the person understand why it doesn't work and then offer ideas and solutions. Because you don't just want to dictate, this is bad, do this, this and this and that's it. Because then the artist is not going to understand, okay, well, why? Because the next time they do something, they're going to make the same mistakes. Now don't overload the artist with notes. They might not have the skill set to address all those notes for many reasons. A, they might not understand all of it. Maybe the notes are too detailed. So maybe stick to broader points first so that they can address that as a whole and then get into detail later. Also factor in the deadlines. The student has deadlines. So if the class has a workflow where maybe you've got three weeks for a shot and this is week three, this is the last time they have to address things that's going to be different than week one. So kind of look at, are they able to address all the notes? Do they have the knowledge and the resources to do so and do they have the time to do so? And I mentioned this is kind of a block of when you have enough time to talk about shots. That doesn't mean that you should take all the time to talk about the shot. So mention what's good, pinpoint the problems, offer solutions for that and move on. But don't ramble and like, yeah, I don't know. Let's see what we could do. At the same time, if you ramble, that's probably a sign that you don't know what to say. And that's okay. You might see a shot and you might tell the artist, listen, I don't know what to fix. This something feels off, but I don't know yet how to fix this. So it's better to tell the student, I'll get to this later. I'll circle back maybe at the end of the class or the next day via email or however the setup is. Don't just ramble and waste people's time, especially if it's a classroom with multiple people. And sometimes you just don't know it. You can't know everything. It's better to say, I don't know. Let me think about this. Then worrying about your ego and having a solution and the answer for everything and just giving bad advice. Now, don't expect the students to understand everything you're saying. You have to kind of look at how each student prefers to receive the feedback. Are they okay with just you telling them something versus doing drawers versus acting things out or even opening up the scene and doing a demo in front of them? I think each student will have a different way of learning and retaining and understanding information. So you have to kind of go one by one. Don't just have a blanket way for the whole class. And if you notice that the shot just doesn't work and it's maybe too much for the students, it's also okay to suggest to put the shot aside and take certain elements and suggest a shorter shot. So if there's a broader thing with mechanics and acting and there's just too many things that the person needs to fix, then suggest, listen, let's just go back to the basics. Let's take the idea of a sit-down, of a reaction, of a thought process, whatever it is and make it a short couple of seconds, like two, three seconds shot to practice that. Once the student has a better understanding of that little thing, they can go back into their bigger shot and apply that. So otherwise, they get overwhelmed with all that stuff and do small exercises just to kind of focus on certain principles. Now, after you've given all that feedback, it's important to encourage questions. There needs to be feedback from the artist. And not just feedback, but also explanations. Maybe you misunderstood something. So then once you get explanations from the artist, you go, oh, and you adjust your critique. So work together and ask the student questions and hope that they have questions. But ultimately, you want the artist to have ownership over the shot. But again, if you just go in there and then dictate what to do, you end up animating through the artist. You don't want the end result to be what you would have done. You want to make sure that the shot still represents the vision and the sense of humor and the personality of the artist. So ask questions, have a dialogue, brainstorm together. So at the end, it's still their product. You're just there to help them get there. Now you might be in a classroom where you have five, 10, 15, 20 students, I don't know. But each student is going to have a different obviously skill set and way of learning. And some people take the feedback, with the revision it's there and it's great. And other people just take more time to understand and work through that. And from feedback that I heard from some students, this is bad to hear, but some teachers favor students. So if someone is easy to work with, they're going to spend more time and help them. Then they get to the next student, they know how this person has a harder time on the stand. It's going to take longer or the shot is too rough. They kind of just kind of glance over like, yeah, it's fine to move on. That's horrible. Spend quality time. I'm not saying the same amount of time because there's a difference between a minute and 10 minutes. Some people just are okay with 10 seconds. Some people need a minute. But make sure that you take the time for each student to help them understand what they need to fix. And if one student takes longer and it's more difficult for you to get through that students, layers of whatever issues they have, but that is your job as a teacher, you got to go through that. And I think it's important as a teacher and when you give feedback to focus on students like this and make sure you do and practice that. It's one of the things I'm not a super fan of is that when you have classes that where you have to submit portfolios. Sure, I mean, I know there's a time and place for all that, but there comes a point where when you only get portfolios and you only choose the good students and with shots that work and where you can just kind of have a quick discussions of like at work, I can do this and that and it's fine. There's not really a real challenge. You're not saying you're not teaching, obviously you are. But if you are in a position where you can teach, make sure that you also teach people who really need a lot of work. And don't just focus on people who submitted their portfolios and they're great and it's just easier to work with them. And circling back to the type of feedback you're gonna give, you also have to be aware that some people might have certain disabilities in your class and they don't understand how you're teaching, what you're saying. Something else that I do for my classes, I let the students email me privately if they have any special requests. Depending on the laws and the classes sometimes, you won't be aware of the disabilities or you can't ask or they won't tell you that you just kind of have to look at what the setup is. So you might not know that one of your students is colorblind or has any other disabilities that will make it harder for them to understand what you're saying. And maybe you don't want to say anything in front of the class either. So what I do in the beginning of the class, give them an email, they can email me privately and lay out any issues that they have or any requests. And overall, just be encouraging. Don't tear people down, don't feel like you are in this power position with your ego and you're like, this is bad, you're not helping anybody. So just be nice, be encouraging and try to help. Now, you take all of this, what I just said, you know, shrink it down. So when you are in a situation where you don't have time, this could be you are at CTN or something and someone asks you for quick feedback or it's the end of the semester, or just any situation where you only have a few minutes or the student needs the most amount of time to fix things. So what I do then, I focus on the things that stand out. Then I pick maybe three. I say this and my students know they're usually more than three. I have a watch to shop. If there's anything I go, that's weird. The wait is off. There's still a pop or something is not clear. Anything that makes me cringe, that needs to be addressed first. This could be one thing. This could be two or three. Again, don't make it too long. They're gonna run out of time. So basically shop breakers need to be addressed first. Then I list the things that ideally should be fixed as well. And at the end, you have those extra details. They're not gonna make or break the shop. But then you might ask, why include them? I know, but sometimes you wanna put that extra flirtures, have fun with it and like those awesome polished details. But it's up to you to gauge also, is that really important? Does the student need this? But I would still mention it. So then the student can decide if time permits to implement that or not or maybe just take those notes, learn from them and implement that into the next shop. So shop breakers first, next pass. If you have time, this would be really good. And if you really have too much time, this would be sweet. That's kind of the end of my list. I've sure forgot something. I will add it in the comments or might do a part two. But for now, that's it. And if you watch this and if you have experience with this where you have other tips, feel free to comment. And if you're a student who's receiving feedback and you have other ideas or how you want to receive feedback, again, comment, let me know, be good to learn more. And speaking about learning more, if you want to learn more and you want me to help you with your shots, I have workshops as always. They're open for signups at any time. Link in the description with all the information. If you feel like this information was helpful and you don't want to miss any of this, feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button. I upload every day except weekends. And if you're still watching after all this time, as always, thank you so much for your time and patience. And that's it from me and I will see you in my next upload.