 Welcome back to FNA and today I want to talk about presenting your work and receiving feedback from a student perspective. I say student perspective because there's a difference when you are presenting work as a student, when you're presenting work as a professional at a company, and also then will be the flip side of when you give feedback. But that is probably a pro tip when you are in a professional environment. How do you get feedback? So different series. Today I want to focus on part one presenting what to focus on and when you receive feedback what to focus on. And if you're just joining this channel for the first time, my name is JD and I'm covering lectures like these on my channel, acting analysis for animators, animation analysis, product reviews, review reviews, animation news and I post my feedback from my workshop. So all kinds of things that are hopefully of interest to you. So if you like all this, subscribe, hit that bell button so you don't miss any of those. All right, this is more or less in order but sometimes not really and I'm looking at my first note and it's geometry only. Obviously there are many other things you should consider as you present the guidelines of whatever the class curriculum is with the size, with or without a frame counter or ideally just visually obviously follow those guidelines of being where you are but just geometry only so it's clean. No locators floating around, no nerves controllers or anything else that is distracting, no heads up display just plainly geometry so we can see and judge your shop. Now if you're not prompted by the teacher, mentor or whoever, clarify what you are showing. This is layout. This is previous. This is blocking. This is polish in progress. All kinds of things. That will give the person who gives you feedback a framework to kind of adjust the critiques because if I hear layouts, totally different expectations than if you say polish and then it looks like layout. Speaking of blocking, I have a series about blocking and what really goes into presenting something in a blocking stage so make sure you check that out. That's the longest series. I'm not going to cover it here again. And when you do present something, clarify what needs feedback. Again asking for feedback and giving feedback, there'll be some overlaps. So if the teacher is not telling you this, you can help with the feedback by telling the person, I need feedback on everything. I need feedback on the camera only. Any feedback on the general story, the feeling, the emotion. I need feedback on body mechanics. I need feedback on everything except the left arm. I need especially details on fingers. So giving kind of an outline and framework for the person that gives you feedback for it is very helpful. It saves time. It will help you be more focused. Now speaking of whoever's going to give you feedback, there's also a difference between presenting something at a school or at a conference or one on one. More on that later. If you're at a school, you're going to have other people waiting for feedback. If you're at a conference, you might be standing in a line with a lot of people. There's not a lot of time versus if it's one on one and there's plenty of time potentially. So kind of consider where you are, the environment, how many people are waiting behind you. How much time do you have? How much time does the person have who gives you feedback? And again, this goes back into just presenting a certain framework because if you are at a conference and you only have five minutes, then you won't go, hey, can you look at everything common and everything? You might go, can you just comment on the general field, maybe if it's a demo or real versus a single shot, you can say, what is the worst shot on the real? What is the best shot on the real? So you kind of be specific depending on where you are, but more on that later. So once all that is clarified, everything is clean and you know what you want to hear and the person knows what they're supposed to comment on. I also recommend to just say nothing. Just let the person watch what you are presenting. Don't interrupt. Don't explain things. Don't explain the story. Just have the person watch it. No spoilers. Nothing that will change the impression, whatever, because you want a first impression of your shot. That way the person gives you feedback can say, OK, I don't quite get this, this and this, and you will immediately identify what needs work. So if you present something and you get, well, you know, this is the story and at the end, this happens, then it's already kind of tainted because then the person who gives you feedback will expect that with us. It won't be as first impression clear. If that makes sense where you can quickly go and didn't make sense. This was too fast. This was jarring. The ending was cut out too soon. So try to just give context, be clean and everything in presentation and then sit back and let the person watch your shot or your sequence and then wait until the person's done and ask you questions. Potentially, it just gives you feedback, which brings me to the second part. Receiving feedback as they meet a caveat. Just remember, and ideally the people giving a feedback will be that respectful, but the feedback you're getting is feedback on what they just saw. It's thoughts and ideas and impressions and whatever it is subjectively on what they just saw and its notes on that work and not you as a person, not you as your character, not you as a human being. When I say this because every now and then I see different reactions on how people take feedback. Sometimes they are extremely relaxed about it. It's like, okay, I can do that. Fine. And sometimes this is rare, but it happens where students just completely blow up and either verbally or as I've gotten in an email forms completely misunderstands the intention behind the notes. So when something gets explained, well, this, this and this would change because of blah, blah, blah. And your reaction is, well, I know what I'm doing and how dare you tell me this. And I think my idea is better and blah, blah, blah. Say, okay, well, maybe your idea is better. But the comment might just be neutrally on body mechanics and spacing and timing and just visually how things could be cleaned up and has nothing to do with questioning your intelligence or your hard work behind it. And again, that will be a different part, concentrating on the person giving feedback. But again, if you are receiving feedback, just know this is hopefully purely just on the shop. You might run into someone who didn't just kind of goes tangent and starts questioning you that really should not happen. Feel free to call that person out. And just like when you're presenting and not saying anything, when someone gives you feedback, don't interrupt. Just listen. And it doesn't mean that you have to roll over and just take everything that the person is saying. But the person might also just form opinions and just kind of react and find a way to, oh, maybe you can do this. So just also let that person gather their thoughts and explain things. Well, sometimes you, for me, as I, as I comment on shots, sometimes I have an idea. Then as I formulate my ideas, I realized, man, wait, I'm actually wrong. What about this? And then you just, you find your way. So don't expect people to know everything and have their best comments right away. Sometimes you also find the, the source of the problem of what they're seeing. So sometimes it's just messy and it takes some time. But ideally I would just let them talk and listen and take notes. You might think that you are going to remember everything, but chances are you won't. And I see that a lot when the next time an update comes in and certain things are missing, like why, what happened? Why is that missing? Oh, I forgot to do that. So you might think you remember everything, just in case, write it all down and also just some visual thing. It shows that you are taking the feedback seriously or at least respecting the time that the person takes to keep your feedback. It's just something that you, it feels more professional, just someone is taking notes. I would say most of the time since someone is not taking notes, the update that comes later, it's just not what it's supposed to be. And you can tell that person did not remember things. Now, as you receive the feedback and you're writing things down, you might write things down and realize what I did this and what, and I thought about this. So it's a very common thing to defend yourself and to defend your shop. I still do this at work. I try to keep it, you know, to a minimum and sometimes it's almost passive aggressive, but more on that in my other part. But again, think about the context and the perspective of that person, what they see, they might not know the rest of the story. They might not know how much work you put in. Again, it's not a critique on you and your work ethic, but it's normal. You're human, you have emotions. Sometimes you might react, maybe you might be angry. You might be offended. You might like, why would you tell me this? And don't you see that I'm, that I put all this work into it? They may or may not. So one of the things too, when you receive feedback, it's just to don't take it personally, don't get angry, just write it down and read through the notes. And you can always address those notes at a later point privately or via email the next week or the next day. Cause sometimes you get notes, you go like, really? And then after a while you sit on them, you go, oh yeah. Sometimes I receive notes and I go, no way. And then you do it all. And at the end, you see it all in context. You go, oh yeah. Yeah, they were right. And if you start defending yourself too, it's also you take up time. I'm not saying that you're wrong in defending. Maybe your point is super valid. Or you have to look at the context, like I said before, if it's in a conference, in a classroom or one on one. So sometimes when feedback is given, a person might start defending and it's going to be a back and forth in a long discussion. Everybody else is waiting for their turn and their time to get feedback. So just to be mindful of who else is around you. And is it the right time to go into that discussion? So kind of read the room, but be open to change. Right. So you might have done crazy amount of work and you think everything's fantastic and you get the notes. You go, really? But again, be open to that because sometimes you get notes and maybe the notes are clumsy and you feel like that's not right. But then as you think about it, oh, maybe that person thinks that because of something else in the shot. So sometimes something in the shot doesn't work, but the person in your feedback might not be able to pinpoint the exact thing, but it's still a reflection of something that doesn't quite work. So sometimes through a discussion at a later point, again, read the room, you might get to the actual problem of the shot or sometimes it's going to be you where you read through this, like, oh, I'm not going to do this, but I know what that person meant. Let me fix that. But just generally be open to change. That being said, if you don't understand the notes, ask questions, don't be a drone. Don't just go, OK, OK, OK, write it down and have no idea what they're saying. It's OK to say, OK, write it down just because of time issues and blah, blah, blah, again, contacts that may be followed up later on. But if you write things down, you go and understand this and there is the right moment and time to ask questions, absolutely ask questions. You don't want to write things down and just blindly implement the notes without understanding why you're doing it, because the next time when you work in your shot, you're going to make the same mistakes because you don't understand what you just fixed and why. So absolutely ask questions if you don't understand the notes and it's absolutely OK to defend here. I am saying defend again, but I mean defending the tone, the intention and the personality of your shot. And by that, I mean sometimes you get feedback and then it's notes that kind of reflect how the person would animate your shot. And at the end, if you implement this, the shot, it's going to end up looking like what that person would have done. So that person can animate it through you. And that's tricky because I mean, you're paying probably good money at that school. It's your time and your money or your parents money or wherever finances that right. And at the end, when the shot is done, it's not really you. It's not your personality. And ultimately in the shots, everybody expects some high polish. But what's going to stand out are your ideas. It's your personality, your sense of timing, your quirky sense of the story that's going to stand out. And that's what's going to get you an interview. So you have to still retain yourself if that makes sense in the shot. So be careful that when you do get notes that they don't make you veer off of the initial idea and intention of the shot to trust your instincts. Be yourself and any good teacher will receive that feedback too. So if you get this, you're like, ah, this is this gets too slapsticky. I want this to be a bit more subtle and a bit more somber or whatever it is. Then a good teacher will say, oh, OK, well, let me adjust my notes to fit that. They're not going to go, no, it should be like this like that. I don't agree with that at all. Something else to consider though is that when you do have a shot, is it a shot that you're just doing for yourself? Is it a shot for a demo reel or is it a shot for just a totally different target audience? Because you also have to look at you might be working on something and you get notes. You don't like the notes, but the notes work for the intended target audience or for the style of the company. If that makes sense, right? You might have a shot and like, I know I would have done this a bit differently, but OK, well, maybe you have done that style will not fit the company that you want to send that reel to. So you're still going to have to make adjustments. Otherwise, why send that to that company? So yes, ideally you want to be you and then your shot needs to reflect you and your sense of you and everything, but just be mindful that when you show that and the person gives you comments, it might be in the context of this is fine. This is cool. But if you want to send this shot to this person, this company or whatever, you might have to make some adjustment and then it's just up to you to go, OK, then you adjust your shot to fit the target audience or you go, no, I'm not going to make changes because I want to keep my personality in there. And then it's just a reel that's online. That's a reflection of you, which is also totally fine. Now, if you're showing your shot and this is not in a school environment, you're showing your shot maybe at a conference to multiple people. So you have multiple sources of feedback. It's also kind of up to you to filter the feedback. If you have nine out of ten comments, but the same thing, it's probably worth addressing. But if you have ten people and ten comments are totally different, you go, all right, well, I got to make a judgment call. I only have so much time. I'm going to fix this, this and this. I'm going to ignore this, this and this. So look for overlapping notes. But at the end, you're still going to make your own judgment call. And if you are at a conference and could be SIGGRAPH, could be CTN, whatever, even at school, at the end, I know this sounds super silly. Just say thank you like someone took the time to critique something. That'd be the teacher, that's the job, right? But if you are somewhere at a conference and you ask them, hey, do you have a second? Can you look at my shot? And the person give you feedback, just say thank you. Because why not be kind? Sometimes I get feedback and people scan whatever and they walk away like, okay, well, I spent time here and you didn't have to ask me. And it kind of goes into your invisible resume. There's still an impression that you make as you ask someone for feedback and you have a conversation in a relationship. You also want to come across as someone that person is nice and we can work with that person, they're reasonable and so on and so on. It's basically don't be rude and don't worry, that applies to people giving feedback as well. And that is kind of my, as always, objective side of when you are a student, this is what I would pay attention to. There's more to talk about, especially on the other side. And speaking of other side, if you have a shot and you need another side to comment on your shot, I have workshops so you can sign up at any time. We can work together and I'll give you my side of my impression of your shot, whatever. Link in the description or information and you can sign up for my workshops at any time. They are open at all times. Speaking of time, thank you so much for still watching this till the very end. And again, if you don't want to miss any of my uploads, feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button. Any questions about this, feedback, feedback, comments are open, let me know if you have any questions about what I just said. Other than that, that's it from me and I will see you in my next clip.