“Everybody needs feedback, and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a trainer.”
In any field feedback is the easiest and the fastest way to grow. If you stay isolated in your own cocoon you have no idea what you are missing.
This goes specially in Animation where its(should be?) mandatory to get and give feedback as Animation is all about team work and bouncing off ideas can have a powerful impact(both positive and negative) on our work. Now the key here is not everyone can take or give feedback in the way it should be. In my personal experience I had many bitter experiences where in when I gave feedback, they thanked me by sending me infuriating mails asking how can I criticise their work, that I have no right to my opinions, I am in no way superior to give feedback…blah blah blah.
And then when I asked for feedback, it was as if they had some personal grudge against me and this was their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get back at me with vengeance. They pointed all the mistakes in all aspects of my life but just leaving a small bit of it…that was in the context of my work I showed them !!!
Now I am not saying that I am a “Yoda” in giving or taking feedback, but the examples I gave were at the two extreme opposite ends of a spectrum and clearly their reaction was not warranted at all.
Now I can go on and on, but it seems prudent to direct you to read what Carlos Baena(Animator, Pixar and Co-founder Animation Mentor) has to say about giving and receiving feedback.
Though everything in that article makes a lot of sense, there is one line which I think every Animator should have it posted somewhere where they can see it all the time :
“It’s important to know that getting feedback is about improving a shot, and not judging the animators skills.”
@|b
