GROUP CRITIC

I recently had a group critic, in this critic I showed my clips projected onto the wall, and had the sound playing from the clips. As we were speaking about the work I continued to play the videos but muted the sound. I included most of the clips I’d filmed, knowing that i wasn’t going to be using all these clips In my final piece.

These are some of the notes I took:

• Seem like the clips are memories
• Felt uneasy watching the clips
• “with the clips being so short, I felt like each new clip was an interruption”
• felt nostalgic
• each clip felt like a diary entry
• distraction
• clips without the sound felt more nostalgic
• could edit the video to making the dark areas black and the lights would appear brighter
• preferred no sound on the clips

 

I found these comments really helpful, a lot of people understood that my clips were about the connotation of flashing lights, as they saw different scenarios where flashing lights framed certain situations, like the ambulance and club lights.

This was the first time I showed my clips as a projection and my group seemed to like them being shown that way. I discussed how this way I felt it was more immersive and I felt like that would capture the audiences interest, they seemed to agree with this point.

I capture my clips in the moment and don’t plan to film anything, and I found it interesting how someone brought up the idea of it almost being a diary entry. I hadn’t thought of it this way but I guess in a way they sort of are, however I don’t them to be personal to me as I wanted the viewer to almost feel as if this happened in there lives, as its something we all experience a lot.

The word nostalgic was said multiple times during my critic, which I was happy about as like I discussed above I want the clips to be what everyone else could have come across in day to day life. Therefore this reassured me that what I was trying to portray, was being received the correct way.

When I played my clips I played them with sound, the group seemed to like this but laughed a couple of times (as did I) when random bits of unrelated conversation were in the background of some clips, which I felt then disconnected you with the piece. However I played the sound because for 80% of the clips I feel like the noises in the background work perfectly, its just the 20% that let it down. I then had the clips playing in the background but muted the sound when we were speaking, as a group we would stop at moments to look at the clips and then it was mentioned that it was also very effective with no sound, and a few said they preferred this as it felt more nostalgic. This definitely got me thinking as to where I could go from here, and in what way I’ll end up showing it.