How do you take feedback?

So my production opened Thursday night and has enjoyed enormous popular success. I've had lifelong fans of Wodehouse tell me how apt and Wodehousey and funny it was, and people who'd never heard of him tell me that the show has made them want to read him (which pleaseth me greatly).

I've also had other directors (friends, not randoms) tell me that I might not need X setpiece, or maybe I could do Y with Z character, and so on. Whenever other people are around and hear that, they just shut the other person down and tell them off for being offensive or presumptuous or a spoilsport.

My question to you is how do you like it when you get feedback like that for your work? Do you enjoy getting "constructive criticism"?

And how do you take compliments? I, for instance, get bashful and English about it. I'd be interested to hear from you guys about it.

I start by thinking that I have a decent understand of whatever it is I'm presenting/doing. When someone offers a piece of criticism, it's not too hard to tell whether or not they know what they're talking about, and I compare that with how I thought I did. If this checks out, I'll listen to what they have to say and see whether or not I can or should apply the advice. Regardless of whether or not I actually listen and do what they tell me, I assure them of my gratitude and that I will make the changes right away, or at least just hem and haw over the issue until they drop it.

Some are just pretentious people who have a sense of taste, albeit not entirely refined. I usually ignore them, assuring them that I will change anyways. Some are people who clearly have a lot of experience in a field, and I will either lend credence to their words and weigh in the possibility of doing that, or, if they are particularly respected by me, I will try it out pretty much immediately.

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Originally Posted by gwahir

My question to you is how do you like it when you get feedback like that for your work? Do you enjoy getting "constructive criticism"?

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unless i specifically ask for it, fuck no. but the context of the criticism matters a lot, for example if your boss told you you were doing something wrong and how to fix it that would be considered mandatory to follow, but if you painted a picture and joe schmoe walks up and says you didnt use the right colors then fuck him.

i normally just smile and say thank you for your opinion/advice and then either completely disregard it if i don't think it'd benefit me or if i think it would help i'd take it into consideration.

overall tho it varies a lot.

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Originally Posted by faesce

unless i specifically ask for it, fuck no. but the context of the criticism matters a lot, for example if your boss told you you were doing something wrong and how to fix it that would be considered mandatory to follow, but if you painted a picture and joe schmoe walks up and says you didnt use the right colors then fuck him.

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if it was a friend, or a trusted colleague, giving an opinion on your work?

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

I start by thinking that I have a decent understand of whatever it is I'm presenting/doing. When someone offers a piece of criticism, it's not too hard to tell whether or not they know what they're talking about, and I compare that with how I thought I did. If this checks out, I'll listen to what they have to say and see whether or not I can or should apply the advice. Regardless of whether or not I actually listen and do what they tell me, I assure them of my gratitude and that I will make the changes right away, or at least just hem and haw over the issue until they drop it.

Some are just pretentious people who have a sense of taste, albeit not entirely refined. I usually ignore them, assuring them that I will change anyways. Some are people who clearly have a lot of experience in a field, and I will either lend credence to their words and weigh in the possibility of doing that, or, if they are particularly respected by me, I will try it out pretty much immediately.

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this is curious to me. i NEVER tell people i'll make the suggested change -- rarely i might say that if i actually plan to do it, but more likely i just mull it over and make some kind of thinky face. when faced with criticism from joe schmo, i react pretty much the same way i do when it's a trusted friend, which is to defend my choice to not do that, explain my choice, or just non-commitally tell them "that's a good point" to give me time to think about it. i react the same way to joe schmo as i do to trusted colleagues, because i've learnt that any joe schmo might actually be a person of trusted-colleague-calibre (even though the majority are not).

i guess i am just a pathological liar

generally though, unless it's a completely retarded idea, i'll give something a shot anyways to see how it works, but rarely will i stick with the suggestion

i guess that playing a song or altering my way of making music doesn't correlated to staging a play, though, so i mean take my advice with several grains of salt

yeah true

i think playing music is much more personal whereas as a director the ideal is to disappear completely, so the advice has to be treated differently

clearly, it's a jewish conspiracy but then i don't know how trustworthy i am

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Originally Posted by gwahir

if it was a friend, or a trusted colleague, giving an opinion on your work?

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i would be even more truthful than if it was a stranger. for example in music (just parallel it to theatre if you want) if i make a song with a fat electro vibe to it and an amazing producer (or a friend with musical background) comes up to me and tries to say it needs some tribal trance elements i would probably ask him to either remix it himself or stop being a dumb prick and trying to interject a completely different idea into my creation.

that being said, it also depends on how they word their suggestion. examples:

reaction: "man that would sound great if you xx"
response: "ok you dumb faggot remix/produce it yourself"

reaction: "i like the way that xx sounds, what do you think of changing xx a little to make it sound more xx?"
response: "ill definitely give it a try, although im not sure that's what i'm going for"

reaction: "great elements, i wouldnt change anything outright, but the eq sounds a bit off"
response: "thank you for your opinion, i'll look into that"

in general, i usually brush off criticism and ideas unless i'm actively seeking them, although the occasional suggestion goes a long way in some situations

I take it medium-rare with a side of A1.

I wanted our english class to read Catch 22 but our teacher said that if anybody suggested a book she would not use it in class because the suggester would probably have already read it. But she also told us that if we didnt suggest a book then she wouldnt be able to use it because she wouldnt have known about the desire to read it. It was a bit of a ca....oh hang on