Maximizing Artistic Critique: Improving Communication for Everyone Involved in Critical Feedback

[Music] hi I'm Jeff Hester I'm an artist at Harmonix and welcome to the talk maximizing critique improving communication where everyone involved in critical feedback conversations that involve critical feedback are part of our everyday lives as video game developers this talk is in the art track and I'm an artist and most examples we'll be using there's our art but the top things I'll be covering are relevant across all disciplines and in between all disciplines the conversations that we have that involve giving each other feedback happen all over and everyone in all of our companies and one thing that we can do as artists is we often have come from a background in art school where these kinds of conversations have been a really integral part of our education and I hope that the talk today is going to give some even four artists some fresh insight on some strategies we can do to improve the ways we give and

receive critical feedback or at least articulate what we already might be doing intuitively having come through art school um but one thing we could also do those of us who are artists and have this background is we can really use that background is to be leaders in our own companies in helping to change company culture and improve this kind of dialogue across and in between all disciplines so hopefully I'll be giving you some some some fuel and some some some strategies you can do to do that when conversations involve critical feedback go well our products get better we increase efficiency we increase team cohesion but when those conversations go poorly then they result in wasted work adrift and create a vision and just really bad team morale and by badly I don't mean what we normally think of as just bad you know I don't mean somebody saying oh that sucks we know that's bad feedback but I mean there's often a lot of times that feedback is just okay or it's neutral it's and it's not being as effective and

actionable as it can be and we're going to talk about that a lot today how we take feedback that's alright and make it awesome so my background interest in this was pretty far back before I worked in in video games I taught for a long time for more than 10 years and in China and in the Rhode Island School of Design and at the New York Academy I've also taught a lot of workshops at places like the Metropolitan Museum fisher-price turbine and harmonics and during this time of teaching I became really interested in the idea of critical feedback and group critiques and how it is that we give good feedback when is effective or is it not and a lot of that came out of my own challenges to do it well and when it went bad when when it went well and trying to take those moments and find out what it was about them that was either good or bad and about seven years ago I was fortunate enough to start working at harmonics which is an awesome company I can't say enough great things about it and one of

the great things about harmonics is it has an amazing culture of critical feedback especially in the art department and I found that the work and thoughts I'd done as an artist and as a teacher before that really fit in really well and worked it was great to experience that at harmonics while there I've worked on rock band 3 I've been on lots of research and development teams especially adding up to a Fantasia where I was the lead environment artist and most recently I'm now currently working on the Harmonix music visualizer Harmonix music VR so while I was teaching one of the things I would often talk about with students is this word crit what the hell does that mean and I would say to them especially when they're freshmen we say ok we're gonna have a crit today we talk about that well what is that the freshmen often didn't know they often didn't know it doesn't mean criticized or is any critique and there's a big difference between those two things and we start to talk about what is the difference what is different from criticizing critique well criticize is much more superficial it's your initial response is the first

response you might say it often tends to be more about personal preference it often tends to be very judgmental it's not it's just what happens to come out and it's much more on the surface whereas critique is about taking something apart analyzing it looking at it from all levels looking inside of it understanding how it works and that might lead to judgment it might lead to assessment in terms of is it working well or is it not working well but that assessment is not the main part of critique they may part of critique is the analysis so critique is more objective it's analytical it's reflective it's deeper it's going into the surface of something understanding for what it is and often when feedback is not as helpful or as actionable as it can be it's because it's living on that that that realm of just being something that's at someone's just criticizing well it becomes much more actionable it's heading into being more critique one of the unique things about this talk today is I'm not going to focus on how we are more effective in giving feedback but I'm also going to talk about a lot of strategies for how we can receive clayback feedback more effectively you know often any bit of feedback you get it might be as nasty

old lump of coal but you you don't have to leave it that way just because it came that way your there are ways you can take that nasty lump of coal and turn it into a diamond and must-try give it to some strategies to help start thinking about ways to do that often we think about feedback we think about being a one-way street the giver going right to the receiver and one thing is really problematic with this is often people think that I don't need to think about the person who's receiving this feedback it's their fault if they can't understand it they need to have a tough skin and you know what that's [ __ ] you know because feedback is these feedback loops our moments when we can really have a deep conversation and build community in our companies and if we're not thinking about it as a two-way street if we're thinking about just as a one-way loop we're not really caring about the person who's receiving it then we're missing a huge opportunity to build relationships in the company and and build our whole creative environment but we start to think of it as a two-way street you can start to think about it and passively if you're giving feedback how are you thinking about how is going to be received the person receiving it if

you're receiving feedback how are you thinking about it from the cup from the person who's giving it you know are you going to assume this the best intentions or even or you're not going to send its distant best intentions so we need to have empathy on both ends of this and see it as a two-way dialogue that we're really working together toward a common good before I get to a few strategies goals are one of the most important things we can think about more giving critical feedback if you remember nothing else I talked about today none of the specific strategies I'm going to go over just remember this if you have a goal if you if you articulated your goal when you about to start giving a receiving critical feedback right away you're going to start heading more into a form of critique rather than just criticizing because having that goal is going to help you be dug in under the surface of what you're doing and let me give you a few examples of the kinds of goals that I was keeping in mind where I'm designing the strategies we'll talk about today the first one is aligned to work with the art direction this is a great default goal to have you know if you're not sure what goal to have just think about this one because right away you're going to start giving a context here contextualizing the feedback you give

and giving it some sort of larger reason for being that's going to help it be much more relevant and much more actionable leave room for creative problem-solving this is a great goal for helping that two-way dialogue if you're if you're leaving room for the person you're getting feedback to solve the problem creatively then you're then you're already inviting them into the problem you're thinking about it more as a dialogue rather than a one-way street encourage team spirit and cohesion keep that in mind with critical feedback and things will really be helping to make sure your feedback is is being effectively received and developing a desire for feedback this is true of both receiving and giving feedback it it helps us to embrace it as a wonderful act not this moment we have to fear you know you know they to have this these pillows at RISD that people would sit on it was like don't crit happens like it's just just just furthering this culture that crit was bad Oh crit happens and no crit doesn't yeah yeah crit happens it's awesome it's this wonderful moment of working together sharing it's a great

time not something to be avoided or or not look forward to and becoming a valuable team member going in with that kind of goal also will really help to right away get you you'll start to find your own strategies your own strategies will intuitively rise up if you're keeping some of these goals in mind or if you're just having a goal in general that you have in mind so let's get down to it I'll start talking about some strategies some first some strategies for giving feedback I'll talk about two of them today the first one is define problems before solving them right that's very often we first thing we say is we talk to presenting a solution make that read it will move that over there those are solutions and it becomes they're not as actionable as it could be if you define the problem so let's look at an example of that in action let's look at the development of the early rock band 1 head style this the rock band 1 hits I went through a major course correction or a change in its style and we look at the order earlier version we can think about or imagine some of

the less effective solution based feedback that could have been said about this for example might be said the head should be more anatomically correct what's wrong with that it's not going to hurt anybody's feelings that's not is that bad feedback it's not effective feedback it's not effective feedback because it's presenting the solution to the problem not presenting the problem itself right is it artists what are you gonna do with this well I'll guess I can make it on time incorrect but how in what way there's a lot of waste makes me I was trying to be correct I don't know cuz I don't know what the goal is I know problem I'm really trying to solve another example I had more hard edges yeah okay I could do that I could start slapping in some art a but I don't know why I all problem I'm trying to solve so these are solutions being presents the problem that's a good way of rephrasing this as more problem focused feedback we need to create heads they're more anatomically correct but still united by a common iconic style that fits the rock band world how can we do that now one does make a couple comments about this one it's longer

yeah it's longer and oh so you might okay it's a lot more efficient for me is to say the other stuff you know this time is shorter I wanna be right to the point I want to be direct you know what yeah you'll be efficient you'll be direct right now but then you might be not as efficient when the artist doesn't really have a clear goal and you have to go through a lot more iterations and it's not under clear so sometimes effective feedback is longer just just part of it comes it but the overall process becomes much more efficient and much more much it works better we is a great word to use you know where I incorporate the things make people Brit brought into a common problem relating it to the art style as it's done here bring it to the comment rocked my world and ending with this question how can we do that and invitation to come in and solve this together there's something we're all working on is really what helps to improve that feedback and in this case those kinds of dialogues really produce this wonderful wonderful head that became this great icon for rock band itself and really helped the whole brand another strategy described reasoning before Joe behind the

judgments um often we just in the same way we often just present a solution to the problem rather than describing the problem it's often often and for us to just just tell us a judgement you know I don't like that that's too red that's too hot that's too instead of spending some time asking ourselves what is underneath that judgment and that might be reasons it might be but by describing the experience that's underneath it and let's look at some examples to get at this I get this well look at a few different iterations of the rock band four main menu screen this is the first early iterations of this and let's look at some examples of judgment Facebook focus feedback so feedback is focusing on judgment so well someone might say you know the composition sucks well we all agree that's bad feedback right basically that's not gonna be effective in making someone work it's we really talked about pissing somebody off and really messing the whole company you know communication out there messing your relationship up it's not gonna be effective however look at this the composition is weak right that's not that's not maybe her but if you might hurt my feelings a little bit

I don't fully if so feel attacked but you know what it's nice it might not be so bad but it's still not effective it's still not effective because it's being presented as a judgement the underlying experience or reasons behind that judgment aren't being expressed expressed why did you compose the band that way this is a great example of focusing on the artist rather than the art right everyone said well we need to do this and once you have to ask you know why did you do this what's going on here I'll be really careful about that if it can be rephrased in a way that's not focusing on the artist but focusing on the art it's probably more helpful the other thing about this in addition to focusing on the artist is it's also a judgment it's kind of a veiled judgement you know you you really you really [ __ ] this up you screwed this up you know what's wrong with you and this is a judgement only judgment the arc now the judgment got the artist you know and that's not gonna it's not not as effective as it could be so all of these bits of feedback are various levels some are more benign some are really more harsh but what they all share in common is they're all judgment being presented in different ways so how can that become much more effective how can it become much more actionable the same kinds of

ideas well one thing you could do is you could describe the experience that led to that judgment so for example I might look at this and say your gosh my eyes just wander all around this thing I have no sense of primary or secondary focal point and and then my eyes just get locked on that white light shape on his shirt it's like a prison I it's block time my eyes can't get away from that you know and what's what's happening there is I'm describing my experience I'm just driving my experience that led to the judgement a little bit irony here right we want hands we want to be more objective and good feedback but here I'm using subjectivity I'm using my experience but I'm doing it very differently notice you knows I'm not using my subject my personal preference in terms of subjectivity I'm just saying you know I like chocolate I don't like vanilla not that kind of subjectivity I'm using my experience to help get at an objective issue in the work I'm describing my experience and by describing my experience we start to get a things another thing starts to come out here you can start to see now there's some criteria that the artists can hold on to right primary and

secondary focal points that just has kind of bubbled up by describing experience right because now we have a something now the artist can hold on to it oh I see that now I understand the kind of experience I need to create by working on this composition and so now as I go back into it to improve it now I'm excited because now not only do I see the problem because I understand it I understand that the real thing I wanna do is create an experience and I understand what kind of experience want to create I'm gonna dive back into it no I'm really excited to get to work and here's the next iteration because he now we've got some nice primary secondary focal points I can see like the guitar player then leading back into my eyes were really led around from the red and back into the blue starting to get some of that but we can also do another round now of of iteration and another round of judgement focus feedback so let's see what was another judgement we can place now on this Mississippi sake that's a poor use of camera angle another example of judgment not really bad it's not gonna really hurt my feelings that you said that so this isn't about necessarily hurting feelings it's not about critique that is often he asleep ad but it's about often critical

feedback that's not as effective actionable as it could be because how is this actionable right well I guess I could change the camera angle but I'm not really what what do you mean by camera angle I'm not sure what I can start playing around with it randomly putting camera angles in Ramat Eshkol I don't know what the problem is you're trying to solve right and I don't know why I don't know exactly where this judgment came from so we could rephrase that and they get some more effective reason focus feedback so instead of focusing in this case on the experience led to the judgment you can focus on the reasons that led to that judgment so maybe you want say you know the composition as a whole should feel more as energetic as the care adding tilt to the camera might help what are some other ideas dissect that a little bit so it begins with the reason behind the judgment right and if it takes something internal to it now we haven't even criteria we can use as the artist goes into it they have this criteria they want to make things energetic right it does present a solution here right which is something suggested earlier not to do adding some kilts the Tamra might camera might help but the difference here now is this being the solution is being presented as an option as an example you know I

assume tilts the camera might help or some others who incorporate people bring them into this discussion right well we can't always do that we can't always do this right there's often times in a production pipeline we just don't have time for group discussions we're really Basel II got to get this done this is due tomorrow it has to happen I am the art director I know what this needs to happen I can work on this for years here's what needs to happen to solve this what do you do in that case do you just tell them go here's you need to tilt the camera angle do it that way that's an option another option which is kind of in the middle which is I think much more effective and actionable is to often reason focus feedback that still has the reasons behind it so the composition as a whole needs to feel more energetic adding some tilt to the camera will help so did not don't just say add tilt of the camera but why does that camera need to be there what's the reason behind that so that way the artist has that criteria that they'll know when they're fixing it what win is going to be good what are they trying to achieve by doing this so they have the sense of it and and they can feel empowered then even if they're not empowered to to come up with

their own solution there at least empowered and understand whether the solution they're doing is right or not because they understand the criteria that's underneath it in this case we ended up with this awesome composition on the rock band 4 main menu screen so those are a couple strategies for giving feedback defining problems rather than solving them describing reasons rather than just the judgments or also giving the experience behind the judgments and they're so fairly simple they're fairly basic but if these things are so basic and simple why do I always screw this up I've been thinking about this a lot as a teacher as an artist from number of years of video game company I'm engaged in critical feedback every day I still to this day often judgments come out solutions come out why is this so hard if why is this deceptive simple and actually fairly difficult to do is because it adequately involves two steps all right we first we have to recognize what our first response is it's our intuitive gut response and stop it or catch doctors come out of our mouth and then add on to it so first we

recognize our first response and then we have to reflect and rephrase we have to catch what that is and we have to think about it we have to rephrase it to become more effective that makes it really difficult it's also the case when we receiving feedback when we're receiving feedback and go into some strategies for that now we also have to often stop ourselves from our initial response which is tending to be pretty defensive oh oh I already thought about that being defensive and putting that first response down and then going into the receiving of the feedback here's some strategies they can help us do that first is to ask questions that encourage critics to define the problems we describe the reasoning so basically these are the same strategy as I talked about before but this case you're on the receiving end of it so when the person giving you feedback isn't phrasing their feedback is defining problems and they're not phrasing it as describing the reasons then what you can do is take that feedback that raw lump of coal and you can start asking questions to turn it into the diamond that's hidden inside of it right look an example of that this is a monkey I love this monkey this is a monkey from Disney's Fantasia music

evolved more of our scenes it was a awesome concept art by Gianna Ruggiero and I loved it I love this monkey and Gianna loved it and we were really happy with it but unfortunately it wasn't fitting into some larger narrative in art direction issues and so it needed to be changed and and that was a little bit unclear for a while and there was some poorly often poorly phrased solution-focused feedback such as it make the monkey older now if we all imagine ourselves as Gianna you get that with Mike the monkey older oh yeah okay I can make the monkey but what what how how old oh I don't know why what's going you know it's unclear right so how could that be what could you do if you're in if you're in Gianna's position we can start to ask questions to reveal the problem underneath that solution what what is the point how would an older monkey fit into the scene more successfully you know what is it about age that's important here but why older monkey we're just simply what problem you're trying to solve with that solution just ask it right let's look an example of some poorly phrased judgment

focused feedback they could also let the same awesome monkey and monkeys to goofy yeah monkeys are goofy what's wrong with that so you know okay that's my first response if I hear that if you know if I'm Gianna I hear yeah look I'm gonna stop that that's not helpful right so obviously this bit of probably face feedback has some it's lump is cool it's guys what's the diamond inside how can I get that out I can start asking some questions you know okay so let's ask some questions to reveal that what's behind the judgment you know what feelings do you think the monkey should evoke now what kind of feelings should people have when they're looking at this monkey if they if they don't want to make him feel goofy what kind of feelings should be there so we ask these kinds of questions we got to the issue and the real issue turned out to be so we asked these questions if the Foley Foley phrase feedback was transformed through our asking of questions and finding out that really we need a monkey it fits into a narrative based on sadness isolation and

an attempt to connect oh okay now we can start to think now I understand why those issues could now we understand their problems trying to be solved okay so we've we've taken that that poorly phrased feedback we've asked some questions that we've transformed it into something that's really helpful and now we can dive into it and we end up with this awesome awesome monkey that has this amazing sense of empathy that you're is this your loss to space you can't get to this monkey you're trying to help the monkey that was I love this monkey I love both versions of the monkey but the second version the monkey was obviously the most relevant one because it was appropriate before we need it um another strategy for receiving feedback is frame the critique let's look at an example of the development of the scene from also from Disney phantom Fantasia music evolved called The Haven and in this case the art Lee David bear Alana and Don Rivers the cinematographer and lighting designer knew that we had to make this scene it to be much more iconic we needed to make it different from all the

other scenes we had to find a way to give it his own identity and we had to do this really late in the production process everything had already been made we couldn't change any assets so they did a great job of framing that critique when they brought it to the group so they get the feedback that wouldn't be off-base wouldn't be get fee that was taking away from those things so just by framing the critique you know basically the things I just mentioned we need to give this scene an iconic look using the elements that already exist so right away you're not gonna start getting feedback Oh change the trees let's get some new treatment that's not an option so it's not waste our time yeah that kind of feedback let's frame the critique to get the feedback it's most effective and ended up with this awesome really iconic looking beautiful beautiful scene third strategy for receiving feedback look for themes in the feedback so this is a great one if you don't have you can't ask questions you know maybe somebody get blocked by your desk and drop the bomb on you and walked away you can't ask them some questions or maybe it came from the client or whoever but for some reason you don't you're not in the position we can ask questions you're not in the position we can frame the feedback before it happens so this is a great strategy in those situations and so

we'll look at another scene from Disney Fantasia music evolve the nation scene this scene a little go back one this was a beautiful concept work of concept art but once we got it into the rough roughed out gray boxy version of itself we realized there were some problems and unfortunately we realized those problems after the animation of the dragon coming from this mountain was already there so the mountain was locked in place which was a problem so I started getting all this this feedback when it was like movement move the volcano back the area between the city mountains is boring make the background she's smaller add some flying creatures in the forest and you know we tried something saying somebody couldn't do it couldn't move the mountain because we couldn't we'd have time to redo the animation on the dragon and we tried some of these others we're playing with these details but finally what we realized we needed to do was we needed to take all that feedback and put it in a bucket and look at it across it and say what is common with all this what is what are we being told and all these bits of feedback and what we were being told in all of those the common theme and the common theme was the space feels shallow it lacks

excitement and so we started thinking what can do how can we change that and we came up the idea we can't change death because I can't move that mountain but we can't change it in a Z but we can change it in Y let's just drop the floor and suddenly we could have this big vast space that feels fast you can see through it now so it feels like it's deeper even though it's not deeper you can see back further there and also now we can put the put the dragon on this ledge that feels floating in space we don't really understand the steps anymore so it solved a lot of bunch of problems we didn't get there until we'd looked at the themes running across all that critique and started to deal with them as a group rather than trying to deal with each bit of feedback one on one one on one on its own so let's just kind of recap the strategies I've talked about for the last 20 minutes first our strategies for giving feedback and describing the problem rather than solving it and describe reasons or experience that lead to judgments and also strategies for receiving feedback asking questions focusing the Creek critique looking for themes one thing I'll add to one of these is when you describe reasons or experience or when

you ask people describe the reasons or experience it also helps to reveal sometimes if something someone has said is purely a personal let me give a quick example that was like say you've got a horror horror game and so feedback somebody gives you is you know I really don't like that character or that characters really not good and so that character makes me feel bad well well what tell me about the experience you're having with that character that led to that good to that judgement oh gosh every time I see her she she scares the hell out of me well so obviously the case word that's good you want that character to scale the hell out of you right and this is the obvious and simple example of it where often can happen which is sometimes someone gives you a piece of judgment or they give you something and they think it might be criticism but once you start to dig underneath it you'll find actually it's not it might might be awesome as a great example of times when you're receiving feedback don't even immediately react to it dig underneath it to find out what's really there because it might actually be awesome it might be that it sits straight on the same thing too when

somebody says something really nice to you oh I love that read you've used in that case my initial review bye guys my initial response is to go oh thank you that's great but instead that's still a lump of coal cuz I can't do it's not actionable yet right see see I love that read you use of what is it about to read you that you love how is it function you ask some questions dig underneath both the good feedback and the difficult feedback to really get the stuff underneath it it becomes much more actionable um takeaways that I think would be helpful from for today the things I would hope that you could take away from this brief chat about critique first clearly to find your goals if you understand what you're doing it really really helped to make what you're saying deeper and not just so much on the surface focus on critique and not you criticizing some take things apart examine them don't just have comments that go on the surface remember that all criticism is potential critique the examples I was just giving even if someone says like a nice thing to you it makes you feel good even if somebody it's all can be potentially good and you want to try to find the information underneath it and make it actionable and

then recognize reflect and rephrase try stop yourself from saying what initially you might say think about house can be effective and think about how rephrasing it in some effective ways and remember that our first reactions are often really poorly phrased and not as helpful as they could be so those are some of my ideas for critique and I've been think about this a long time and I love thinking about this kind of stuff I still struggle with it and I am mostly interested in the conversation itself and I just is an invitation please if any of you are also interested in thinking about this shoot me some emails hang out afterwards I would love to hear your stories I'd love to hear your strategies you know these are some strategies I've come up with there are lots of others and we'll have a few minutes for questions but also afterwards if you don't feel like doing questions just want to have a chat I'll be in the wrap-up room because I'd really like this to be the beginning of a larger conversation about this I think it's something that is really important for for our industry to really focus on and many of us do a great but be great if all of us could do it even better and especially across disciplines I think finding ways to make this

interdisciplinary really really awesome thank you all very much so how do you deal with a lead or an art director that says the dreaded three words I don't know to any of your questions first of all that's an awesome art director is an aside it is because they're not gonna lie right it's an aside I I've had a doctor for many many years one things I love about my doctor dr. Steven Scott if anybody happens to live in Providence Rhode Island once the final physician the thing I love about Steven Scott is that he will always say I don't know gosh I'm gonna look into that instead of making some you know [ __ ] up and so so that's the first thing do it I don't know the context but in general someone's saying I don't know is often a great thing they're willing to say that um what's the context you're thinking of in particular with someone's that I don't like if you have if they if

they give you feedback and you ask a leading question as to oh why do you feel that way and they say I don't know full stop Oh constructive feedback whatsoever beyond that yeah maybe maybe ask another question yeah the GAVI say it's not gonna be it all so nobody can say is you know it's really good just signal I only your relationship with the art director but some I see gosh you know that's it's not really helpful for me one thing that would be really helpful for me if I could understand some of the stuff underneath this or just kind of finding ways to kind of keep that conversation going is that helpful yeah but yeah I think it would the other thing you can do is find the other strategies you can start to dissect it yourself so if they gave you something and then you ask them what made you feel that way you say just I don't know you can take that feedback and try to put yourself in that position it's like okay if this is the case you know think you're like looking when the examples I said if the camera angle needs to change so saying well what is it about it that might make that camera neat you know change you try to get inside of it you can try to imagine what the underlying reasons are yeah do you have any any

tips for stimulating a team to give more critique because I have a team that there are friends and there have good relations with relationships yeah there they don't they're not very comfortable critiquing each other yeah yes I do and yeah and there's there's an essay I wrote that misses a book it almost got published I'm gonna try to find a way to self publish it as a whole there's a whole a bunch of about how to do group critiques in ways but I'll give you one thing that can be really helpful and that is often people go into a critique and they think they have to judge and that's not true in fact judgment we know this from from play testing right play testers give us their experience and that's what helps us understand what the game is working and you can think of critique is the same way think of critique is a time to be play testing though artwork or whatever it is so you can put people and try to say wait let's all just talk about how we

experience this work so if it's a bunch of people a way you know sort of them feeling like they have to judge each other take that out of the equation right this isn't about judging it's about describing so we sit in front of you know worker part and say okay how are your eyes looking when you look at this or or that's a leading question or you can start to say let's go around everyone start to just describe an experience they're having when they when they play through this level what's an experience you had and then people start to describe their experiences and by subscribing experiences then you start to say oh that was the experience we wanted to have or that was an experience we wanted to have and then you start to find out what the problems are so you kind of bubble it up from organic experience rather than thinking you have to judge and that's one thing I do when I would taught that's how I always did all my critiques I would just say okay we're not going to judge at all and students like what oh thank god but anything that it was gonna be real critique but that's what real critique is actually real critique is the taking apart in analyzing is that helpful yeah yeah yeah actually I tend to find that a lot of

identifying a lot of ways to really break loose on the critiquing is to create a third party separate thing that you're doing first for so for example if we're approaching a project to like look at other people's versions of the projects and where all of you are able to feel like you're safe to talk to each other because it's not somebody who's in the room yeah you're already getting a language going yeah so as the language gets going and then you also come back around to work that you're doing or you're a little bit later in the project people tend to feel a little more comfortable critiquing each other because they feel like they've been in the presence of hearing critiquing that is a great point yeah establishing a culture and which then this one thing the harmonics well I just love working at this company because harmonics also has this great culture of giving critique and and we all have the dialogue for it and we all are used to talking about each other's work and we're and and but in if you're a situation where that may not exist is may relate to the previous question to within part of what you can do this is a great example is find ways to instill dialogues about pratik about something that's different you know bring in some other games have

a discussion about another game bring in something into anything that can you can start having just practicing the muscles of critical feedback it really does seem to be a factor is the more that people are just kind of used to feeling like they can start talking to each other with negative language that at least they would think would be negative it would actually be something that just Spurs further conversation I tend to find it it's very effective that's wonderful thank you for sharing that yeah so my question relates to some of the issues I've seen within our company we do a lot of feedbacks on game designs yeah a lot of times we're doing this well we still don't have prototypes that you can play with so we're just talking about not do you think this would be fun - yes in those kind of situations we had a number of times run into a lot of problems one of them is you know if we just come into a meeting and get presented with it I've noticed some people they don't like to give critique because they're like I'm still thinking about it I don't know I think I got a really think yeah and so sometimes we'll say okay well we send out the material

ahead of time when we did that all we notice is I just speed on which you can think through and iterate through this stuff you know for better words just slows down a little yeah a second issue we ran into is leasing situations like these you know they're invariably they're something that is subjective right I just think this game plays fun yep I just think that game play is not fun mmm and so you know it's it's like how do you address these kind of things where fundamentally it is a subjective yeah I think those are both great points I'll start with the second one first and the second one is that in this case it's someone who just doesn't have practice explaining their subjectivity and in because that's just nothing when you say I don't I just don't like it there's always some sort of experience underneath there that's leading to that subjective reaction right and some people just aren't good and don't have a lot of practice at explaining what that is underneath there and that's where it just takes someone who's going to come at our talented facilitator or probably to start to say okay what is it about that that you don't like you know what what experience describe you could pull back

and say you will describe the experience that you're having a bit familiar finding ways to ask questions they start to get at that so I think there always are kind of ways you know this idea of I just don't like it there's always something underneath there there's a reason you don't like it use may not be we don't you mean afield articulate it yet you may need to have some help articulating it and that's just a skill building exercise and good facilitators can kind of help with that your other point about giving things ahead or people not being ready I think it's always helpful if somebody isn't ready to give feedback not to force it because senate's that's a recipe for [ __ ] because that's that's one and I would like since my students you know if you don't have you don't know what you're gonna say slapping words on it because you feel like you have to say something is the worst thing you can do because that's the definition the definition of [ __ ] what language is not connected to the reality you know just language for the sake of language right and so that ability to say I just I'm not you know I'm just not right I am having some feelings about this here but I can't articulate them yet look at me sometimes so if you have to articulate

the meeting that's where a good facilitator also can help it helps okay let me help you articulate it and start asking questions to try to get it what that debt is and so those are a couple thoughts is that helpful the address here yeah yes um the strategies that you posted do you feel they have to be tailored based on the experience level than individual if you're providing feedback to a junior artist or a senior artist or do you think it's abstract enough that it could work for anyone's experience though I think they're abstract enough to be to be universal yeah this this idea of simply you know presenting the problem rather than just giving someone a solution that it that works across all levels and I mean when I was a teacher I was fortunate enough to teach all levels I thought freshmen all the way up to graduate students and the strategy I did the same stuff with everybody and and you know there was their differing levels of depth of discussion we can have the different those levels but the strategies underneath that were we're the same yeah yeah Ryan Locke from Alberta University in Scotland and I'd be really interested in

some advice from yourself based on that discussion we've just heard I'm really fascinated by this area in particular because I work in computer arts mostly and I deal with students across multiple disciplines you know whether it's concept design 3d graphics or design illustration quite a lot those things going on there and I one of my main objectives with my third year group in particular so this is you know the year before they do their final year yeah is to develop a community of critique because it's me versus a lot of students yeah often I'm the the single point for critique yeah feedback yeah and I'm not always available or I'm busy yeah but there's there's probably a lot of other issues there in terms of other classes and we'll how busy they are blah blah blah blah but that idea of fostering a community or preparing students yeah for industry or a even outside wellness not doesn't have to be industry but do you have any advice in terms of your experience in education how you might help foster a better community of

critique in students yeah I think part of it it has to do with getting out of this idea that create critique is bad there's something to be avoided I did its sofa Roenick someplace like like RISD values itself on the fact that it's a great place to learn critique and it is I mean grizzly is amazing school for lending critical thought and it's the core of what they do but then they'll go and do weird things like they'll have this crit happens like pillow that you sit on like making it like like these mixed messages there right sending like oh it's it's just bad thing we should avoid you know Minh we're saying and so that part of that is just distilling that culture that this is a wonderful moment for us to be together and work together it's about being a community and and and working toward a common goal um getting the culture right is really helpful and then also making it so that you teach people the process rather than just giving it to them you know rather so it's not you're not a situation where the teachers needed you're an ideal world you want to be teaching these students so they can go off in small

individual groups and do it themselves and when I was a teacher that's where I would always focus on doing and so I would give them these strategies and I would never run critiques where it was me and them I would never run critiques like okay I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you how to critique by showing you how to do it because that's that's that's uh that's that's balloony right you can't do it because that then there you gotta learn by doing right it's like virtual reality God be in it to get it right so so coming up with strategies of ways of you know in this is this essay I wrote has a lot of these in it too I'll try to find a way to make readers yeah I'll try to find a way to get this out and and but but the one of the strategies was you know going around is you having everyone first describe an objective thing about what they saw you know it's red it's plaster it's you know it's big it's five inches tall it's it you're just something objective so we just start talking you know no judgment no deep thought we're just getting worse to come out of our mouths for Kant getting warmed up and then doing some rounds where you start to now describe your experience so oh gosh it feels like it's gonna fall to me oh oh it makes me

scared oh whatever you know now you describe your experience it was just going around and just starting people and so you come up with a formula like okay first you do this then you do this and now we go around and everyone starts to describe up way in which they think it's it's not work not living up to its potential or something so there's a strategy and then say okay guys now you know steps one two three of this process now use a small group go over and do it there and use small group over there so um okay is that five words we're done okay um and so was that somewhat helpful but ya know I was fun I do some things already yeah like you know you've given me a lot of great ideas which is so important yeah I was wondering if I could maybe just grab two minutes with you often you can grab as many minutes with me as you like oh yeah I'll be in the wrap-up room afterwards I would love to talk with you more than anyone else that would like to have more talking yeah that would be wonderful sure hi hi I'm a 3d artist that is on a team of predominantly 2d artists yeah I'm trying to get really good constructive feedback can be rather

difficult I often find myself kind of talking about my process and going through what I'm doing and how I'm doing it I often don't find that feedback that I kind of need I'm coming back my way oh so I guess in terms of your experience like how would you facilitate that conversation when that there's that kind of disconnect between like what you're trying does problems are trying to solve and like people's experience like yeah that process that's rough yeah I think was just really thinking through with me a strategy of like framing the critique and I'm starting to think through like what are the experiences that you can try to frame you say asking people how they're experiencing something or what they have but you can kind of you find way to kind of frame is you're not just pretty in front of them because they're gonna be looking at it from their point of view you need to kind of get them to look at it from your point of view right and so you can start to you know think of yourself as a teacher like you can be a 3d 3d design teacher what are the principles of 3d design they're important here and if they don't understand them kind of helping them understand what they are and then asking them if they're relevant to that looks there but but the underlying strategy

they're trying to find some ways to kind of frame the critique that's kind of what I would go about it but you're in a rough position yeah I often do that but I find that it's often in one-sided like I'm kind of just leading the critique and it doesn't feel quite as back and forth oh yeah when you're framing it is getting it going but once it's framed well enough then hopefully they can start coming out but yeah you're in a rough position with that sorry I would have a think of some other ideas I appreciate it yeah I'm a 3d artist - I understand your yeah if you're not thinking three-dimensional you have the ability it's hard to be in that mindset of you if you don't there yeah but creating some mock-ups or creating some prototypes that get at the three dimensionality and having them experience that might be helpful I don't know I'm just awesome yeah sure I think this will be the last question yeah hi Eileen I'm an effects artist I was wondering on your insight or your thoughts in the process of cross-disciplinary critiquing with like say designers or programmers whoever

yeah in regards to assets that aren't quite done yeah I feel like in our industry we have it a lot of like to show an asset for critique is almost to take it to final yeah and what challenges that brings to the the emotional critiquing state and if you've ever run into that or actually solved that in any way or have inside yeah that's a really rough one too because you have people who aren't artists they're looking at what's there and when people are artists they're looking beyond it they know okay this is an unfinished asset I know where it's going I can imagine it being done but someone's not an artist is gonna see what's there and I think that's where framing can be really helpful to if you kind of maybe have an image a little along with it okay here's what this will look like in the end and here's what it looks like now and we're not really looking for feedback about you know the materials because the materials we'll get to there we're not looking for feedback about the you know the the specific aspects of the effects because they will get there but we are looking for feedback about X Y & Z so so if you have some image that allows them

to get in their mind what it will look like they can kind of superimpose on to it then that might help to frame it is that is that helpful okay great thank you all so much I'll be I'll be here for a few minutes in there over there thank you