pissed off!! (1 Viewer)

[al_87]

this is going to be a general moan to start with, apologies now.
got back from weekend drama camp about an hour ago, where we basically worked on GP all weekend, then had two markers, a NIDA student and two teachers comment on the work. no problems with the camp it self - useful and a good experience. but!! the comment at the end of the camp on the performances....every other group got a 'well done' or a 'nice work' or something along those lines - a generally positive comment, followed by suggestions on how to improve. but my group - who i would like to say without sounding conceited - has the most performance, is the most polished, has done the most practice and got the most laughs - got none of it. instead, all we got told was what we had to fix stuff (main crits. were characterisation). i am so angry!!! im not saying that ours needs no more work, or that its finished, or anything like that, but has anyone else had that?! been told that what they have is good by a their teacher, only to have it torn apart by others?? and what did you do about it? do we listen, or tell them to go jump!! because we worked our assess off on our performance, and got absolutly nothing, DESPITE the fact that they were pissing themselves laughing too...
grrrrrrrr

 

[niteshade1312]

Exact same position for my IP. I've always been told that my writing had been really good, and all of a sudden, I hand it back and get pages upon pages of criticism and NO "well done" or "Nice to see you've finished everything". If markers and teachers are going to critique to make things better, a few nice words won't go atray!

 

[steffo]

getting the laughs is not necessarilly what counts. the performance can be as entertaining as it likes, but without strong characterisation and character depth and meaning, what's it worth? not heaps.
take the criticisms on. you need to, otherwise how will u ever be a good actor. directors hardly EVER give praise- a harsh environment can make u work harder, give you more passion.
if you believe you have a strong concept and the abiliyt to make the performance a good piece of theatre, you need to look past the 'getting all the laughs' phase and into more stuff about who you are, what are you motives, where are u going, where have u been, why are you there, etc etc etc. all those simple questions help a lot.
again, it is NOT about the laughs. it's about fulfilling the criteria of a 'good performance', or if u work hard enough, an 'excellent performance'.

good luck. think bigger than the immediate audience reaction. do you really believe your characters? can u do better? ofcourse u can! do it then.

 

[aimstar555]

yes yes and yes...

2 groups in my class during the hsc...our group did about 10 times better than the other group during the trials and from then on...the other group did EVERYTHING possible to make our group do worse. for example:

*telling our teacher than we got a professional director to come in and help us with our blocking and diolouge (which isn't allowed) which NEVER happened

*stole props, one of our costumes and strached our music CD ( i was in charge of music, and i made several back-up copies)

*cause we were all close in our year (only 65 of us) SOO many rumors were being spread about our group..like "she's writing shit about you in her log-book etc etc.

in the end....we beat all but one of them with our final marks...HAHA!!

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

how petty. if they want to be better than you, may i suggest some healthy rehearsal? instead of trying pathetically to sabotage your efforts?

 

[niteshade1312]

thats horrible, I can't believe people can drop to that level.. how insecure!

 

[al_87]

very much so...similar stuff happening within the groups in my class...nothing to that level, but some girls saying 'they copied us' or 'they are so unoriginal' and stuff like that and i was just thinking.....GROW UP!! almost ended up in an all out brawl at one point....now that could have been amusing.............lmao

 

[chingly_choo]

We easily solved ours, absolute secrecy until the first performance check and then total isolation between gropus when rehearsing. There was a certain mystique that hung around each groups idea as no one knew wethere what they were saying was right or wether they were pulling the proverbial leg

 

[fleepbasding]

We easily solved ours, absolute secrecy until the first performance check and then total isolation between gropus when rehearsing. There was a certain mystique that hung around each groups idea as no one knew wethere what they were saying was right or wether they were pulling the proverbial leg

Thats a very bad idea and bad for the class as a whole. Drama should be all about sharing and helping to pull eachothers marks up.

As for the original poster, I know how you feel, cos it happens to me all the time. I've gotten over it though... I think that the critcizer knows that you are good and knows that you know that you are good, but wants to push you that little bit further to getting really good marks. They're trying to prevent you from laying back and thinking that your performance is perfect.

This is my theory and I think this is what happens to me... I'm only guessing about yours and everyone elses cases though... you may all just have sadistic bastard teachers/feedback givers!

 

[niteshade1312]

I'm just thinking.. at first when I got all my criticsm back, I was soo incredibly angry because I know I had worked really hard on my reviews and it hurt so much that i had pages of things to fix. But then after not touching it for 3 weeks, and then reviewing it last night, I realised that half of what they were saying were things I knew I had to fix up anyways and that it was actually nice sitting on my bedroom floor, crossing out and fixing up mistakes... Then again, maybe i'm just a really sad person who can't take criticism, but I know what you mean when markers are saying things that you were sure you had made clear, or scenes you thought were great.

Just let it sit for a while and you will feel much better when you go back to it.

In concerns to the not seeing eachothers work.. I think it's stupid to try and hide. My class doesn't hide anything, while the other class that has four groups all hide from eachother. It's so much better to be able to collaborate with the other groups, because I know I was shocked when I saw one group (especially because I thought their piece was going to be so much better!)

 

[AlleyCat]

you guys have to stop whinging and learn to take criticism. they are giving you crits for one reason only...to improve your marks. it is not their job to pat you on the back, or say "well done for trying so hard" or any of that bullshit... the groups who didnt get constructive crits back are the ones who should worry.

also, the laughs arent the things that get the marks. people laugh for a lot of reasons. the worst films in the world can be hilariously funny...

take everything the teacher has to say on board, as well as the nida person who is only trying to help, and stop feeling sorry for yourself and rehearse rehearse rehearse...otherwise the time will be gone and youll still be bitching.

best of luck and im sure if we put the work in we will all be wonderful, and they'll say our year is the most unbelievably talented year in the history of drama...

wont that be great

/end rant