I just have to know...

[JaddziaDax]

I think in general most people in a hobby respond better to other people who are in the hobby as well, however that also depends on the person and their experience and how the feedback is delivered.

I find that feedback from someone who knows what they are doing to be a little more valuable especially when it comes to timing and sync (because they know how an editing program works). However, I think a viewer (only) can have some important things to say, especially when it comes to more subjective things like mood in order to get a feeling of what a general audience will respond to.

I don't think you need to be an editor to point out flaws such as "you left subtitles in", because anyone can see that. However, it's always helpful to have reason to back that up, such as "the anime community is one who is used to automatically reading subtitles, so they really distract from your video when you leave them in. If you want people to focus on your work more than the subtitles, then you should either crop them off, or get a clean source footage".

Of course if I get feedback from an editor I respect I'll take it a lot more seriously than I would some random person who doesn't edit.

[Castor Troy]

Here's a question for the group, based on a tangent thread over on AN:

Do you think that a critic needs to be able to work in the medium personally, in order to give constructive critical feedback of the work? Or do you think that it's possible for a critic to give constructive feedback simply by pointing out what he thinks is good or bad, and supporting his opinion with examples and sound argument?

On of my fellow writers on AN (and IMHO, our best artist) mentioned that one of the reasons AMV creators on AN might not be too receptive to my critical comments is that I personally lack the credibility to critique their work, not having made an AMV myself. I disagreed with this analysis, for several reasons. Several other creative types on AN (one of whom used to make AMVs) also disagreed. In keeping with this thread's tradition of sharing interesting points back and forth, I figured I'd toss it over here.

Do you think that you have to make AMVs to effectively criticize them? Why or why not?

No.

Anyone regardless of making them or not has every bit of credibility to criticize an amv. Blaming someone's criticism of an amv due to "lack of credentials" is one of the most cop out defense mechanisms anyone can give.

I don't make video games, but I feel that I can effectively criticize them.

[irriadin]

...if I get feedback from an editor I respect I'll take it a lot more seriously than I would some random person who doesn't edit.

This, pretty much. You don't have to edit to make a convincing critique, but it certainly does add (a lot of) credibility to your argument.

[Qyot27]

I don't make video games, but I feel that I can effectively criticize them.

This touches on it. There are places where feedback from anyone is valid - playing a video game gives you the ability to criticize because you are still engaging with it. But on the same token, unless you have the ability to actually read and write the code the game runs on, you wouldn't be in the position to criticize the programming work that lies underneath unless it interfered with the playing experience. You'd have no way of knowing if the code was sloppy unless you could actually read it or it had some visible effect on the player side (like crashing).

In the same way, there would logically be [plausibly, three] types of criticism that exist for AMVs or other types of media (like cinema):
1) Flaws that have nothing to do with the technical work behind it at all and that anyone could comment on; stuff like mood, clear storytelling, or maybe pacing.
2) Some types of technical flaws that anyone could point out, like the presence of subtitles or really bad compression.
3) Advanced types of flaws that need either professional instruction to recognize or at least lots of experience and self-study of the medium to build one's credibility first. Masking errors, orphan frames, filtering errors, more advanced compression issues, aspect ratio problems, or so on. Many of these might be noticeable to Type 2, but Type 3 can actually articulate what the problem is and how to fix it. You also get branching and specialization here - one can be very precise in the editing phase but still be learning how to compress and filter properly.

Type 3 is the only one where actually being in the field matters, but as noted, if you have sufficiently advanced knowledge in the theories behind it you don't necessarily need working experience of it. There's plenty of Type 3 film critics that have never made a movie, but they have spent a large amount of time absorbing theory and observing the advice of professionals that were directed at others' attempts.

I note Type 3 because there are at least a few editors around here that didn't start editing (or still haven't started editing) until they possessed Type 3-level theoretical knowledge, and would comment on others' videos just from the perspective of a viewer that had spent lots of time devoted to it even if they'd never opened an NLE before. Usually if they do start editing they also avoid lots of the newbie mistakes, but it doesn't make them totally immune since a lot of editing is personal style and comfort with the editing program, and that's something that takes learning.

[Beowulf]

[Ikore]

Do you think that you have to make AMVs to effectively criticize them? Why or why not?

every editor wants feedback, if not why not just save all of those videos of you in a folder deep inside your pc and let the world fckitslf

I know my amv perspective changed a lot when I started editing, you will see things differently, but for an editor, all feedback is good, I would like to know what a "normal" person thinks about my video, it´s a valid point of view after all, he is actually seeing things in a total different way than I or anyone else will do. 6 pages

[gotegenks]

6 pages

he cheated though! this should be a different thread

[SilkAMV]

OP asks about our site's stance on critiques -> 1st page is all critiques of his post. Because that's how we do .

[BasharOfTheAges]

OP asks about our site's stance on critiques -> 1st page is all critiques of his post. Because that's how we do .

Actually the OP posted a long-winded rant about observations he made in the place where that sort of thing is dead-horse territory and we mocked him for it. It's like walking into a fancy classic car club and bitching for an hour about those damn hooligan kids racing their neon'd sound machines down town every week. Not quite as insane as complaining to the guy behind the counter at mcdonalds about your mail not being delivered on time, but a humorously wrong venue nonetheless.

On the off chance I'm reading your tone correctly: You don't get away with starting a question off with paragraphs of a priori assumptions that can't be touched. That's not how conversations work.

[SilkAMV]

I know what he was talking about, I read the whole thing. I'm just amused at how his post was "reviewed." Part of his question was how people on out site handle feedback and it's telling that the early responses were a series of critiques of his post (style, context, methods, etc.), just as if we were reviewing an AMV he made.

As for the responses, I don't really agree that it was wrong for him to "hunt down" a single AMV artist for his reaction to feedback. My impression was that the negative reaction was a relatively common occurrence, but this one in particular was so profound it inspired a curiosity in him to get to the bottom of things. Short of conducting a survey, I don't see what else he could have done other than ask him why. Doing it in a separate venue entirely was a simple way of letting whoever it was know he wanted a serious answer. And he got one. If I was that editor, I'd be pleased to be contacted on a youtube from someone I know on a different site (or vice versa). Positive or negative, it means exposure.

To keep this post on topic, the AMV feedback issue is a fairly simple one. It's true, most AMVs out there are just clips the editor likes put to music he likes. When he's asking for feedback, all he really wants to know is if whoever is watching thinks those clips and music are cool too. Anything beyond that, and he gets confused. The way to get him out of that mindset is to tell him what he wants to hear first (that his music and clip choices were cool.) Lie if you have to, but don't overdo it. After that, inform him of this thing called "sync" and how his videos could be even better with it. You can't outright tell someone their video is bad. You have to mindtrick them into not being satisfied with their work.

However, this is only the case for the kinds of editors Desslock is wondering about. If someone already has the motivation to improve and the armor to take some criticism then they're already better than most editors out there.