Representing Distribution, Reception, and Critique notes

Unfortunately Danielle went home for Passover, she was one of the subject of my piece and she lives down the hall, so there's little excuse for her not to see it any time soon. I guess how she reacts to her inclusion and her statements is the true reception of my project, so that'll have to wait.

Otherwise, my peers recieved it well and particularly thought I represented the pro-chief movement's reaction after the announcement in as unbiased a way as possible, although I couldn't look past how their expectations might have affected their viewing of the piece. Some said that it might have ended up with a comedic effect with the juxtaposition of some images, like a Monty Python arc, but that was completely not what I was going for. Even though I really couldn't contain my laughter when showcasing it. Yeah. Seeing the subjects on the screen really made me realize how ridiculous they are, and stepping back for a second and watching it with my opinions and biases made me think that way. Others liked how it flowed, in a seamless fashion almost, although there are some points there were it could serve me best to correct sound discontinuities. One liked how I transitioned from one speaker to another but kept the image on screen, and recognized how I was going for a documentary feeling.

A particular critique was how I still had Paul talking but pasted over his image some scrolling text to wrap things up. Honestly, I didn't want to extend it longer than it should have been, and was making an decision of temporal economy, and like all economic decisions, there are tradeoff disadvantages, and in particular, that was the potential distracting-ness of that choice. I can say that if I didn't feel constrained in terms of time, this could have been a short documentary of sorts. Like 40 minutes long. But yeah, I think I could have dealt with the extra twenty seconds, I was already at 6:45, why not make it 7 in that case?

Anyways, I still don't think objectivity exists, but I think an interest topic to brush up on is how the audience's expectations may change their perception of the piece. If I were to include a disclaimer stating my position on the Chief before distributing it on a wide scale (which I will do on iTunes for the benefit of those who didn't come to today's critique), will people see this as courageous and honest? If I didn't include a disclaimer and targeted distribution to people who don't know me, would they think I'm pro-Chief? In some ways, I did break neutrality at points and provided a potentially sympathetic point with the bus anecdote and a somewhat negative point with how badly some percieved Danielle's ability to interview.

This is all a very interesting topic and I wish I remember better how people recieved this, especially the constructive criticism I expected. This is also where Danielle's reception to the project goes, or Paul's if I were to show it to him:

yeah, so Danielle Perlin and her friend (who I also featured in the piece - she was the friend who painted her's and danielle's faces like the Chief) both liked it and thought it was balanced. Other than that, their criticisms weren't nearly as directed as the class comments. In the final analysis, it was a generally positive response and one that indicated a good job in hiding my biases well.