Representing Peer Critiques

Meghan - Women's Rugby team

Like I said in critique, I wish I had seen footage of someone get seriously injured, and that's just the overtly masculine desire to see missfortune like that come upon someone. It's schadenfreude, yes, but everyone has a little bit. Still, what drives this piece is the constant action of the piece, there is not a single shot that does not include the players scrimmaging or about to spring into action, and that really captures the audience's fascination. So bodily violence aside, it's still action-packed and wonderful in its appeal to that sense. Some had said something to the effect that they had wanted to maybe put a face to a voice and include at least some images of your coach speaking, but I think your emphasis is clear by focusing mainly on the team and in specific, the game you play. I'm sure there are other aspects to the team that would make for an interesting documentary, but this wasn't Hoosiers or Rudy, it was a only the game, like you said, where you crushed your opponents. I thought the shooting was crisp, steady, and well-composed. I don't think you could have gotten better footage other than bringing the camera on field for a tighter framing of individual players or their point of view and perhaps landing you with a 600 dollar fee when it broke. Also I'm pretty sure that would also defeat the rules of the game. That aside, I think framing it around the Queen track gives it a playful sense and injects your sense of humor into the narrative. As a representation overall, it is effective in portraying what the team actually does, rugby, and explains in details its rules that are obscure to most Yankees or non-Anglicized individuals like myself. You removed yourself well from the piece and we couldn't have figured you were on the team if you didn't explicitly mention it. We could fault you for this, but I think the images and overall composition of your piece was great.

Heather - Ron Kovatch

The strong point of your piece is how well it represents your subject in the context of what he does, that is, art. Although I disagreed with some of the nuanced parts of his discussion, I thought that he presented himself in a clear manner and expressed his ideas articulately, and I think that reflects the quality of questions you asked of him. I know some of our classmates would have wanted some more background on the man himself, but I think the specificity with which you approached Ron lends a lot to the piece. You punctuated his discussion with stills of his artwork, which was a positive point, and I know you felt the Ken Burns effect detracted from it, but I would disagree. I love the effect. I would use it all the time if it didn't become repetitive over the course of an hour, but a few examples over five minutes is absolutely great. For future reference, there is an option to turn it off or to control the extent and speed of the zoom you use. I thought the titles you used were effective and a good device to remove yourself from the composition, but especially over the artworks, I thought they could have lingered a little longer. As for the framing of your subject, I thought it was a little distracting to remain static enough to notice the background objects, but there is a silver lining in that it places him in his creative space and is relevant to the man himself. I noticed his eyes were downward facing for a particularly long time and felt this made him seem unengaged or aloof. As I see it however, the camera was at eye-level and you couldn't have moved it in any way to get around this. Regardless, your subject was interesting and I enjoyed his discussions.