#MediaMonday: Don't Listen to Anyone
Good Morning Everyone,
I have to admit, I am a little exhausted this morning. For the first time since 2020, a 16 hour from a student media trip. We were fortunate to attend the 2022 Aspen Shortsfest in Aspen Colorado. It was an incredible weekend full of amazing films, great Q&As, and most importantly, some great food.
As part of the festival, we had an incredible opportunity for our students to meet some of the filmmakers and have their work critiqued by professionals. It was a humbling and exciting experience, but one of the filmmakers said something that I feel like we all need to hear.
As the critique session was wrapping up, one of the filmmakers, Eli Powers, grabbed the mic and said the following thing to all of the students:
"Now, after you have heard all of our critiques, don't listen to any of us. Take what helps but still have confidence in your own work. Don't listen to us."
The comment landed strangely with the kids. A professional, whom they came to respect, told the students to disregard his criticisms. But what he said was valid.
There is no such thing as a perfect execution or one master opinion in the media industry. Eli was emphasizing the importance of having confidence in yourself, seeking criticism from trusted sources and at the end of the day, trusting your work, your art, and yourself. Criticism can destroy kids and of course, they need criticism to grow. However, they need to understand how to process criticism.
Criticism needs to build up students, supporting their future work. However, often students allow criticism to damage their confidence in future work. The real risk in all of that is when students begin to align their voices with what they think a critic wants to hear instead of finding their own voices.
When Eli said "Don't listen to us" I feel like we could just as easily write that on every STN judging sheet that is sent to students. While some points of revision are clear and need addressed, the work still belongs to students. And, as long as they don't listen too closely to criticism, learn to seek out criticism they trust, and trust their own voice, they are going to be far better than those who allow all critical voices to impact their uniqueness.
Talk to you soon,
Josh Cantrell