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What do I get if I criticize someone's work?

Seriously, I see so many people criticize others. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. But what does it give to the critics themselves?

To clarify my answer I want to mention 3 types of critics I've learned to differ:

1) - One of the crowd - an ordinary user/client/audience. Someone who, in our example, just watches movies. Those people are our target audience and they can say if they liked the movie or they didn't. They can explain "why" and "why not", and can suggest something to improve. We listen them only when many of them say similar things. I'm NOT talking about discussing movies with friends.

2) - Personal experience - Filmmakers - screenwriters/directors/producers/operators/etc. They see you making mistakes they have done before, and tell you what you should avoid, or give you advises of what you can do to improve. They look at the general idea, using the "Zoom Out" look, and tend to drop some technical details.

3) - Aggressive teacher - Some have personal experience, some don't, but they always tend to teach you. Some teach you good things, some mislead you. They look more at technical details, using the "Zoom In" look, and tend to leave the global idea route. They are aggressive, because they begin with aggressive critics, that drop the author's self-confidence. Then, when the author is fully disappointed at his work, the critic start speaking calmly, ans starts giving his own solutions. Some solutions can help, some can mislead. But the author WILL listen to everything the latter says, because that critic has become a Messiah for him. In other words, the author becomes a Pawn.

As you can see, there are 3 types of critics, which probably serve different causes. My question is what exactly those causes are? What a man who watches movies earns if he criticizes a movie on blogs/forums? What a filmmaker earns? What an "aggressive teacher" earns? What will I earn?
 
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I don't quite understand your question. Are you asking (a) why you should listen to other people's criticism of your work, and how you should weight it depending on where they fall in your 3 types or (b) why you should spend your time criticising other people's work?
 
(b) why you should spend your time criticising other people's work?

This one. Why should I spend my time criticising other people's work?

Those 3 types of critics were meant to expand the question, because I believe the answer on the main question can be different according to each of the types (or maybe not?)
 
For me at least providing critique, advice, and suggestions for improvement is as much a learning experience as anything else. It's harder to do it on your own work because you're often too close to the material; doing it on other people's work can be helpful by addressing the issues yourself before you encounter them in your own projects.

It's similar to explaining any concept to someone - it forces you to organize and examine your own knowledge, and can help you recognize and fill gaps you might not have been aware of otherwise. It forces you to put into words concepts that might be somewhat abstract in your own mind, and that process can help you to examine those concepts from a new or different perspective.
 
For me at least providing critique, advice, and suggestions for improvement is as much a learning experience as anything else. It's harder to do it on your own work because you're often too close to the material; doing it on other people's work can be helpful by addressing the issues yourself before you encounter them in your own projects.

It's similar to explaining any concept to someone - it forces you to organize and examine your own knowledge, and can help you recognize and fill gaps you might not have been aware of otherwise. It forces you to put into words concepts that might be somewhat abstract in your own mind, and that process can help you to examine those concepts from a new or different perspective.

What you say seems more like a cooperative work, not critique. As far as I know, those who give the critics should know a bit more about the subject, than the one who gets criticized. It's like being a teacher to a student, or a father to a son. Otherwise, this is nothing more than the "One of the crowd" critique, where I can tell someone why I don't like his movie, but can't teach him how to do it better.
 
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I'm specifically talking about critiquing from a position of knowing more about the subject, having more experience, etc - not about collaborating. Personally I've found teaching a subject is one of the best ways to really get to know it.

There's multiple steps in the learning process. You can take a class in something, or read about how to do it, and learn the basic concepts. Then you put those basics into practical use, which helps to turn them from concepts into skills. Through practice those skills can become second nature, which allows you to focus on adding new concepts and greater complexity.

If you now turn around and have to teach the skills that have become automatic to you to someone else, it forces you to examine your own actions and translate them back into concepts which you can communicate effectively to someone who doesn't have the practical experience yet. That process involves more than just stating the actions you would take in a given situation - it requires you to explain why you would choose those specific actions over the alternatives. This forces you to reconsider those alternatives as well as the actions themselves. That process of self-examination can help you discover things that you may have overlooked, or alternatives you don't consider because you do something out of habit.
 
There is a saying "You haven't really understood something till you can explain it to somebody else from scratch".

In that spirit, reviewing somebodies work can make things clearer for you. Of course, if you haven't had a clue beforehand, you won't come out enlighted, but when you have had some experience in that field already, you might know some things half-conciously, and by articulating them become more concious of them.

Seeing mistakes others made makes you more aware of the same mistakes in your own work.

Critique is a good exercise.

Of course, do it with all due respect to the author!
 
Ok, thanks for the answers.
If critique helps me to learn the subject even better, does that include all the methods I've listed above? Well, the first one is surely not, but there are still 2 methods:

1) - "Personal experience" - point on flaws based ONLY on my own experience. I won't speak of things I don't know, but then I shut myself to knew knowledge from those I criticize.

2) - "Aggressive teacher" - criticize harshly for every flaw, even minor ones, and make him lose self-confidence when I'm not around (a little bit evil method, but I see many people doing that).
 
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I think you're reading too much into the "aggressive teacher" critiques. Even if they seem harsh, I can all but guarantee at least 9/10 times the intent is not to make the critic look/feel superior, but to genuinely provide insight and point out flaws that may have gone unnoticed, and/or to suggest ways in which the piece being critiqued could be stronger.
 
I think you're reading too much into the "aggressive teacher" critiques. Even if they seem harsh, I can all but guarantee at least 9/10 times the intent is not to make the critic look/feel superior, but to genuinely provide insight and point out flaws that may have gone unnoticed, and/or to suggest ways in which the piece being critiqued could be stronger.

It's not about the harshness, it's the result. The author feels the urge to ask the critic about every single step he wants to do. If the "teacher" truly knows what he's talking about, this can actually help the author create a good product.
 
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1) - "Personal experience" - point on flaws based ONLY on my own experience. I won't speak of things I don't know, but then I shut myself to knew knowledge from those I criticize.

I don't think it's as limited as you make it out. For instance, you could say to someone "You should try X, because I've found it looks better than what you've done". That doesn't stop you from also saying "And why did you do Y? It looks odd to me". The former may be a critique based on your own knowledge and experience, while the latter may just be something you're not personally experienced with but reacting to as an average audience member. Maybe you learn something from their response, maybe it gets you examining where your own reaction comes from and helps you figure out why it makes you react that way. Either way you potentially learn something new. Plus, your critique - even though it doesn't offer any suggestions - forces them to think critically about what they chose to do in order to respond to you.
 
Why the harsh reply? Your question wasn't obvious to me so I asked. I
only wanted to be clear so I could offer an informed opinion.

I didn't mean any harsh reply. I'm sorry if it felt this way :)
If someone would have asked me to criticize his work, I wouldn't say no, but that would be because I was asked to, not for any other reason.
 
Critisizing (spelling?) is easy.
Providing good feedback takes more effort and is a creative process on it's own.
That's also why it can be interesting for the 'critic': it forces him/her to not only pinpoint a problem, but to find a possible solution as well AND then convey it clearly.
So besides it's often (in a perfect world it would be always) given in a desire to help a fellow filmmaker, it's also an exercise in creative thinking and communication :P

What IDOM says: reflecting on other people's work also helps to get a clearer view on your own work. And not only that: it makes you think more about the craft itself, than when you only have your own stuff to analyse.
 
I assume anyone that posts something on this forum is looking for criticism. Is that wrong? This isn't Facebook, I'm not your bestie. I'm here to collaborate on film, improve my abilities and to help others do the same. That's why I'm here, NOT to find content creators that I can follow and be entertained by. Sure it may happen, but that's a bonus.

One thing I feel like I've learned in my year here.. feedback on this forum is nothing like the feedback you will get from a general audience. We can give you technical feedback, poor sound mixing, color correction, editing, etc. but no one is consuming content in the same way that an average, non-film person would.

No one should be expecting to find a primary audience here on this forum. Experienced film makers are the worst demographic for a new film maker to target. So why else would you post here except for feedback; to learn and grow.
 
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