Sharing your work is the worst. You want people to watch what you have made/read your publications/pay attention but the process of putting it out there and waiting for the feedback is flesh crawlingly awkward. Think about every time you got some work returned at school that you were really proud of or worked hard on, you want the person marking it to share what you think about it. Multiply that feeling by 20 and you get Leanne and I’s awkward feeling this week as we circulate the film to a small and select group of viewers.
This is an important part of the process before we go to picture lock (I like saying this because it sounds like we’re on a Saturday night TV programme, it is second only to my new favourite film word ‘moosebars’) to make sure everything is making sense. We can’t re-shoot anything or re-write the script so we’re hoping to not receive any ‘fundamentally misconceived’ ‘bit boring’ feedback. We would also like to think that we got enough feedback at the story spine and screenplay stage to ensure this won’t happen. But, still…
Sharing something you have worked so hard on leaves you feeling pretty exposed. Coming from an academic background, I am fairly used to criticism, but most of this happens at the early stage of presenting work in the form of ideas, conference papers etc rather than the nearly finished item. Like PILI these papers would have taken a lot of time and effort to prepare, however they can often be fixed if there is something fundamentally flawed.
I am confident PILI is good, and will not produce any negative feedback, but I am still going to hide behind my bag every time an email pings in from one of our select viewers.
Not Another AIDS Film 