I was reading Carolyne Barry's book and in it she quotes Amy Lyndon as saying ''make sure the teacher does not allow feedback from his or her students. Sometimes a student's critique can be extremely damaging and inappropriate''.

Do you agree/disagree?

I think it's sometimes beneficial ONLY in an advanced class.

That's what happens in some of the advanced classes at Margie Haber Studios. The students in the advanced classes, however, are DAMN good and are constantly working AND are NOT mean-spirited. So I have found that helpful in that situation.

Some classes don't like Eric Morris' and the famous Actors Studio don't allow the students to directly give feedback, but the students have to first voice their feedback to a moderator/teacher and the teacher will either agree or disagree.

We're actors/performers and you must be able to take feedback or critique from anyone whether in class (advanced or not) or in a professional job! If you can't take it without taking it personal then do something else than acting!!!

I think if a student acts mean just to be mean or harmful or in any other way acts in ways not related to the acting, it should be the teachers job to throw them out of class!

I can see advantages/disadvantages. I have been in classes that expected feedback from the students and one where everyone HAD to say something. In one way I think you should be able to take it because you have to be mindful of how the audience interprets your performance, not just your teacher and you can't please everyone. I'm sure that are people who think Meryl Streep stinks.

On the other hand I've gotten conflicting feedback - one person saying,for example I had no objective and someone else saying they could clearly see I had a strong objective. That just leaves you confused and you don't feel like you're pregressing!

Well RedVelvetCake if you consider yourself a serious actor or perhaps even an artist YOU make your OWN decision about your objectives and whether YOU felt it was working or not, not someone else. A director in a WORKING situation in a play rehearsal or on a film set can tell you to do something different. In a class all you can get from other people, teachers or fellow students, is an idea of things but ultimately YOU make your own decisions, understand what I'm saying?

I understand what you're saying but it's all about personal taste, so how can you or who ARE you going to believe if one person says "it worked" and another says "didn't work"?
Again unless that person is a paying director or producer YOU MAKE THE DECISION! That's what professional actors do

What I meant it that yes I feel it was great but when I am paying $$$ for a class I want constructive criticism from a teacher I trust. I do not want a class where the only feedback is from other students and the teacher doesn't take some control of his class. I can just get together with friends for free in that case.

I come to class to be challenged and to take my craft to the next level not to go home feeling the same as when I arrived. For that reason I have tended to prefer classes where the teacher gives the majority of the feedback.

It was not my intention to sound as though I was looking for validation from a class. I'm not.

I'm just putting the question out there because I think Amy Lyndon makes a good point but I don't agree with her 100%.

I think most classes are run by teachers who give the majority of feedback, not that I know for sure but that's what I would think.

I think that "getting together with friends" could be BETTER than an actual acting class (not that I don't believe acting classes are worthless, I'm still doing workshops all over the place when there's something interesting to learn) but I believe having a theatre group with friends and reading scripts and acting out scenes or doing acting exercises might be better or at least just as rewarding and instructive as a class; you have the advantage of not having a guru acting teacher trying to tell you what's right or not and not get CONFUSED when something is not working for you but someone is telling you it's the ONLY way to do ít, thus in a theatre group you will work out your OWN technique and way of doing things, you might have the feeling of performing every time and so on.
I wish I had some actor friends I could start a theatre group with!!

I think it could be beneficial if it's actual feedback in a class of people who are serious about acting. Not the cheerleader queen in high school drama going off about how much better she is than Becky because Becky doesn't shop at Abercrombie.

I also agree with foreigner's first message: if you're serious about being an actor, you need to be able to accept feedback, good or bad.

I think that feedback from someone who doesn't know what they are doing (and to be frank 98% of actors out there, even the serious ones, don't) can be very very damaging. For that matter, a bad acting teacher can be very very damaging. For this reason I don't think it's a good idea to let everyone in the class "speak their mind" after two people have just worked a scene.

I think the best way to do it is if the feedback is directed more towards the teacher, so the teacher can comment on it and let you know if he thinks you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Of course actors get feedback from everyone, but if it's from the general public it usually goes in one ear and out their other (whether or not it's good or bad) because the general public has no clue about acting. They know whether or not the "liked it" and that's about it. In class (or on a set), however, I have a very open mind, and if someone says something stupid, I might very well take it seriously.

Jon_K what a bunch of crap! So what if you're in a class where all the students know nothing and the teacher as well knows nothing??
This is where I say you as an actor SHOULDN'T take it personal if you get "bad" feedback and just move on and take whatever you feel is useful, and if you do take it personal or if you don't know how to take "bad" feedback without getting a nervous breakdown then do something else than acting!
You said it yourself: "it usually goes in one ear and out the other"!!!

But listen to this: As a professional actor/performer the "GENERAL PUBLIC" is actually the real people paying you to perform and if they like what you're doing you better believe you're doing something right!! So don't regard the general public as a worse critic of your work than an acting teacher...even if you think they know less about acting just because they haven't been in an acting class!!!!
But again, take to heart what is useful and forget about the rest!

quote:

Originally posted by foreigner:
Jon_K what a bunch of crap! So what if you're in a class where all the students know nothing and the teacher as well knows nothing??
This is where I say you as an actor SHOULDN'T take it personal if you get "bad" feedback and just move on and take whatever you feel is useful, and if you do take it personal or if you don't know how to take "bad" feedback without getting a nervous breakdown then do something else than acting!
You said it yourself: "it usually goes in one ear and out the other"!!!

I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. It's not about getting "good" or "bad" feedback. It's about getting feedback that's potentially damaging to an actor's craft. Especially if the actor is young (and most people on this board are) and is still developing his process. For example, a student might watch a scene and say something like "you need to be upset at this particular moment" which is a stupid thing to say to an actor because anyone worth their salt knows that good acting craft has nothing to do with results. But a young actor might actually take this seriously, and try to work himself into a particular emotional state which is absolutely a step in the wrong direction. Or a student might try to direct the scene when he/she hasn't even read the play. I've seen that happen plenty of times too.

I say this because I literally spent a year of my life listening to idiot students who didn't know what they were talking about. I got myself out of that environment and realized how much it handicapped my craft. And I'm somebody who gets mostly positive feedback in class, and has booked paying acting gigs. Not that that means anything, but I just wanted you to know you're not talking to a beginner.

There is a very good reason that the Actors Studio (members of which include Dustin Hoffman, Al Pancio, and other movie stars) doesn't allow feedback directly from the students. It can potentially be very damaging.

quote:

But listen to this: As a professional actor/performer the "GENERAL PUBLIC" is actually the real people paying you to perform and if they like what you're doing you better believe you're doing something right!! So don't regard the general public as a worse critic of your work than an acting teacher...even if you think they know less about acting just because they haven't been in an acting class!!!!
But again, take to heart what is useful and forget about the rest!

A movie on RottonTomatoes is considered "a success" if the reviews are over 60%. That means 40% of the people didn't like the movie, and we're talking about big budget movie stars who have proven themselves to be genius actors.

Of course we need to please the general public, but to take specific advice from an armchair critic seriously is absurd. I can't tell you how many times I've been told I'm "a great actor" by someone who watched a show I'm in. However, in my heart, I know I have a LONG ways to go because I know I have a lot of weaknesses in certain areas of my craft - something that the general public knows next to nothing about.

Jon_K even though I don't know who you are I still know from reading these boards for a loooong time now that you're not a beginning actor however I don't agree with you at all.
What you're writing in your last post is contradictory to what you're saying in your post before that! Don't you think that feedback that is potentially damaging feedback is BAD feedback?????
And I DO NOT agree that the actor's studio and their bullshit way of guru acting teaching is really that good. I've studied with teachers who are members AND teachers at the acting studio and that was VERY DAMAGING! It was their way or the highway....is that not damaging to a beginning actor because I was at the time I studied with them? And that was a teacher ONLY feedback!!!
And what did I do? Got the fuck out of there, and that's exactly what I mean, just like you say yourself, you got yourself out of that damaging environment.

I still don't agree with you regarding feedback from the general public, why do you think major companies like Microsoft and other giants always want feedback from the general public? Do you think it's because they think "oh let those ignorant fuckers have a good time and tell us how we can improve online porn" or do you think it's because they take all the useful feedback and then see if they can improve their products?
General public isn't necessarily less ignorant than you or any acting teacher! And I think it's weird that you think it's absurd to take specific advice from an armchair critic, they might actually see something in your acting or performance that you never thought of doing or even thinking of. And if you think what that person says is crap then just forget about it!

And finally I don't understand why it's so hard for you take a compliment from someone who thought you did well in a performance, you must have a problem!!! I know that as an actor one is a perfectionist and want to always be better but man come on enjoy the positive response a little!!

Jon_k is not saying that if you get bad criticism, as in someone saying that you did something wrong, is bad. He is saying if you get someone who's criticism is more like direction, or result oriented, than it is not good.

I agree with him, because there are some people at my school that I listen to, and some I don't. Someone can tell me that I need to be more sad in a scene, but how is that gonna help me? That's a direction, and a bad one at that. Am I going to indicate sadness just to satisfy someone else's idea of what the scene should be?

A better, or should I say more constructive piece of criticism is to tell someone to raise the stakes, or to really think about the relationship they have to the other person and what they're going through in the scene.

I've been told I've been great in some things, but I'm not going to quit 'til I'm satisfied, and I'm a perfectionist in my acting, so it's never going to happen, and that's what drives me.

Foreigner,

I suppose it depends on the teacher.

I stand by what I said, and we'll just agree to disagree.

Jon_K I'm sorry if I came across as an asshole or rude I didn't mean to because I respect your opinion a lot from reading your posts on here for a long time now. And I think it's great that we can disagree, we're just different which is great, so again I apologize if I acted mean, I didn't mean to, I hope you know

Prospective: I never said that Jon_K couldn't take "bad" criticism, I said if he can't maybe he should do something else than acting. And again if you actually read my previous posts I already answered your question:
"I agree with him, because there are some people at my school that I listen to, and some I don't. Someone can tell me that I need to be more sad in a scene, but how is that gonna help me? That's a direction, and a bad one at that. Am I going to indicate sadness just to satisfy someone else's idea of what the scene should be?"
My answer AGAIN: If you find criticism to be un-useful then just forget about it and move on and never take it personal! And just to make it even clearer to you, I think if you're in a class where all the feedback from other students and EVEN THE TEACHER feels like direction or "bad" feedback to you, then just find another class, just like Jon_K said!!! So I am actually agreeing with Jon_K on something!!!

Good for you that you're a perfectionist and I wish you great success!

Don't worry foreigner, I didn't take it the wrong way.

I would say as a rule, no. Some students could probably give helpful comments, but many of them just don't have the experience/words to say anything helpful; that might just be annoying.

That being said, after class, if a student wants to mention something, that is at his or her own risk... this has happened to me, but only with positive comments.

I totally agree. Firstly when you choose a teacher and hopefully a skilled one, you are relying on his or her ability to give you honest as well as appropriate feedback on your work. Student feedback can be damaging and can also create discension in the ranks. Sometimes students feel obliged to say something nice in the hopes that they will receive praise in return. Most often they don't have the experience to point you in the right direction and to guide you there. Choose someone with a keen eye and ear that can give specific and honest feedback. False praise is very damaging and will impede your growth