The following is the feedback I received from my classmates on my Self Portrait (Project Brief 1) within the framework of Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats.

– Black: one video was landscape and the other was portrait

– Green: a lot to work with in terms of editing to show more of my personality and my life (this will be helpful for Project Brief 2)

– Red: happy, felt like home, pleasing, optimistic, sense of belonging to Shanghai and Melbourne

I was pleased with the feedback I got in class. Before presenting, I was anxious that my ideas wouldn’t translate through the media I had created, so it was reassuring that my group mates seemed to understand what I was going for. On the other hand, I was hoping to gain a little more direction in terms of improvements they thought would make a difference to my self portrait. I hope that as we progress through the course, we all become more comfortable giving detailed, constructive feedback. As we’re all still new to this, it is challenging to give feedback because we’re worried about suggesting ideas that don’t quite fit the task or take a project in the wrong direction.

Having said that, I will definitely take on board the feedback I did receive. I’ve also been continuously brainstorming new ideas and thinking of ways to build on the media I have already created. I’m really excited about where I’m taking this, progressively more and more in the direction of how “home” reflects an accurate portrait of me. I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone else’s products and hearing about what inspired them/how they interpreted the task. In particular, Maggie’s take on the task really impressed me. She looked at the task as a way to portray her life and personality as a movie producer would if they were to create a movie about her life. This was a concept that had everyone in our group laughing from the very first element of media we saw. Everything tied together so well and I felt that I gained so much insight into who Maggie was from looking at her work. This is something I will be striving for as I piece together and edit my self portrait for Project Brief 2.