I'm in a screenwriting class this semester. I love film classes but this particular one made me nervous. I have a professor who conducts himself like a character from a movie. It's intriguing sure, but my first impression of him (3 years ago at Filmmakers Club) was anything but nice.
However, he's changed my mind about him very quickly. He's been very friendly, has given good feedback, and the class is off to a great start.
Something worries me though. You see, we've started revisions on our previous feature length scripts. We all (about 10 of us in the class) brought in our first scenes, did read-throughs, then critiques. I'm one of two girls in the class, which is fine, but I can't help to feel like the feedback I received (all compliments and "That was really good's") was more of a way to avoid offending or hurting my feelings. Maybe it wasn't, for this is, in fact, my favorite scene I've probably ever written. But maybe it was.
I gave nothing but honest constructive criticism, hoping that I would receive the same. At first the compliments and "That was great" comments felt really good until I started thinking about it more.
I guess I won't really know until we do critiques on more things, but here's hoping that my classmates return the honest favor.