Pitch Week Supervision

Pitch week has gone down well, I think. My group was joined with Dmitrijs group as both were missing a few students and were therefore a bit small. We mainly had second years and two third years. The ideas and sketchbook developments were generally good. Some were outstanding for the time they had for developing them, some were quite basic with just a few mind maps and written notes. In the latter cases Dmitrijs and me tried to encourage them to find images or develop sketches and character designs to visualise their ideas as even though they might know exactly what the project was going to look like, someone else might not be able to follow that thought process through notes only.

Some students still hadn't picked the blogging idea up, which I reminded them to do. It's such a convenient way to keep track of your thoughts and for others to look over them too. I made sure it was on everybody's mind to keep an up to date blog and make a note of every thought process and research material.

I found it easy to follow what the students were saying and to give them appropriate feedback. Judging by their reactions I had pointed some of them in directions they hadn't thought about or reaffirmed their development, which they seemed to appreciate.

I was wary of the time throughout the pitch, so when the feedback for one person would start dragging into unrelated conversation I would try and move it along to the next person. I don't think I cut anyone off so that they didn't get all the information they needed but we did finish half an hour early. Everyone seemed happy with the feedback they got, so I don't think it was too bad that we finished early.

Although I liked the fact there was another 4th year to help lead the pitch, I didn't like that there was a supervisor actively participating as well. I was supposed to be by myself leading the group, which I was initially looking forward to and realised later on that having another 4th year there was beneficial. However, having a third person who was supposed to "overlook" the process participating felt patronising to me. I felt the control was taken away from me. I would have liked to share my experiences of previous years along with the feedback I gave the students but I didn't have a chance to do that as there were 3 people trying to give advice.

For Crit week I could probably relax about the time a bit more as I know now that I don't have to rush things along. All in all, I think it went rather well and there wasn't much I would have done differently I don't think.