Quality of work.

The quality of your work is most criticized by you the artist, writer, producer, or what ever you call yourself if your profession. I understand this criticism as my own body of work has grown over the years. And at the same time, I am still surprised every day at the number of people out there that are willing and feel personally compelled to call your work no good, sub-standard, not up to par, or just plain crap.

Never the less, this compulsion seems as though it is a god given right to those that feel that something you have done is not as "good" as something they have done, whether or not they have done anything at all. And at the same time they have a whole compliment of ideas they think would have made the production "much better", felling it necessary to convey them all to you.
Now let me take a pause to say this. I worked with a writer a while back and he offered up this tidbit of interesting knowledge.

~"No script that has ever been turned into a movie, television show, or play ever started as a bad idea. On paper they are all basically the same."

WOW, I never thought of that. It's true. No project that I ever worked on was a bad idea when it started. They were all blank slates to throw theory's at, void of any actual location, place, time, or visual cue to the viewer. Like a book in a way, you have the ability to let your own mind add the creative vision behind the story as it unfolds in the pages you read. When you get a script, or story idea, you have to create that visual imagery for all that will subsequently view it, and if you get it wrong, the result is a bad movie, television show, or play, and the comments come out in full force. This should have been that way, or that color or should have been this color. Or god forbid, that director is and idiot and should have been replaced.

When you are hired as a director, your hired because the body of work that you have already done is indicative of the current project and your "eye" for what ends up on screen is what they wanted in the first place. Now let me be clear. I didn't mind outside constructive criticism. However, when an outsider comes in and tries to fully replace what the original goal was, maybe it is time to punt, start over and give the whole thing another try with another visionary team. If that is not possible, and I cannot stress this enough, limit the amount of outside influence to an absolute minimum and make sure that those opinions stay just that, outside opinions. They should not have any other sway on the project other than to offer up such suggestions.

I have a group of people that over the years I have found to be able to give this sort of constructive criticism. This "focus group" has been a real help to the production most of the time. They offer up reflection in specific time and scene to help with getting those, "what was that", or "that does not make sense" issues addressed before the final edit is done.

The need for all who call themselves a professional to offer praise or damnation to those that did not live up the their own standard quality work will never go away. They will continue to write in the blogs and talk to their friends and say the not so nice comment of you on television or even to your face. Get used to it, it is part of the profession that you chose to get into.