Whew! What a week it was last week… Last Wednesday, I brought pal and photog instructor guru Zack Arias into my studio for another episiode of chasejarvisLIVE. We chatted photography for 2 hours and took questions from the live Twitter audience via #cjlive. Was a blast. While about 20,000 of you caught the interview LIVE–it seemed like I got at least that many tweets/emails/fbook requests to post it again here on the blog, so… As you wish. Here ’tis.
From there, we shipped Zack and his crew into our creativeLIVE studio where he put on one heckuva studio lighting course all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully you saw the interwebs booming, especially with the @creativeLIVE and #askzack tags. I’m pretty sure Zack swiped some ratings from the World Cup. Or at least we had fun trying. I wanted to give a huge shoutout to Zack and his team for an amazing effort. You guys and gals nailed it. Also a shoutout also to all the manufacturers that kicked in gear for Zack to give away, as well as uber thanks to B&H Photo Video for their support of the creativeLIVE studio and G-Technology for keeping our gobs and gobs of data safe. They support us, please support them. I hope lots of you tuned in. And if you didn’t but wished you had, the course is available for download here.
While I’ve got you, I wanted to ask for your feedback. Not somebody else’s…YOURS. In the comments below, we’re looking to find out a few things with the goal of making creativeLIVE the best it can be. Tell us whatever you want, but please help us by answering some or all of the following particulars about our LIVE, free, worldwide creative education platform:
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you? Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it?
Thanks for taking the time! If you’re new here, I invite you to subscribe/follow via links above and to the right. Lots more stuff heading your way soon on all our channels…
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse?
I work as a technician in the distance education division of our state university system. We have both online classes and 2-way interactive TV classes that connect students and instructors on all our islands. The way you have this structured and the quality of the delivery is FAR SUPERIOR to what we have.
There are many things that I like about the creativeLive approach:
a. The workshop is offered live for free, with the option to purchase the download during and after the workshop. This gives us a chance to SEE the quality of the information we choose to purchase the downloads.
b. The quality of the video is outstanding. Especially on the final edits – your post production people rock.
c. I think the audio could use a little work – many times the audience questions could not be heard until they were repeated by the instructor. In our classrooms, each student has a desk mic with a push to talk button. We instruct each student in our classrooms to use their microphone when they ask a question, so that students on the other islands can hear them.
d. The video switching was a little slow at some parts, when Zack would write something on the board and we were stuck on a cutaway of someone or a different camera angle. That could use a little improvement.
e. Great use of moderators and Twitter/chat room to field questions from the internet viewers.
f. Really appreciate the pricing of the downloads, especially the discount offered up until the end of the workshop. Being stuck here in Hawaii, the cost of traveling to workshops is prohibitive,
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
I am in Maui, Hawaii. I can usually catch most of the workshop live, but the rebroadcasts really help me catch up on parts that I miss.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work?
Absolutely. I wish our distance education system could be even half as good as what creativeLIVE is putting out.
Chase, if you’re ever in Maui, drop me a line and I’d be happy to show you our distance education setup so that you can see how the creativeLIVE format completely blows away our multimillion dollar statewide interactive TV system.
1. This idea to spread information around the globe in real time is just marvellous! And for free! You guys did a wonderfull job! Thanks a lot from as starving students.
2. I live in Czech Republic, but I am a night bird so I had no problems with watching live. But i must admit “rewatch” times are certainly a good thing for some folks out here in Czech Rep.
3.Well, all of my friends got the general idea the first time I had talked about it and some even tuned it for themselves. (not all of them photogs:)
Once more Thank you all.
1. The three things I love about CreativeLIVE are the “learn for free” model, the quality of the education, and the participation. Giving the live feed out for free is great for people who either can’t afford the education, or are unsure if they want to learn. I also like the quality of the education. So far I’ve caught a few episodes of John Greengo’s course and a bit of Zack’s and I know I will be purchasing both of them. I would expect to pay $1000 for the caliber of information; way better than any college course I have taken! The class participation is also fantastic. There has been a number of times that someone will ask a question that I wouldn’t even have thought of, or someone asks the question I was also wondering.
2. I live in Fargo, ND, USA. I watch on the Central Time Zone.
3. I think it works. I watch in the US, so I have no problems with the times, language, or connection. I can see a need for subtitles, if they are not currently available. If I had to explain it to someone, I would say it’s like taking a college course, but pants are optional. : ) From what I’ve seen so far, the classes are very engaging, they do feel like you are in the room with the instructors.
CreativeLIVE is freaking awesome…enough said. Thanks Chase, Craig, and everyone else that makes this possible!
Creative Live with Zack was just awesome. The live feed was great for being free, but being able to download the whole show for just $79 was even better. Now I’m albe to watch it again and learn as much as I can from Zack over and over again.
Creative live is on to something with the classes. Zack was a great instructor, he was funny (enough), and very knowledgeable. This is the kind of mix you want. The support staff made the flow of the class great. Camera one, then camera two, transition, perfect.
On top of learning new technique with flash photography I also walked away with the fact that I’m heading in the right direction, and that I should be building my photography on “cash flow not credit”. This last part still rings in my head!