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…
By far the best thing about creativeLIVE is the ability to try before you buy. I love the fact that you can get totally-free, high-quality training by only sacrificing a little of your time. The production value is the best I’ve seen especially considering most people probably aren’t buying the full product. I especially enjoy how affordable the courses are.
I live in East Tennessee I’ve watched the live feed during the afternoon and very early in the mornings with no problems. Also, I’ve used several browsers with no problems either.
Regarding the format, the only observation/complaint I have isn’t something easily solved, because it lies with the other viewers. I’ve noticed that, in true internet fashion, some of the other viewers take over the chats (regardless of the segregation) with inane drivel that only detracts from the value offered by this interactivity. At the tiniest little hiccup the chats are instantly flooded with ridiculous complaints or other useless and repetitive comments. Many times there are people flooding the chats with questions about things they missed by being late or having to leave the room. I don’t imagine there is much to be done without simply doing away with the interactivity and that is worse than the problem because then you miss out on the really good questions that also come up.
To conclude, I love creativeLIVE. It is by far the best place/format for online workshops. You can attend the live courses free (with out tons of sales pitches and other garbage), the courses are all jam packed with material, and (best of all) it took two courses before I just dropped $79 without a second thought (and that’s not something I do very often). I will definitely be a repeat customer going forward.
Is there anyway you could make this interview available to download for the people who paid for the class? I would love to have this inspiring video!
1. It was incredible by all means, but I expected a lot more information. Well, hope it wasn’t the last workshop by Zack Arias on creativelive 🙂 I thought that it was going to be aimed at more experienced photographers, as I considered myself as one of them then. My thoughts changed on day 3, after Zack gave simple assignments to students in the studio. My first thought was: “I could easly do that” But then Zack said something like this: “It looks easy when you watch somebody doing this, but turns to be really hard when you try it yourself, doesn’t it?” That changed my approach. I’ve learned my lesson. It wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t live show with real students. Also, I love fact that it was free. 129$, or even 79$ is a serious amount of money for me.
2.Poland. I was watching parts of the workshop live and parts of it as a rewatch the next day in the morning. (10 a.m. in Seattle is 7 p.m. here)
3. Definitely YES!!! It was fantastic to participate something like this knowing that several thousands of people all over the world are watching along with me.
Chase and Team,
1. CreativeLIVE is different because you actually get to see these classes live as they are happening. I like the fact that you can tune in during these schedules and check out pro classes for free. Having these classes in real time is cool, because it’s much like a real classroom experience. You have to be there at a specific time. I also like the fact that the instructors are working pros that I myself admire. Taking Zack’s class via web, is exactly how I would expect one of his OneLight workshops to be. Bottom line: Keep doing this!
2. I live in the South Bend, Indiana area (Northern Indiana).
3. The worldwide format worked for me! Just to be a part of the experience was amazing. The fact that you can use Twitter to get questions answered, and get a direct line of site connection to the instructor is really cool. Zack Arias is hands down one of my favorite instructors and photographers for that matter. After seeing his OneLight workshop DVD, I had no problem paying the $79 for 3 days of outstanding knowledge. This is information that I did not receive in college. Though I majored in graphic design, my passion was photography so I took some classes instead of changing majors half way through my degree. Trust me the instructors at my college did not teach like Zack.
Your crew did an amazing job producing the videos. Broadcasting went very well for the most part. I had little delay in video. Although the I didn’t win anything in the giveaways, it’s really cool that companies sponsored the event. I also like the fact that zack spoke his mind, and would rather tell people his honest opinion instead of forcing himself to hide behind an endorsement.
Prices are right on target. Very reasonable for the information provided. I also like the promo prices available before the event ends. Having seen Zack’s DVD, it was a no brainer to buy this class.
Suggestions: I think a great way to get more people into buying these classes is to make a teaser video featuring some of the key moments or highlights of the class. So if someone did in fact miss the time it aired, they could at least get a taste of it.
All I can say is THANK YOU. I had a great weekend attending Zack’s class! I love technology
Hi, my name is Keegan Sparks and I love what your doing with Creative Live. I think you can make it better in a few ways. First off, I wish there were more audience members. I think it will make the atmosphere better to have more people watching in person. Second, you should get Platon to do a course. Third, I was a little confused about the whole preregistration thing. I thought I needed to sign up for something to watch it but then it turned out I didn’t. Could you make that more clear? Lastly I would like to see this kind of interview with everyone who teaches at Creative Live. This interview was my favorite part of Zack’s class.
I live in Siloam Springs, Arkansas I was born in Little Rock and I’m in central time.
I don’t really like the live format. It is really frustrating to have to plan my day around the class or to have to miss part of the class because I have to go somewhere.