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. Love this business model. The ability to see a calendar of events up front and know it is free to watch is outstanding. Even though Zack’s workshop was free to watch (and rewatch) I still purchased the vids because there is so much info. so to have the purchase option is great (even better when it is a discounted option during the workshop period)
2. I am in New Hampshire, which made it tough for the west coast start of Zack’s workshop and the rebroadcasts were too early in the morning. Don’t worry it is how I feel about the NBA finals start time too!
3. The format is great. Plus the step in HD is wonderful. You guys are doing this right, please continue to bring inspiration to creatives!!!
1. I love the laid-back approach of the creativeLIVE workshop. As someone else mentioned, it was almost like attending a workshop in person. I think the linking of multiple layers of technology really makes CL different. Using social media, along with a live audience really sets this workshop apart and allows everyone to be a part of the action. Really impressive. Zack, you are an amazing photographer and an even amazing person. You speak to everyone from a beginning photographer such as myself to a seasoned professional. You can communicate on all levels. I also thank you for your humble attitude. You make us feel as though there is no such thing as a dumb question and you do your best to answer at a level that anyone can understand. When we (beginners) ask questions in Flickr groups, all of the “wanna-be” professionals immediately launch into a philosophical debate over the a lost 1/999th stop of light. You are awesome!
2. I live in Starkville, Mississippi. Since I live in a very rural state, I do not have access to workshops, conferences, etc. that you guys in Seattle, NYC, and other parts of the world are accustomed to. As an amateur photographer, I rely on Flickr groups and other Web resources to learn and expand my skills. This gave me an opportunity to learn from a world class photographer and for less than $80 I will have it with me forever.
3. I think the worldwide format really works well. It allows people from all across the globe to interact with each other via Twitter, etc. as well as the photographer. Really incredible use of technology. Great job and thank you for all of your hard work and effort.
1. I think the main thing is the feeling that I was really part of it. It was like I was AT the event. I loved that. I loved watching Zacks confidence grow over the 3 days. I loved seeing little errors we all make such as forgetting to dial in the correct exposure after taking a meter reading. Just the little things seemed to somehow make all the difference. I don’t think I’ve ever sat at the computer for hours watching a ‘tutorial’ but I was glued to the screen watching Zack work.
2. I’m based in Paris, France. Watched 2 feeds live and the third half live then caught up with the repeat.
3. Yes I feel undoubtably the format works. Describe it? It’s the closest thing to attending a live workshop I’ve ever come across.
Just…..ermmmm……just bloody well done guys!
Location: Banbridge, Northern Ireland
The format is fantastic, it is like being in the studio almost. I was hooked from the get go. Took me a few days to recover as the time difference was a bummer. Zack was a fantastic teacher and he answered many difficult questions. The big plus is hearing other peoples thoughts and the random questions being answered fully. Loved Zacks down to earth approach and hs business advice. Very humble guy.
Lost my weekend to this and it was brilliant. Please keep doing these things.
All credit to the production team. It was professional but not over produced.
What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
Zack’s approach of this classroom setting is nice and natural. he explains, people ask question, some tweets etc there is a lot of knowledge, experience and details being discussed that would not be in a more formal/controlled/schedule environment. you get the personal interest stories, an anecdote here or there or a 2nd or 3rd way of explaining – which give more scope for people to understand the various topics – however, and this is not be be criticism that outweighs everything said above – it was at time almost painful to listen Zack talk in slow detail about things that seemed off-track. it felt like it took an hour until there was some meat added to the first day for example… perhaps the first day was more difficult in this way .. I haven’t yet watched all the rest and still need to download it. and because of it when I watched the replay – and thanks HEAPS!!!! for doing those – I had to switch off at times, it was just too much. All in all, though it was a full on workshop, with so much to learn great expample and practicalities. I love how Zack is so down to earth, talking about gear and his own journey and stumbling – it makes you realise I can get there too, or I already know THIS much, or I still need to practice and learn THAT much. Excellent stuff. Thank you Chase, and thank you Zack.
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 live in Melbourne, Australia and was watching the re-live streams – most of day one, some of day two when I decided to buy it, cause I couldn’t all take it in. technical this seems to have worked really well. some stream glitch, but it was fun to connect via twitter and see what others experienced and what creativeLive was working on to fix it.. great stuff
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? certainly does.
I think you guys realised that while the US market is huge there is a bigger potential out there in Europe and Asia (and elsewhere) you’re making that stuff accessible. I guess still some of the practicalities work better within the US context than the European or AU context (eg: setting up a studio, networking, online market for used gear, access to gear/shops. etc) but it certainly still gets one to think about what can and what can’t be done. So well done, keep it up. from an Aussie point of view the course seems a little pricey even the reduced offer. perhaps different markets have different dynamics, maybe that sort of money seems “cheaper” in the US if you know what I mean. but then you’ll have quite a few costs and the end-product is of excellent quality.
Thanks again!
Some CC:
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
It tries to reach too wide an audience. We all know you can’t make everybody happy, but it would be better to divide the courses between two levels 1- Introduction 2- Advanced. Different publics, different needs.
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 live in Spain (Valencia, to be more precise). If the feed is worth it, I’ll skip a few hours sleep to attend it live. If not, I’ll just watch 10 minutes to half an hour, and then drop out.. Laforet’s master course comes to mind: I was hooked after 50 seconds (even thought I work in the film industry it was enlightening to hear his points of view) although I’d say it focused (haha) too much on gear.
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?
It’s great. It works great, but it’s perfectible: see nº 1, and also, very very important, consider avoiding all the senseless blurb we can find a thousand times anywhere else on the internet. I don’t want to pay $100 to hear how great Adobe’s new software is. What I want is to learn more tricks and techniques I’d never thought of, and that’s something I’m very willing to pay for.
Lynda.com and tens of others websites already make online courses. Yours are already better, but what you can do with this format is so much better, so don’t restrict yourselves to mere tutorials or shameless promotion.
If I lived on another time zone, I’d give CL a B+. Because of the time difference which makes it less practical, I’ll give it a B-, but it could attain an A+ easily by changing a few things.