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. Well obviously the free is good but really what made it different was I’ve never been involved with something that seemed so well thought out. The camera work was great (kudos to that audio/video team), and the level of interactivity with Zack was awesome. It was as close as I could come to actually sitting in the room and that’s pretty sweet.
2. I’m in the Tampa Bay, FL area and I didn’t see one glich in the video/audio (of course, I didn’t get to see the entire thing).
3. I think it does work. Especially for those of us that can’t afford, schedule, or be near enough to these pros that hold workshops. I’ve been planning on going to one of Zack’s “one light workshops” since he’s probably the closest one to me but scheduling my family of five to travel is a headache. This was just downright convenient. The only thing that really, really pissed me off was not knowing beforehand the level of quality and interactivity this would be. I missed a lot of the three days because of my schedule but had I known that this event would be what it was, I would have marked my calendar as busy. I would have told my family that I’m attending a class and to just pretend that I’m not home.
If CL decides to do another of these classes you need to tell people “no seriously, this will be an intense 10 hour day workshop, put this on your calendar and don’t schedule anything else.”
All in all it was awesome. I’m a fan of Zack and CL needs to have him back as soon as his schedule allows. Also if any other pros that aren’t on CL are reading this: you need to get on CL asap. This is as close as I’ll probably ever get to purchasing one of your classes.
Thanks everyone for all the hard work!
1. CreativeLive rocks because of the content, the names associated with it and how you offset the costs. If you watch a course and you liked it but you still can’t pay for it, no sweat. People who can will probably buy it, and people who are still in the hustle will buy it sometime.
2. I live in Argentina, Buenos Aires (gmt -3). I watched Zack’s workshop from here, and missed Vincent’s, i’ll probably buy both as soon as I can though. The feeds i try to watch live so i can ask questions, but sometimes obligations make me watch the replays (which are a life-saver)
3. Absolutely, the world seems smaller every day, everything interacts with everything and it seems as this is easier to notice each day that goes by.
It felt great having access to people i would probably never have access to in any other way, the direct (or pseudo direct since it’s impossible to read everything that comes in) feedback. Then the accessibility that the Internet gives you is amazing.
A short explanation would go something like this: “Watching CreativeLive is having an almost one on one class with THE best teacher about the specific topic at which that teacher excels” or “Imagine having your hero teach you what he does and why does he do it? Well, it’s just like that”
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
It’s been said before, but really what differentiates creativeLIVE from everything else out there is that it is FREE. Not just free but just really thought out in terms of logistics. A lot of other places offer free lessons, but few are able to fully harness the power of multimedia like CL has.
Another aspect of the CL experience I really enjoyed is the interaction between instructor and students. Being able to respond in real time with Twitter and live chat is an aspect that should adopted by others. Also, it’s great that your lessons include practical lessons to try and practice at home.
The only thing I think could be improved is the rewatch and some of the glitches that have happened. I understand that it’s free and CL is bound by the limitations of time and the need for sleep. Really not sure how to get around this one, but I and I’m sure a lot of others are grateful for the chance to rewatch overnight.
2. I’m from Toronto (Canada) and have been promoting the whole creativeLIVE experience to anyone who will listen! If I can, I will watch the live feeds at the time of broadcast. Sometimes I’ll watch a bit of the overnight if I’ve missed some sections. I also purchased the Vincent Laforet workshop series.
3. The worldwide format absolutely works. Not perfectly, but it is definitely a start in the right direction and should continue to be at the heart of the creativeLIVE ethos. The experience is unlike any other available on the internet. While there are lots of resources on a whole host of topics, I think one of the key strengths of the CL experience is interaction. You get chances to apply what you learn and have questions answered almost in real time.
I’m definitely not a marketing guru, but to describe the CL format to someone else I would emphasis the key aspects of it being free, interactive and stress the quality that the instructors and support staff put into the production. I would also (kind of) push for the downloads and remind folks that producing something of this quality isn’t free (even though you can watch for free!). So any download purchases help the cause. Basically what you folks are doing already!
Kudos to everyone that has been involved in the creativeLIVE process, keep up the good work and looking forward to learning more!
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
I was able to follow John Greengo’s class and parts of Stephen Laforet’s weekend workshop. As a reference for comparison to other photography resources I have the various YouTube photography classes and Zack Arias’ One Light workshop which I had the opportunity and pleasure to watch on the DVD recording.
So first, CL is different by being, well, LIVE. This makes it possible to be interactive as well. It really gives a sense of intimacy – as if you are actually there.
From what I have seen so far, it looks like this whole initiative is top-notch in terms of quality of instructors and the choice of materials. It is obvious that the staff gives all they have and are totally committed to the effort. The level of thoroughness exceeds every YouTube class I have watched. I believe that if one is willing to pay for photography education material, he can’t go wrong by purchasing your recordings.
On the not-so-bright side – comparing your live broadcast to other types of live programming in other media, like TV, it seems like you still have some technical problems that should have been overcome a long time ago. For example, during many of Greengo’s broadcasts there were video or audio drops and many times the slides were not aligned correctly in the frame.
The Live Chat is hard to follow. I am not sure about the effectiveness of this format. I found it distracting trying to follow the chat at the same time of watching the video. But then, I can’t imagine an effective alternative.
To put things in context – the bad things are dwarfed by the good things mentioned above.
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?
We are Israelis living in Massachusetts for the past few years. I watched Greengo’s classes live while in the office (duh…). I watched parts of Laforet’s workshop from home, when I had the opportunity, then some parts of the rewatch.
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?
The is great. I think it works more due to the level of the persons involved than to the technical specifics of the format. Describing it – just mention a remote live, real-time, interactive classes.
To sum-up – so far CL is fantastic. Big thumbs up and good luck in making this format economically justifiable.
1. The resources at hand are great, a lot of the information given by come right from experts who do make a living doing what they teach. The interaction between the online peers and the live group is amazing.
The main draw down I see is the schedule of the weekend sessions, take for instance Zack’s studio lightning course, I really wanted to see it all but couldn’t because of tight schedule. I reckon that’s where the payment option comes into play and I’ll surely buy the course in order to catch everything, but I think for the limited resources folks it would be great to have a retransmission of a sort.
2. I’m from Guadalajara, México. I work at home so there’s no problem for me to watch the courses I’m interested into at the live feed. Weekend courses are the ones I’m mostly unable to catch. (Mainly Zack’s and Vincent’s courses)
3. The concept is great, I find the format unbelievably attractive and even though the questions are sometimes hard to get through the most important ones are most of the time asked. Everyone I’ve told about the concept find it interesting and compelling and it surely works out.
I think what you’re doing is a huge step forward in what the general attitude toward educating fellow peers (either amateur or professional) should be like. It’s a great contribution for us photo lovers and I truly thank the creativeLIVE crew for all their effort.