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…
Had to copy paste the questions to remember them as i answered.
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
A.- This is the very first time i have ever seen and experience anything like this. This not just good, is better than anything i have ever seen, FOR SURE. how is it different for me, its completely like and actual classroom class… even if not there, you could ask anything you needed to know. Loved the audience interaction concept.
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?
A.- I live in Venezuela. Zulia. The conection was sometimes a lil slow for me, and had to refresh many times, but thats not your fault… lausy venezuelan internet conection.
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?
A.- It worked for me. The conection failed a few times, but that was not your fault.
It was quite something, never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just information to learn. It was entertaining and fun. Loved the interaction with the audience. I actually had to take notes… hello? i’m not some1 that takes notes… that shows just how good it was. I was really into it. 🙂
If i had to describe it for some1 that didnt have the chance to watch over here, I’d say, full quality… practical, and filled with knowledge… pretty much like a good university class in a classroom. Interective and fun. You can actually see well, hear well and understand. Gotta give it to Zack… you’re a good teacher!
Hey Chase,
I’ve only seen the Zack Arias workshop thus far and so my comments will be on that. Once I free up a bit of space on my credit card, I’ll download some of the others and maybe have some comments to add.
First off, I wasn’t going to watch it… or any of them.
When you first posted about creativelive and said it was a worldwide online free classroom and that “we” could sit in with the live participants and watch the instructor and ask questions, I immediately thought of mystery science theatre 3000 in a computer lab. I had no interest in watching people watching a guy teach. The impression I had was that it would be a stuffy/cramped view at a guy moving a mouse around. This opinion was based on just glancing at the info you provided, thus, uninformed.
I was going through my bookmarks on the Friday night and saw a few references to the creativelive event and thought, meh, I loved Zack’s OneLight DVD and I’m bored, let’s take a quick look.
The event with Zack couldn’t have been further from what I expected it to be.
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1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
If you mean different compared to a live feed from a static camera at a conference or in a distance university class… creativelive beats that by having a multicam setup which makes it play out more like a tv show than a speech. No podiums or mics hiding the presenters face and keeping them from moving about freely. The angles are motivated. Close-ups, reaction shots, crisp computer feed vs camera over the should. A multi-cam/multi-feed setup is infinitely better at keeping the audience’s interest than a static, one camera shoot.
Different as compared to kelbytraining…
Kelbytraining videos are great. I won’t knock them. The difference however, is the level of interactivity offered by a creativelive event. Twitter and chat room questions are relayed by dedicated and mic’d liaisons. The live participants ask questions and even the presenter asks questions of the global audience. The dynamic nature of creativelive’s professionally managed interactive elements allows a learning experience that goes far beyond a static presentation. One learns more.
Different as compared to attending a workshop…
I’ve never attending a workshop but oddly, I’ve presented at a couple…
A workshop has a set number of attendees. They can ask relevant questions and help expand on the content to a certain level but they can’t think of everything. A worldwide audience at a creativelive event _can_ think of everything. Also, with the internet audience being separate from the production, it allows for less distraction and apprehension. A workshop attendee might be nervous about wasting the presenter’s time or they might be thinking about something three topics back. The creativelive approach allows for a multitude of highly relevant audience questions which leads to a richer learning experience.
The icing on the cake with creativelive is being able to purchase a copy of the event.
Virtually attending a perfectly executed creativelive event is one thing; motivated multi-cam/feed setup, mics so that everyone is heard, unparalleled interactivity with a worldwide audience, top quality presenters who actually flourish in such an environment… but at any seminar or workshop, attendees miss something or wants to revisit a topic or just re-experience the entire event. The ability to do this by purchasing the entire creativelive event is priceless.
2. Where do you live?
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work?
I went in to so much detail in the answer to number 1. that I can probably skip this question… but yes, the format works.
The only problem comes from monetizing this experience. I’ve got a million thoughts on it and shared some with the creativelive customer service guy but I’m not going to list them here. If you or Craig (I believe he is the executive producer) would like to email me, that’d be cool and I’ll share my thoughts.
3a. What does the experience feel like to you?
It feels as though the creativelive team actually cares if you learn.
Thanks guys,
Ian.
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different?
For one thing, it’s free! I have always been interested in photography and purchased my first DSLR shortly before I became a victim of the economic downturn. To have these classes available for free has been phenomenal!. Thank you!!!!
2. Where in the world do you live?
The home of the newest Stanley Cup Champions! To you non-hockey fans, that’s Chicago!!!! Best city in the world, bar none. But, I’m biased.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work?
An emphatic YES!!! Especially, when you have instructors as great as Zack and John. I wasn’t sure how it would be, but they did a great job of making it seem as if I was there in person. The chat monitors also did a great job of choosing good questions and answering questions themselves in the chat room. If I ever become employed again, the timing thing would be prohibative for me. It would be nice if there was a way a student could see the class at a time that was convenient for them.
I have learned so much and finally got the courage to go manual. Woo Hoo! Although, sometimes I still fall back on auto settings. Baby steps 🙂 I was only able to watch the first installment of Zack’s presentation, but I still learned a great deal. His explanations were clear and concise for a beginner such as myself. I can’t say enough great stuff about John. He is my photography hero!!! Luckily, I got a big refund from the IRS, so I treated myself to the purchase of John Greengo’s show at the discounted rate, It would have totally been worth it at the full price though. I also bought a polarizing filter from B&H because of their support of CreativeLIVE. Thanks again for offering these classes.
You folks rock!!!
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different?
I know what makes it exceptional: the concept is ideal. If you watch on-line, it’s free (what could be better than that??). If you want to keep the course and re-watch again and again, you pay for it.
This is my third creativeLive course. And I must say, it was Zach who really ‘made’ this course over the top and fantastic! So much so, I have parted with my hard-earned 79.00USD, just because I know I will want to watch him again and again. What I get for that price was worth it for me. He is a natural-born teacher, and put so much energy into his course, you couldn’t help but be super-impressed.
2. Where in the world do you live?
Switzerland. And, the creativeLIVE approach is fantastic for me! Until now, I would see so many one-day, two-day, or weekend courses in the States, which was frustrating knowing that the same was not being offered in a location near to me. With this format, I am able to attend sessions which are now available, without the cost of travel and accomodation. You can’t imagine how much that opens up the learning opportunities for those of us not North America.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work?
Absolutely. The first two CreativeLive courses I took were at ~8:00 p.m. my local time (which is GMT +1), for a couple of hours duration. That’s really convenient. This last course with Zach Arias was a little more different, due to the day-long 3-day structure, it ran from 8:00 p.m. to about 3:00 a.m. However, the fact that the course repeated made it perfect, as I would wake up and continue watching from when I left off the night before. Given that the course was offered 2 times in each 24 hour period made it SO easy to plan around – it offered me flexibility and made it possible to watch the entire course in my timezone.
I’m a fan of both Chase and Zack’s work but I have a slightly different view of all this. First the “democratizing training” and “free” crap is killing me. Just admit it. You want to make money. You’re offering a free preview of a class if you happen to be available at that specific time. You haven’t revolutionized training in any way (you’ve actually taken it a step back in many ways).
At least Lynda or Kelby online provide a service and let you know up front you’re going to pay for it. They’re not trying to make it sound like it’s free when it’s not.
And I hope people aren’t fooled by getting your questions answered. If theres really 20,000 people online (as Chase says), then lets say 10% ask questions @ 30 seconds each. That’s 16 hours of questions. Don’t fool yourself, you’re not getting your question answered.
You’re not getting your question answered. They are -covering- the material.. and it -happens- to answer your question. But there are tons of places that do that too.