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 creativeLIVE the best? You are hand picking the best of the best of instructors for us. I already know that when I sign up for a three day seminar that I am not going to be wasting three days of my life and that I actually will benefit greatly for it. Even if I don’t purchase the download (don’t worry I always do!!!) there still need to be a ROI on our end. While it may be free to watch there is still an investment in our time, and you are doing a great job with that ROI! I’m already planning accordingly for next month’s class with David duChemin.
The live video quality is simply amazing, a little choppy at times for Vince’s classes but perfect for Zack’s. Something of this scale couldn’t have been pulled off even just a few years ago, bravo, its only going to get better quality wise!
#2
Boston baby! The Friday section I will typically start watching at work leave during a break and start it again at home, or just leave work early like I did for Zack’s class. The times are perfect for east coast, with maybe that exception of a couple of hours of work overlap we had on day one of Zack’s class but I planned around leaving work early to catch it live.
#3
I think this worldwide format will be a huge success, there are so many people that would never have had the benefit otherwise. We are very fortunate in both the US/Canada and Europe to have easy access to the pros on a regular basis. Many places however rely on outdated DVD training, so to be able to log onto the internet and learn/interact in real time with not only the instructor but the community watching as a whole via the chat room or twitter can only have a huge positive affect.
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
The production value of your tutorials is quite a bit higher than most other formats out there. Sure Gnomon has a very high quality aswell (usually) but they cost a lot more 😉 The depth of knowledge presented is also better than the usual “here, let me show you how to shoot perfect portraits” that is found out there. That market is kind of over-saturated, but what Zach showed was many different types of shooting besides the standard portrait setup 1a ;D
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 from Sweden and i saw day 1 and 2 live, and also the rewatches. Day 3 i was actually on a photoshoot so i had to watch the rewatch afterwards. Came back just in time to see the final aquarium shoot though ;D
3. Does this live worldwide format really work
Yes. besides the content which was excellent, and i am going to buy it aswell, the technical quality of the stream was about the best ive seen out there. Made it very viewable and not missing any details. And this is very impressive considering the ammount of viewers you had.
So very well done, and yes PLEASE continue. The world needs more of this sharing of knowledge. I just hope some day that i will be good enough to teach on one of your future classes ;D
Thank you for providing this Chase & Team! I was unable to watch all of it, and was disappointed I was going to miss it. Yet like a true champion you’ve come through with the goods!
To answer your questions:-
Offering it free first up, and paid downloads (both the pre-special and post normal pricing) is a complete turn about for what people normally expect. Something for free? Never! Something actually worth something for free? Unheard of!! Personally I think it’s a great introduction to something you might never actually look at. I actually bought the Zack Arias course when I first saw it up, as I knew how awesome it was going to be, and have previously caught a quick viewing of the CS5 and Fundamentals classes which is something I might never actually look at – Im now considering buying both. The best thing that I found from the classes are the twitter interaction with the instructor while keeping it feeling like a small intimate class. Very clever!
I am an Aussie living in England, so the time difference for the longer classes can be a bit painful- going to bed at 3 and 4 in the AM makes for a long day following! While I can appreciate the difficulties with the live stream and delayed stream, it would be good to do three staggered viewings, so those all over the world can watch. Yet when you want to sell these classes to the masses, being able to watch even a small bit is a darn good teaser to open your wallet for more!
Please do keep up the good work!
1. It’s exactly like it says…’LIVE, free, worldwide creative education platform’ That’s what makes creativeLive stand out. That’s what makes it different.
2. Oklahoma City, OK! I’m watching at my office, on my lunch break, and catch it anytime I can. On my laptop, iPhone etc!
3. Yes, I think this live format really works! The internet is endless, across all platforms/devices/mediums, and with the social network of Twitter – accessible to everyone.
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
What makes creativeLive different is the interaction with the instructor by being able to ask questions. Other options provide simple video learning, but the interactive quality both makes it possible to explore vague points further and it makes me pay better attention since I need to be on my toes to get a question in promptly.
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 northern Colorado and I watched all of the Friday and Saturday sessions and most of the Sunday one.
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 sure seemed to work on this production! To describe how it felt: It seemed like a radio talk show with a technical slant and a knowledgeable studio audience. You could “call in” and get a question addressed; the studio attendees offered many good questions and gave the instructor a decent foil to work against.
Using IRC for the chat was a good way to maintain the dialog, although the #creativeLIVE channel got distracted with side chatter at times, and the #creativeLOUNGE channel tended towards the useless due to very low signal to noise ratio. I don’t know how to implement it, but it would be neat to have a way for the viewers to submit their questions, and for the other viewers to “vote” on the offered questions to pick which ones the mods actually presented to the instructor.
Great work! Highly appreciated. Now if my Einstein lights would just get here so I can try out what I’ve taken notes on!