Staying ahead of the curve - School Days

Post, Sept, 2003 by Matthew Armstrong

Winter Park, FL's Full Sail (www.fullsail.com), which offers a 13-month associate's degree program, has also had more animation and effects students as well as those seeking to be editors in recent years.

"The last five years has been pretty exciting--before, filmmaking was just film and it was difficult," relates David Franko, program director of the film program of Full Sail. "Now there's more of a bridge between film and video with all its formats. When I went to film school, it was impossible to edit something at home. Now, you're seeing students who own nice cameras. So students come in wanting to understand the various formats."

Full Sail has also recently been preparing for HD as it recently purchased Avid|DS HD and Avid Nitris systems. "We don't have HD cameras yet, but if you ask me in two months the situation may be different," says Franko. "We've laid the groundwork for HD with our Avid systems. We're waiting, like many people, to see what the actual standard HD format will be."

TRAINING CENTERS

While established film schools like SCAD and Full Sail have altered or added to their curriculum to include these new technologies, many new training centers have opened up in the past decade and these facilities are growing rapidly due to rising demand. Training centers in the past were often geared for beginners. Most training centers still maintain a broad range of introductory courses, but in the last five years they have become more and more oriented toward the working professional who needs to learn a new program and add to their skill.

Video Symphony has a student body that includes everyone from those just starting out to Emmy award winners. "We have a lot of accomplished, experienced editors that come here to learn a different skiff or 'hone their something different,'" says Flanagan. "Some may need to learn more about the nonlinear world and get updated on the new versions of software, some may need to learn more about visual effects--there's always something you can improve."

Three-year-old Magnet Media has just started up its Zoom-In series of training DVDs: project-based tutorials that are aimed at users who are familiar with the software but need to master it, showing advanced functionality, shortcuts, tricks and other helpful hints.

"There's been a void in the training market for advanced training, beyond just pushing buttons and knowing a program but taking it to the next level and being able to translate what's in your mind to the screen," explains Cunningham. "Typically there's a gap between users' skills and the types of projects that are winning awards, and most users want to achieve that higher standard."

Oregon 3D, in Portland, opened last year, offering half-day to five-day classes targeted to the working professional. It sees the most activity when software updates come out and its program includes courses on most Discreet products, Alias Maya, Right Hemisphere software, Eyeon's Digital Fusion and RealViz products. "The RealViz courses are really cool because MatchMover and Re-Timer are relatively simple but there are some ins and outs to them that are pretty difficult, and those are half-day courses," explains Doran, who says that now he is deciding whether to add other editing courses on different platforms besides Discreet Smoke and possibly courses on Digidesign Pro Tools, as well as a course on storyboarding.