I’ve been invited by Dublin City University and Institute of Technology – Tallaght to present two days of seminars in Dublin this weekend.
* The session on Saturday is designed for students and new users.
* Sunday is for more experienced Final Cut Pro folks.
Click here for a full list of what I’m talking about, along with instructions on how to register. (Thanks to Adrian Brett for making this weekend possible!)
If you are anywhere nearby, I’d love to see you.
Larry
If you are looking for something free to do tomorrow – Tuesday, Sept. 29 – join me at the South Coast Plaza Apple Store at 8:00 AM for a two-hour FREE presentation on the new Final Cut Studio (3).
The Apple Store invited me to speak and I’m delighted to be there.
During my two hours, I’ll cover not just the hot new features in the software, but the power tools that lurk just beneath the surface that can help you edit faster, edit better, and create images in ways you may never have thought possible. Plus, as always, I make sure there is plenty of time for questions.
Remember, this event is FREE, but limited to about 20 seats. For more information, contact the store – (714) 424-6331 – and ask for Eric Sanchez or Darren Burgos.
If you are anywhere close to Orlando, Florida, join me for WEVA 2009!
WEVA (the Wedding and Event Videography Association) is holding their annual Expo at the brand-new 26-acre Hilton Orlando, in Orlando, Florida, from Sept. 14 – 17, 2009.
They’ve asked me to present two sessions:
* The New Final Cut Pro 7 – When Should I Upgrade?
(Tuesday, 9/15, from 10:55 – 11:55 AM)* Final Cut Pro Plug-Ins and Short-cuts
(Wednesday, 9/16, from 9:20 AM – 10:20 AM)
Plus, I’ll be around the show the rest of the time to meet with you and answer your questions.
With over 70 different sessions – all devoted to improving your business and your craft – WEVA has become a “Don’t Miss” event.
I look forward to seeing you there.
During our recent summer seminar series, I got a lot of requests to provide more opportunities to meet with editors. We decided to take that to heart for September – and have created a variety of ways, and places, to help you make the most of Final Cut Studio.
Here’s a list of our events in Southern California this month.
Larry
Santa Barbara – Sept. 9 (Wed)
Full-day FCP seminar — 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
The new releases — working with stills — video compression — and lots of discussionClick here for more information.
Woodland Hills – Sept. 11 (Fri)
Half-day monthly FCP workshop — 3:00 – 7:00 PM
* Making your video look great on the web or DVD
* Technical problem solvingClick here for more information.
Burbank – Sept. 18 (Fri)
Half-day monthly FCP workshop — 6:00 – 10:00 PM
* Making your video look great on the web or DVD
* Technical problem solvingClick here for more information.
Santa Monica – Sept. 19 (Sat)
FREE Two-hour Event — 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Highlights of Final Cut Pro 7 — Tell your friends!
This is a great way to get an overview of the software!
(Held in partnership with DV Creators.)Click here for more information.
Anaheim – Sept. 21 (Mon)
Half-day monthly FCP workshop — 3 – 7 PM
* Making your video look great for web or DVD
* Technical problem solvingClick here for more information.
South Coast Plaza Apple Store – Sept. 29 (Tue)
FREE Two-hour Event – 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
New features in Final Cut Pro 7 — Hidden tips –
Power Tools. Come get your questions answered.Click here for more information.
Woodland Hills – Sept. 30 (Wed)
Half-day monthly FCP workshop — 3:00 – 7:00 PM
* Improving, repairing, and mixing your audio
* Technical problem solvingClick here for more information.
Santa Monica – Oct. 1-2 (Thu/Fri)
Two-day hands-on Apple-certified Training
* Learn the basics of Final Cut Pro 7
* Work directly with the software
* Held in partnership with DV Creators
With the release of the latest version of Final Cut Studio, I’m already working on a detailed look at it for my next newsletter. However, that issue won’t be out for a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, Bruce Nazarian and I are doing the first public preview (that I know about) next Tuesday – July 28 – in Santa Ana, CA, and the following week – Aug. 4 - in Folsom, CA.
Then, in mid-August, I’ll be in four cities in the UK with a series of seminars talking about the new version. Learn more here.
We are devoting the entire day at each seminar to answering your questions and taking a look at this new software. Plus, all this is at the very low price of $79 per day!
For all the seminar details, click here.
And, if you have questions you want me to answer in my next newsletter – please send them to me here.
This software is too new for anyone to understand it well. But before you commit your business and reputation to the new version, it makes sense to take a closer look.
We added a few chairs to all our locations, so there’s room for you. However, time and space are running out — please register today!
One of the most frequent requests I get is for me to present a Final Cut seminar that covers material not presented as part of the traditional Apple training classes.
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought recently, because now, while the economy is slow and clients are scarce, is the best time to improve your skills. Because when we are busy working there’s no time left to study.
Along with the request for more advanced seminars, I’ve also been asked to:
Make the seminar less expensive
Take the seminar out of downtown LA
Add more time for questions and discussion
So, I’m delighted to announce two brand-new seminars — one in Woodland Hills (June 24) and one in Orange County (July 28) — with LOTS of time for questions and discussion and all at a GREAT LOW PRICE!
HERE’S THE AGENDA:
10:00 AM — Welcome
10:10 AM — Advanced Final Cut Pro Techniques
11:00 AM — Make Your Still Images Look GREAT! And move them like
a pro.12:00 AM — LUNCH (not included in seminar fee)
1:00 PM — Cleaning up your video – retouching video in Photoshop
2:00 PM — Improve your videos – Flash and QuickTime compression
for the web2:45 PM — BREAK
3:00 PM — Any question, any subject — feel free to bring a project
to discuss5:00 PM — Seminar ends.
NEW LOW PRICE: $79 per person
Everyone who registers will get two of my tutorials FREE, along with some great raffle prizes (we are still compiling the list.)
Click here to learn more – and to register.
We only have about 30 seats at each location. I expect seats to fill quickly, so please register soon!
Thanks!
I don’t need to tell you that times are difficult right now. Which means that finding, closing, and keeping clients is a key priority.
The problem is that, for many of us, the business side of the business is much less fun that the editing side. And, all too often, we let the business side slip. Or, we don’t keep our business skills as sharp as our editing skills.
Or, worse, we don’t charge what we need to charge for our time and equipment.
MY TRAINING CAN HELP
Recently, I completed a set of three 30-minute video tutorials filled with business tips for the editor and small post-production house. I’ve tested these ideas at lots of my seminars and they have always been popular – with many editors telling me how helpful they are in refreshing their thinking on how to grow their business. (In fact, these are among the most popular items in my store.)
SPECIAL OFFER – SAVE 30%
So, I’ve decided to run a special offer from now till the end of June: SAVE 30% on the whole set of three. That’s like Buy Two and Get One Free … (almost).
Plus, when you buy the set, I’ll also send you an article I wrote for my latest newsletter on how to calculate rates for your time, your equipment, and your travel. (Even better, I’ve updated my information based on feedback from readers; even my newsletter readers haven’t see the new version!)
Here’s how this works: Buy all three parts of Growing Your Business, then, during checkout enter “GROW” (without the quotes) for the Coupon Code to automatically save 30%.
Then, after the sale, we’ll send the link to the article directly to your email.
This offer expires June 30, 2009, so don’t wait. Remember, a good client is hard to find.
Thanks!
One of the highlights of my job is traveling around the world, meeting with editors, and helping them learn how to become better at their craft.
Thanks to the hard work of Ben Balser, founder of the South Louisiana Final Cut Pro User Group, and Lynn Robertson, Assistant Professor at Delgado Community College, I was invited down to New Orleans to conduct two days of seminars for editors and students. The sessions were held at Delgado Community College.
We had almost 70 people each day for two days, with a great discussion on professional techniques to get editing work done faster, while improving quality.
(By the way, one of the highlights of the first day was a discussion of video formats and determining which one is right for your project. I’ve created a video tutorial for download that highlights what you need to know. You can learn more about it here.)
Saturday night, I participated in a panel discussion, sponsored by the New Orleans Film Commission, on skills editors need to develop that will help them get jobs, determine how much to charge for their time, and improve their negotiating skills.
The panel discussion was fun, but what I really enjoyed was the extended conversation many of us had afterward.
Our New Orleans trip was really successful and we’ve already been invited to present in other cities in the South. I’m looking forward to the trip.
(By the way, if you would be interested in hosting a seminar in your city, drop us a note and we’ll work with you to put it on the schedule.)
I had an interesting “learning” experience this week that I wanted to share with you.
At the end of each of my seminars, and most of my classes for that matter, I hand out a survey to everyone attending. This gives me immediate feedback on what they liked, or what they want improved; with lots and lots of suggestions on what I should cover next.
Since everyone is still in the room, I get these two-page paper forms back from just about everyone. It takes a few minutes at the end, but basically is not a problem.
On my recent trip to the UK, knowing that our seminar attendance was going to set records, we decided that we wouldn’t bother toting a lot of paper forms with us, instead, once I got back in the office, we would email the survey to everyone that attended.
While this seemed like a good idea at the time, we had some problems, which is why I’m sharing this with you now.
We modified our standard two-page survey for the UK seminars and created a PDF with it. Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing with Acrobat PDF forms and discovered that Acrobat has some very nice tracking and tabulation software built into it, which makes sending and gathering PDF-based data very easy.
Our UK seminars struck me as a great time to test the technology. We told folks attending our seminars that we would be emailing them a survey, and some other goodies, so they would not be surprised when it arrived.
I did a test run with the people in my office and everything worked great – the PDFs emailed perfectly, the forms were filled out, sent back and tabulated automatically. Very cool.
Then, I sent them to all our UK attendees. At this point, things broke down.
What I did not realize, until I got dozens and dozens of emails were three key facts:
1. Email addresses change constantly.
1. Forms don’t work if you open them on a Mac using Preview. Forms require Acrobat.
2. Forms require recent versions of Acrobat, which many people don’t have.
We held our UK seminars less than three weeks ago, but in that time easily 15-20% of our audience (in this case mostly college kids) had changed email addresses.
Then, more than half opened the forms in Preview, which doesn’t support form data well and lacks the crucial “Submit” button, which emails the completed form back to me. This meant that I was flooded with emails about how to send back a form with no submit button. Or how to save a form. Or how to complete the form.
In short, instead of getting a nearly 100% response, I’ll feel lucky if we can get 10%. Far, far less than I was expecting.
Acrobat is hugely useful in a wide variety of ways within our company — I can’t imagine living without it. However, because virtually everyone attending one of my seminars uses a Mac, and because the Mac defaults to opening Acrobat documents in Preview, this means that most people trying to complete the survey are not going to be successful. And I don’t have the time to answer hundreds of emailed tech support questions about my survey.
The upshot of this is that, next time, we will either bring paper surveys or use a web-based survey engine, like SurveyMonkey, to get the answers we need.
First, I’ve discovered it is colder in Scotland than it is in LA. Wow!
However, it is a beautiful day in central Glasgow and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow at Dundee College.
NOTE: If you have the time, we still have seats left. My seminar is designed for Final Cut editors that are self-taught and looking to improve their speed, proficiency, and better understand all the hardware choices that are out there.
This event is being run by Creative Loop. To register for this event – please contact Helliate Rushwaya at [0141 302 1791] or via e-mail [info@creativeloop.org]
Best of all, this seminar is FREE!
I got in yesterday, and have spent time watching local television and seeing some of the ads. It is interesting seeing the differences between television in the US and television in Scotland. The pacing here is slower, the characters a bit better developed. But the quality of visual effects are the equal of what I see in the US.
I love these opportunities to travel – to meet and talk with editors around the world – and share ideas and ways of working that can improve all our projects.
Oh, and I’ve also discovered why its a REALLY good idea to wear gloves when going outside. Sheesh!
I’ll have more on my three country road-trip as we travel for the next few weeks.