Class on Demand December 2009 Report Card

Class on Demand Report Card

News, views, and information from COD | December 2009

Happy Holidays from Class on Demand!

Free Stock Footage
Our friends at Footage Firm approached us to see if COD customers would like some royalty-free HD Stock footage completely FREE! We checked and there’s no catch. Based in the Washington DC-area, Footage Firm specializes in providing HD and SD royalty-free stock footage from around the world. They provide hundreds of US cities, international locations, and specialty reels at unbeatable prices, with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They want you to think of them the next time you’re looking for quality HD stock footage. To find out more, click here.

Montage Magic for Sony Vegas now available from COD
This amazing new plug-in for Sony Vegas will produce Ken Burns-like photo pan and scans in minutes from literally any number of photos. “I was able to create a 300+ photo montage complete with pan and zooms in 3-4 minutes,” one user said. ”This is the best time saver I have seen in years.” Called Montage Magic and developed by Edward Troxel, this software uses advanced image recognition techniques to locate faces in a photograph and then selects and applies a pan, scan, or zoom (in or out) to transition between random size images. Edward has created an amazing Vegas plugin here. You can set the timing and customize the moves within the plug-in. Available via the Class on Demand ecommerce site for $49.95. To learn more about Montage Magic and see a training demo click here.

COD’s GenArts training reviewed
The nice folks at Post Production Buyers Guide did a really great review of COD’s brand new title for GenArts Sapphire recently. They had this to say about the training; “Regardless of your level of experience, this DVD will help you expand your knowledge of Sapphire.” They profile Todd Prives, COD’s instructor and Sapphire guru extraordinaire, (he should be, after all, he works for GenArts) and are really complimentary about Todd’s knowledge and style of presentation. Read the review by clicking here.

Video Production in Africa
You may recall from our Report Card in February (http://www.classondemand.net/media/news_feb09.aspx) we told you about Aaron Rakgalakane, a maintenance worker at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. Aaron wanted to branch out into independent production and offer his services for local weddings and other events. Under our Gift of Education charter we provided Aaron with some of our training programs and we’re really pleased to say he just reported back that his new business is coming along nicely. He recently produced a wedding video in his township and was approached by a local musical artist. He produced the music video and is still striving for better equipment to take on even more challenging productions. To give you an idea of his productions he charged 1,500 Rand ($190) for the music video. He was able to secure a micro-finance loan for his used camera and computer. We wish Aaron and all budding videographers making a start in this business the very best of luck.

Paul Holtz Holiday Wishes

Thanks to our customers, 2009 has been another great year for Class on Demand. Our revenue and profit for the year has grown once again. We feel really good about this result considering the economy and underscores the fact that training and personal development continue to play an important role as professionals deal with the current job market.

I wanted to share an alarming change we’ve noticed in our neighborhood. On my drive to work every day, I pass a food bank on the corner. There have always been a few cars in the parking lot which I took to be volunteers and there’s always a few people coming and going with grocery bags of food. Recently we’ve noticed a parking problem outside our office and figured a new company had moved in and had many more employees than previous tenants. Imagine my surprise when I realized last week that this parking issue is actually caused by the dramatic increase in people lining up at the food bank. It reminded me of a billboard I had seen on the freeway stating that for one in six Americans hunger is a reality. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service released its annual study measuring food security in the United States, Household Food Security in the United States, 2008. The alarming results show that 1 in 6 Americans are food insecure. Even more shocking is that 1 in 4 children live in a food-insecure household. Given the current state of the economy, it is going to take a while for these numbers to decrease.

According to Feeding America, just $5 buys 20 bags of groceries. That’s using your donation VERY efficiently! So here’s a proposal to you all. Class on Demand will be donating every dollar received from this month’s promotion to Feeding America. Using our last promo (and this is a great one) of the year, buy that title you’ve been putting off, or if you know what someone needs from Santa, take advantage of the promo and know that you’ll also be making a difference to families across America that need groceries to help celebrate the holiday season. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for being a great customer and wish you and your family a very happy holiday season and prosperous New Year.

Sincerely,
Paul Holtz