Class on Demand Report Card

News, views, and information from COD | January 2009

Class on Demand Invited to Inaugural Ball
The Washington DC Renaissance Hotel hosted the Great State of Illinois pre-inaugural ball on Martin Luther King Day. The evening’s dinner and dancing was captured and streamed live using NewTek’s Tricaster Studio. Fortunately for Larry Berman, the hotel’s head of AV services, Class on Demand’s Tricaster Pro training was able to get him up to speed quickly on the product so the historic event was covered flawlessly.

Gift of Education Around the World
COD is committed to training the next generation of producers, videographers, and budding Steven Spielbergs. Paul Holtz, the company’s founder and CEO, has been teaching the business and techniques of production and video effects to inner city kids for the past five years. Paul’s students all attend the Chicago West Community Music Center as part of the city’s After School Matters program. Since he started Paul has taught over 1,000 students. Some of these students have gone on to mentor other kids and two have received full-ride scholarships to Columbia University.

COD offers a formal program for educational institutions called the Gift of Education. The program gives non-profit institutions, schools K-12 and Universities access to specific award-winning training products from Class on Demand’s extensive library of self-paced training at no cost. To learn more about our program, click here.

A New Episode of COD
COD and Nate Caplin just finished "Complete Training for Episode and Episode Pro" our training for Telestream’s Episode version 5.1. The training covers both Mac and newly supported PC versions of the software. Over four and half hours of training covers everything from the user interface, filters, and compression techniques. Episode Pro comes bundled with our training which can also be purchased from Telestream or our website.

COD ships product Faroe and Wide
We’ve been shipping our training all over world for years but here’s a first, Wilmar Hojgaard, owner of WHR Studios, contacted us from Rituvik in the Faroe Islands. For those of you who were not geography majors, the Faroe Islands lie northwest of Scotland and halfway between Iceland and Norway. The archipelago is composed of 18 islands covering 545.3 sq.miles. WHR studios shoots and produces a wide range of video programming using Class on Demand's training for NewTek SpeedEDIT. To learn more about the Faroe islands click here.

Paul Holtz Fires Back

We’re living in bleak times. We’re apparently now in a full-fledged depression, that’s the next financial step downhill from a plain old recession. I guess it really must be bad. Just when you think the DOW couldn’t get any lower or that house prices couldn’t drop any more we hear even more depressing economic news. Over the past six months we’ve seen an increase in our business and that got us wondering what was happening. We contacted a number of recent first-time customers to find out how they are using our training and we learned some interesting information.

Some customers told us that after they were laid off from their company they have decided to use the time while they search for a new career opportunity to brush up on applications they own and have not used in a while. Others have said they have purchased new software and our training to make them more “marketable” to prospective employers. Customers have told us in this competitive job market, where the few positions posted attract hundreds of candidates, making your resume stand out with career accomplishments and relevant experience is not always sufficient for harried HR reps and recruiters to stop and take note. Vocational skills, specifically proficiency in the use of creative software is definitely one such resume bonus that helps candidates rise above the noise. We’ve also spoken to some recent marketing degree graduates who have found a need to learn the tools of the trade for graphics production so they can create their own collateral. These new skills add value to their role at the companies they work for who benefit from in-house designers by lowering outside agency bills.

Whatever the reason for using our training we wish everyone success in finding a new career opportunity or simply keeping up with the changes and improvements to the software they are already using. Hopefully this depression will be over soon and we can all return to better times.

Featured Instructor | Harry J. Frank
Home town:   I was born in a small town called Holland, MI. With my Father in the US Navy, I grew up all over the country in about a dozen different cities.
College attended:  State University of New York at Fredonia. I studied music and music engineering, which I still do a little of today.
Pets:  Two yellow lab retrievers, Mausi and Hanni. They are very playful and are currently suffering from a bit of cabin-fever with the cold temperatures.
Favorite food:  The Porcini Rubbed Delmonico steak at Capital Grille. You've not lived until you've had this steak! Tied for 2nd place, Slow's BBQ in Downtown Detroit. The best barbecue I've ever had.
Favorite musical artist:  I have so many favorite musical artists from so many genres. I'd have to say that the one constant in my life, one that I can always listen to and find something new, is Led Zeppelin.
Favorite city in the world:  Paris
Likes:  Watching my son learn something new every day. Spending time with my wife that doesn't involve Elmo or the Sprout Network. Naps. Cooking. Driving my MINI Cooper. Fetch with the dogs. Experimenting with new design ideas and techniques. Studying 70s and 80s graphic designs.
Dislikes:  Shoveling snow. Laziness. Rude people.

Harry's Tip | Random Seed
Don't forget to use the Random Seed in the Trapcode Particular "Options..." section. This will affect all properties that use any randomness, and will make any presets look a more unique than the default setting.

Training by Harry J. Frank

Complete Training for Trapcode Particular
Get up to speed with Trapcode’s Particular plugin through this series of informative and project-focused lessons. Explore emitter types and functions in-depth with motion graphics expert, Harry J. Frank. Go beyond generating your typical particle effect and learn to use Particular in new and interesting ways..