For those who are lucky enough to have found a career in the creative arts, it’s often difficult to find the time to expand our educational horizons. “Going back to school” or taking evening courses at the local arts college, even when affordable, can be very time consuming or downright inconvenient. However, those looking for a full-time learning experience in the world of motion graphics and video production, there is a fantastic (and very affordable) alternative to college enrollment.
FXPHD is a one-of-a-kind “online school” that has a rotating schedule of classes focused on all the latest video technologies from Apple, Adobe, Autodesk and Maxon, as well as traditional cinematography topics like filming and direction. Rather than just teaching software functions, FXPHD instructors -many of whom work on feature films, TV shows and other Hollywood productions- focus on real problem solving workflows used in the industry. Each 10 week term offers a new “catalog” of courses that you can sign up for. The cost is under $400 for the standard setup, which gets you their Background Fundamentals course plus three electives that you choose, based on the types of workflows and software you want to learn.
Each week you download a new video and set of working materials from your “class schedule” page, which allows you to work on the lessons when you have time, and to follow along creating things as you go. This is a pretty time-intensive approach compared to traditional video tutorial products, however it’s much preferable to spending the time and money on even a part-time college course load IMHO. Once you’re 10 week session is up you can keep all the video lessons, and then have a look at the new courses being offered for the next 10 weeks. While a few popular courses are given every term, most are different each term so that you can branch out and learn new software and workflows as you develop your skills. For those with a little more time on their hands (that means you, part-time undergrads!) For Cinema 4D training Tim Clapham handles all of the courses there (last I checked); that alone should give you an idea of the quality. I definitely recommend you check it out.
