FEATURES
Job-Centric Training: Video Symphony
by Michael Kunkes
 Video Symphony's headquarters in Burbank. |
It’s not always difficult to spot industry trends, but responding to them can be another matter. Such was not the case with Video Symphony, opened by Mike Flanagan and Greg Howard in 1994 as a training and rental center for an already growing base of Avid nonlinear editing professionals making the leap from film. In 1995, Video Symphony became home to the original Avid Boot Camp, and by the next year, VS was the largest Avid authorized training center in the world. (The rental company was sold in 1998 to Ascent Media and is now called Digital Symphony.) Soon, longer-term vocational students seeking entertainment industry employment were being trained, establishing the dual base that has made the company a center of digital entertainment training, with motion picture studios around the world as clients and thousands of graduates from across the globe.
 Video Symphony's Mike Flanagan. |
“There’s always a certain insecurity whenever the industry goes through a change,” Flanagan says, putting it mildly. “Training Centers such as Video Symphony were a natural outgrowth of that, and when we started, there just weren’t enough people at corporate media departments or studios with Avid nonlinear experience. Today, that’s not so unique.” In addition, shrinking budgets have virtually eliminated many training departments at the studios and elsewhere. “There’s the assumption that new hires will learn on their own,” he says. “So what happens is you have companies operating at a fraction of the productivity that they could be because their people are not well-trained. If employers were more business-savvy they would realize that, and that’s where we come in.”
Video Symphony offers a total of four certificate programs in three disciplines—Film and Video Editing, ProTools Sound Engineering and Motion Graphics and Effects, with training partners that include Avid, Apple, Digidesign, Boris FX, Adobe, Alias/Maya, Sonic and SRS. The Burbank campus is set up with six Avid training rooms featuring Adrenaline and Meridien systems, two ProTools HD 2 rooms with sync I/O and 96k audio, and two rooms fully equipped to run Final Cut Pro and a full range of graphics and animation programs. Each certificate program is designed to flow into VS’ job placement services, with two full-time dedicated staff members, a 32-hour “Payday Workshop,” individual counseling sessions, and experience in real post-production environments. “That is something that is at the core of our DNA,” says Flanagan. “We make sure that everything we do is job-centric.”
Video Symphony has been providing Editors Guild training since 1995, when the Avid training program was set up by the Guild’s late Field Representative Hank Schloss, who worked for the Guild from 1986 to 1999. But training is not cheap; the full 14-month, 1,080-hour Avid Professional certification program costs $28,995; the ProTools program is $18,995; and the Motion Graphics certification costs $19,995. In addition, one-day classes are $395, two-days are $795, three-days $995 and the five-day Introduction to Final Cut Pro is $1,495. For Guild members, these costs, says Flanagan, are reduced by VS’ long-standing arrangements with Contract Services. “We have always had good training subsidy and discount arrangements whereby Contract Services pays two-thirds of the cost and the Guild member pays for just a third of the training, on the Guild-discounted rate.” Though details could not be disclosed, Flanagan is also engaged in a three-way negotiation with the Guild and the State of California’s ETP (Employment Training Panel), which has helped provide training for over 2,000 entertainment professionals at Video Symphony since 1998, that he says could result in a new and even better deal all around.
“At one point, we were entirely a training center, helping professionals upgrade their skills, mainly on the strength of two- or three-day classes,” Flanagan explains. “In 2001, we started going down the route of becoming a college.” Video Symphony is now accredited by ACCET, a national accrediting agency, and is eligible to provide Federal Student Aid to its students who qualify. “While we now adhere to the performance practices and structures of a college or university, we are still very much a training center for professionals and have developed programs that cater to both,” he says. “Most of our classes are intensive full days; that model just works better for us. We were 90 percent corporate training and 10 percent long-term, but now, that has flipped completely around.”
Flanagan has one criterion for instructors: talent. “We don’t hire instructors based on their academic pedigree,” he explains. “They are hired because they have a high level of practical knowledge and industry experience.” Many of those instructors are Guild members—Solange Schwalbe, MPSE, teaches sound editing; Steve Saltzman, MPSE, teaches introductory ProTools and music editing; and Rickley Dumm, MPSE, instructs in sound effects editing. Guild picture editors Mike Sale, Paul Petschek and assistant editor Pietro Cecchini are all Avid-certified instructors. In addition, Larry Jordan (not the Guild editor) is a Final Cut Studio instructor and Ben Bardens teaches Motion Graphics design; both are frequent contributors to this magazine. “Certification programs teach students what they need to know to make them workplace-ready,” says Flanagan, adding, “For already-working people for whom finding a job is not at the top of their list––but learning new skills is––our instructors speak the same language they do, and understand well the jobs they are already doing.”
That said, in late September, VS will depart somewhat from its strict 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. model and start offering night programs, beginning with full certification programs for Avid, ProTools and Motion Graphics. “We’re aware that our programs have not always been well-suited for people who work during the day, yet still need to get their certifications. Students can now take the program two nights a week and one weekend per month and go through an entire program in any of our three disciplines. That’s very appealing to working pros, as we’ve already been told by those who have enrolled.”
For more information, visit www.videosymphony.com.
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