Travel Channel Academy – Day 1

First day… first class… Lurleen lectures…

Almost six months ago, we entered into discussions with The Discovery Channel about partnering in a training school where anyone could learn to shoot, cut and produce content for TV shows and the web.

It was the logical next step in a world of “User Generated Content” – teaching people how to use the tools at their disposal and feeding the exploding demand for content.

Discovery was nervous – they had never entered into a business like this before, so we agreed on a test pilot.

We would run it in Miami, and if we did not get more than 12 people to sign up for the 4 day course ($2250) then we would cancel it. We would cap the pilot class to 20, if we got so far.

The first day we opened for enrollment we got 370 people. We have more now, and so we are busy planning a roll-out of courses for the next year.

In the meantime, we kicked off the pilot project yesterday.

So far, so good.

We’re working out of the Discovery Channel offices in Miami. We’re shooting on a range of cameras, from Sony Z1’s to Canon HR-20s. (We’re not sure which works best yet for these purposes). We’re editing on FCP. We’re taking the group out for Chinese food for dinner.

So far, so good.

We’ll keep you informed. Today is only Day 2.