Web Video University Review

Recently I completed a web video training course developed by Dave Kaminski, called Web Video University.  The course is delivered entirely online and is expected to take you about 4 weeks to complete. It took me more like 8 weeks to complete as my existing commitments kept getting in the way.  If you are looking for web video diy or web video how to, this is a course worth looking into.

Dave is a certified Sony Creative Engineer and has put together an awesome web video training course with some valuable information about web video production and web video marketing.   Although he isn’t exactly the most entertaining instructor you’ll ever meet, there ARE a number of resources and tricks that I would have gladly paid the price of the course for.

The course cost $397 for the premium version, which gives you access to Dave for a full year.

The course is set up so that you get weekly lessons as each 7 days pass.  I think it would be better for students to have access to the entire course up front so they can move through it faster if they wish.

The basic version does not afford you access to Dave.  I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase the full version, since access to Dave is well worth the price if you are new to video production.

He was always prompt and thorough in every reply to my questions. Dave was polite and credible with all of his answers, although sometimes I wish he was less objective in some of his responses.

You can ask Dave questions directly through email.

Here’s an example of the type of question I often asked him and the type of response I would get:

Dave,

When you upload the two files for the flash player to your website, does it matter what directory you put them in?  And does the embed code have to reference that directory?

Brooks,

It doesn’t matter what directory you put them in…as long as the embed code contains the path to them.  So if you put them in a directory other than where the web page is located, you’ll need to specify the path to them in the embed code.

I checked my Sent items and recorded having 12 such conversations with Dave during the 8 weeks I was taking the course.  Below are just SOME of the bits you can expect to learn during the course.

While thinking about what to include in this post, I realized just how much value and detail exists in Dave’s Web Video University and couldn’t include them all, or this post would be just way too long.

• In week one of the course you learn about how to make your own teleprompter (Worth the price of the course alone), where to get good stock audio and video clips, secrets of lighting, video editing software, what kind of software to get and why, green screen introductions and an overview of the technical terms.

• In week two, you get right into building some web videos.  You learn how to script them so that people take action, which is big theme throughout the course) and begin down the path of learning to use Sony Vegas, which is the software of choice for Windows users (which I have since purchased and am very pleased with it).

• In week three, you continue with the learning by developing a few more web videos and commercials while learning more advanced tricks and functionality in the software.  You will learn what I’ve come to appreciate are very critical elements to keeping viewers engaged - such as panning and zooming, key framing and 3D compositing.   In addition, Dave covers the aspects of green screening.   I have learned there is no such thing as “one click” green screening as it is a process of many, many steps if you want it to look good.

• In the fourth and final week, you will learn about video streaming, video sharing sites, the important elements you need to know about Quicktime and Flash.  In addition, you’ll learn how to make that cool lightbox effect happen on your website for your videos. You will also have a final assignment to create your first web video, which is below.

Because I’ve spent some time around the domain of e-learning, web training and have even authored as well as co-developed a few courses while working as a program manager for billion dollar software company, I know a few things about the principles of effectiveness when it comes to this type of knowledge transfer.

Dave has nailed them all.

His course is right on the money if you want to quickly develop a powerful and lucrative skill set for producing your own, high quality web videos.  The entire course is very well organized.  Each module is never more than about ten minutes and most are about 5 minutes in length. Dave speaks clearly and at the right pace for someone just getting in this space.

In fact, I think this type of highly targeted, extremely efficient learning is the model of the future. This type of learning is going to seriously challenge the traditional institutional model of education.

I think that Web Video University could easily be delivered in the traditional college level model for thousands of dollars and people would still think it’s a bargain.

The resources section at the end of each week is second to none - and as I mentioned, they are worth the price of the course alone.

One thing that I found quite frustrating after the course was just how much time I was spending trying to find the exact motion loop, background or stock image for my projects.

Be forewarned! - You can burn a TON of time trying to find the right thing.

You can dramatically cut down on that time by properly scripting out your videos (good scripting techniques are taught in the course) BEFORE you head over to places like iStockphoto for your content.

If you don’t have the appropriate software and hardware for your needs, you can expect to spend an addition $400 to $1,200 depending on your needs and goals.  This would include a few different software packages and any lighting or camera equipment you may not have.

So far, including the cost of the course and software, I have spent about $700.

I look forward to helping my clients with this new skill and am totally pleased with my investment in Web Video University.  If you have any further questions about the course, please don’t hesitate to ask me.

If you want to quickly get through the course and you had no other commitments, I think you could probably blast through it in about 2 weeks, but you will need to be very focussed as the learning curve is quite steep.

You will be learning a lot more than how to just use video editing software.

While you don’t need to be a programmer to learn and apply this material, it will certainly help if you know your way around the internet, understand some of the common file formats and are familiar with terms and concepts like FTP, hosting, web directories and so on.

You’ll learn all this stuff at Web Video University.

Anyway, below is my first video.  Don’t get too excited about the content - It was intended to showcase most of the key elements that go into this type of production such as key framing, rendering to Flash, obtaining subject specific media from some of the stock sites Dave recommends, using the Cinescore software that came with my software bundle from Sony to create the royalty free music.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

All in, the whole thing took up about four hours of my time to produce. Much of that time was wasted getting signed up for the stock media sites and trying to get the software to do things with a skill set still not yet fully enabled.

I would expect in the near future, that I could develop something much better, with far more impact in no more than two hours.

That said, I am quite pleased to have gone from ZERO skills in this area to being fully capable of developing web videos that will compel people to take action and better communicate any message much better than text on a web page EVER could.

And yes, Dave, you are welcome to use me, or any of this post as a reference…

In short, Web Video University was a solid investment and I strongly recommend it if you want to increase your skills in video production and video marketing.

If you’d like to sign up for the course, you can click here.

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