I’m launching a new series of online courses, offering tutorials about After Effects.  For the first time, I’m trying out the Udemy.com platform.   As a content management system (CMS), I’m finding its interface really easy to use, and I find it interesting how free-form the site is — at the moment, it is a very open environment.  If you create content, about anything, and are able to produce it and assemble it all on their platform, then – voila – you are an Instructor.  It’s a little different than MOOC’s, being a platform for paid courses, but the key is still in bulk enrollment.   I’m excited to test out their system and see how it progresses.

My first course is called Creative Split Screens, Part 1 (I know already there will be a Part 2!)  This has really been a fun project for me, covering a lot of skills.  In pre-production, I get to think about some of the interesting techniques I’ve mastered in AE, then determine good pedagogy around teaching it.  In this first course, I’ve geared it towards a beginner level, introducing basic AE concepts along the way.  Future tutorials will build on that to get into more complex animations and features in AE.   During production, I’m doing my own camera work, audio recording, and screenflows; then edit, edit, EDIT away in post production!  I was using Premiere for my video editing, and relied on the Adobe Dynamic Link to pull in titles and effects from After Effects.  Worked like a charm!   As with any creative project, I found that I ended up using only about 15% of all the content for the finished product.  Which means, also, that there will be opportunities for releasing special ‘bonus’ lectures on youtube, and definitely there is content for another entire course.

I’ll post more about this online learning environment as I go, in the meantime, for readers of my blog, this is a link that will grant a 50% discount on the enrollment fee.   Please try out this new course!

Update:  Creative Split Screens Part 2 is now published!  Read more about it here.