Here’s the April 2012 Term orientation week video which provides an overview of the courses which are running this term at fxphd. It includes recordings by the profs about what they’ll be covering during term at fxphd.
You can download the video for offline viewing from our Vimeo page.
Please share this page with others and help spread the word!
We’ve just announced our new April term at fxphd — check out the listing of our courses for full descriptions and a projected outline of the classes. Our orientation week video covering our new offerings will be released on Friday, April 6th.
Once gain, members can choose one vault course as one of the three elective courses that come with the normal fxphd membership. This opens up an additional 33 courses for fxphd members!
As always, we’ve taken our member’s requests into account in building our curriculum and we have some great new courses (and profs).
Our first “fast forward” offering is intended to quickly get you up and running on Resolve 8. Unlike our standard fxphd membership, once you buy the course you can immediately download all class instruction as well as supporting files.
Taught by colorist Warren Eagles, this all-new course contains over five hours of training covering the fundamentals you need to know to get the job done in real world situations. This will include getting footage into Resolve from Avid and Final Cut, working with a multitude of footage formats that are common in today’s post, tips and techniques for best creative practices in the software, and getting the graded imagery out of the software.
Eagles, who calls Australia home, has been grading for over twenty years; five of those years with Resolve. He has worked on commercials, movies, drama and music videos. Over the years he has been senior colorist or head of the department at numerous high end facilities in London and Australia. Now working as a freelance colorist his main tool of choice is Resolve, but he also has much experience using the 2K plus, Pandora, and Apple Color. His talents have been utilized on projects for Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Qantas, Ford, as well as the artists Radiohead, Oasis and the cult movie Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels.
The fast forward program is standalone instruction with immediate download and does not include access to our discussion forums or VPN software. For frequently asked questions about fast forward as well as information as to how it works, please visit the overview page.
The entire course contains over 6.5GB of downloads, broken up into approximately 500MB segments.
An introduction to the course with a bit of Warren’s background and experience. Loading the software, setting preferences for storage and control surfaces, an overview of the application tabs, and setting up a project so you can start to play.
“We all want to get going and create some great looks but first we need to get our images in and out of Resolve.” We’ll get images in manually, using an EDL, or Final Cut Pro XML. Best practices for round-tripping between FCP and Resolve 8, including grading the multi-level timeline. Working with AAF from Avid, including re-linking in Resolve and round tripping back to Avid. For those times when things go wrong, we’ll show how to confirm a shot that will not re-link with material in Media Pool.
“The Primary controls are the most important Resolve control you will ever use. If you cannot get a great balance to begin with you will find it so much harder to do the cool stuff down the track.” We’ll look at basic node operation, the serial node, waveforms, scopes, and the histogram. In addition, we’ll cover the primary controls, auto color, RGB mixer, offsets, YUV corrector, curves, soft white clip and more.
“I will show you why we use them, not just how to make them.” This includes fixed six vector secondaries, chroma light @ dark, the picker, keying using the HSL option, and the new V8 secondary hue curves.
“Everything I have ever graded had a product of some sort, either a Ford car in a commercial, a leading actor in a movie, or a famous singer in a music clip. You have to make them stand out because that is what your clients will be looking at.” We’ll look at Circle and Linear Power windows as well as Poly and Power Curve windows. The tracker is fantastic, but what do you need do do on those occasions when it doesn’t track and you have to manually fix the track? We’ll look at auto tracking, manual tracking, fixing broken tracks and image stabilization. You’ll also see how to do practical tasks such as tracking cars and people as well has how to track a window off the screen.
“The real power of Resolve is truly unleashed when you understand all the nodes and what they do. It took me a while to understand the true power of each of the nodes. When you do it unlocks many creative options”. This class will look at the parallel, layer, and keyer nodes. We’ll use these nodes to show how to bring that original product shot color back through your desaturated cool wash. Using the key mixer node, you’ll see how to quickly grow a complicated node tree and how to combine keys to make grading faster. PTZR repositioning in the timeline and ALL/COL/PTZR — why this is important to correctly mark our timelines when doing dynamic changes
“I always use the Playheads at the start of my session, clients love the interaction of this feature”. We’ll conform a short sequence shot on RED using anamorphic lenses and learn how to deal with aspect ratios. Then it’s on to render and the formats we can render to, batch request and the render queue, real time proxies/render cache nodes, and wipes and green screen. You’ll also see how to create your own effects library of looks with power grades, exporting/importing stills for comparing grades, grouping shots to make grading easier, using playheads to view multiple shots at the same time, and using versioning to easily make alternative grades.
“Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Avatar all graded in stereo on Resolve. How hard can it be?” Setting up your project, auto matching tools for both the color and geometry differences between eyes, picture alignment, and the various grading and viewing options for Stereo 3D. We’ll also use the difference view to judge and change convergence, determining what comes out of the screen plane or sits behind it, and dealing with questions as to how stereo grading makes you feel physically.
“Give me a piece of 35mm film shot on a sunny day…a quick adjustment and it looks fabulous. That’s not often the case these days. How to get the best out of the new digital formats and what to look out for.” We examine the pros and the cons of digital formats, the controls we have in Resolve, and how to use and create LUTs. In addition, we’ll specifically examine formats such as Canon 7D/5D, RED and Epic, Arri Alexa RAW vs. Arri ProRes 444, and the Sony F3.
“The surfaces supported by Resolve are all very different, try before you buy and find the one that suits you, I guarantee you’ll find it more fun than grading with a mouse” A brief introduction on what the control surface options are and what my own thoughts are on each one. This includes taking a look the BMD Resolve surface, the Tangent Wave, and the Avid Artist and seeing what the buttons and controls do on each panel, customization, connection, shortcuts, and the general feeling of the joyballs and rings
We understand there are times that an artist can’t wait for the start of a term to learn a piece of software…..or wait ten weeks for all the classes to come out. They have a job to do and they need to quickly get up to speed. That’s where our new “fastforward” program comes into play: you pay for the course and get immediate access to download all materials without waiting.
Since starting fxphd six years ago, the community we’ve built has exceeded our expectations. It’s become the top online destination for vfx, motion graphics, and production professionals around the world to take their knowledge to the next level. This isn’t going to change — our standard membership is the heart of what we do here at fxphd.
But as we said, needs of artists are sometimes different. So we developed fastforward – training designed to get you up and running on your schedule, not ours. Some key bullet points about the program and how it differs from our standard membership:
Our first course is Resolve Fundamentals, taught by well-known colorist Warren Eagles.
The Resolve Fundamentals page has links to purchase the product. For payment, you’ll be taken to PayPal where you can pay using your PayPal account or simply use a credit card. Once you’ve paid, you’ll be emailed download links for the materials.
They vary, depending upon the course. Resolve Fundamentals costs $199USD.
The individual class downloads (ten classes total) are approximately 400MB apiece. There are additional files that come along with the courses, so you can grade the same footage Warren is using. All in all, the course includes 6.5GB of downloads. The files are served via Amazon S3.
No. Forum access is something we only offer for our standard membership.
No…this is not part of the fastforward program. Compared to the standard fxphd membership, fastforward would be more like purchasing DVD training where you watch the training materials on your own.
Definitely! We love the standard membership and it’s the heart of what we do. We simply listened to requests from our members and realized that there are times where the term concept doesn’t fit in with learning. The standard membership is still the only place to get hard core intermediate and advanced training.
We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with The Foundry to be the exclusive educational organization where artists can gain certification to be trainers for NUKE. This is the only way to become an officially certified NUKE trainer. After successful completion of the course, which includes passing both standard and practical exams, members will be listed on the Foundry’s web site as a Certified NUKE Trainer. These members can also nominate a single place of work as a Certified NUKE Training Centre.
This curriculum is totally separate from our normal offerings, due to the fact that it is targeted towards those who wish to train other artists in NUKE. The program is not designed to make great shots for your reel, but to provide you with detailed information about the software and how to pass that knowledge on to others. fxphd prof Matt Leonard leads the course, and he has worked very closely with The Foundry to develop a solid and accurate training curriculum. Leonard has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 19 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has trained and spoken at various events throughout the world and has been on the beta test teams for Maya, Nuke, Fusion, and Mari.
The Foundry’s release schedule generally includes two updates per year. Every twelve months Certified NUKE Trainers will need to be re-certified on the most recent release of the software. This is an additional program which includes tutorial movies as well as online examinations for each release that has occurred in the previous twelve months. Cost is still to be determined, but we expect it to be approximately $250 per year.
You can view information about the courses on our Nuke for Trainers course listing page.
To enroll, sign up here: https://www.fxphd.com/lounge/payments.php
Enrollment in the program costs $995USD and includes the following:
You can view information about the courses on our Nuke for Trainers course listing page.
To enroll, sign up here: https://www.fxphd.com/lounge/payments.php
By the end of July, we’ll be introducing our new Resolve 8 training program with Warren Eagles. We’re extremely excited to be partnering with Warren again here at fxphd. If you’d like to be notified when we offer this curriculum, please fill out the following form and we’ll contact you via email.
In the spirit of openness that we try to show here at fxphd, I wanted to take a moment to talk about our price increase for the July11 term. The bottom line is that it’s due to worldwide currency fluctuations. OK…bottom line is that the dollar has tanked against foreign currencies in the last several years. So we’ve had to make a slight adjustment, raising the price to $359 per term.
In order to help ease the transition to our new price, the good news is that for members of the April term who renew for July — you’ll still be paying the $330 price for the July term. The discount will automatically be taken when you sign up.
Why did we need to do this? Much like other businesses like The Foundry, the declining dollar has had a big impact on our expenses. When we started fxphd, the $330 membership actually translated to about $450 in Australian dollars. Today, that same $330 brings in $308 Australian dollars. With two of our three offices located in Australia, this has had a dramatic impact on our costs. Many of our profs are overseas, so that has an impact as well.
This has been an issue for us for a while, but we’ve held off increasing prices as we didn’t think it was appropriate due to the global financial crisis and so many artists being out of work. But the time seems right now and it’s something we need to do.
We hope you understand our need to do this. Our goal is to keep fxphd very affordable and this adjustment will help us maintain the quality you’ve come to expect from us.
discounts off the standard membership for as few as 3 employees
Membership in standard quarterly terms is a great way for companies to offer ongoing training for employees or use as a reward, perk, or incentive. It’s best for employees’ independent exploration of the vfx, design and production courses.
flexible credits to be applied to a variety of courses
If you have smaller groups to train or you need more variety and flexibility than single course licensing, credits can be purchased in 5-packs. One credit provides access to one course for an individual. The initial purchase provides access to up to 4 courses, and each 5-pack purchased unlocks access to another course selection. (Does not include forums or VPN access)
license a single course for all your employees
Single course licensing is the best way to provide specific training for a medium to large group of employees on a given application. For a simple one-year licensing fee, a large studio can provide unlimited training for employees regardless of growth and turnover. (Does not include forums or VPN access)
| multi-user discounts | corporate credits | single course licensing | |
| current term courses | X | X | X |
| current term new courses | X | ||
| previous terms courses | X | X | |
| forum & prof access | X | ||
| VPN license server | X | ||
| immediate download | X | X | |
| fxphd login required | X | X |
for more information about our corporate program, email corporate@fxphd.com
We’ve had a lot of inquiries about gift certificates, so we decided to make it happen. We have two items you can purchase:
Full Term Certificate
For $359 (USD), you can buy a VFX artist a one term membership to fxphd. We have a broad range of courses available, from entry level to advanced.
Additional Course Certificate
This is great for someone who will be a member of the term. For $110 US, you can purchase the member an additional course — so if they have already paid or will be joining for the term they get to take an extra course as a gift. The recipient must purchase a full membership to the term.
How does it work?
1. Pay using our secure Verisign web site (payment link below)
2. You’ll receive an email confirmation with a transaction code. This is your gift certificate code.
3. Within 24 hours, you’ll receive a printable gift certificate via email which you can pass on to the recipient.
4. The recipient registers on the site (if they haven’t already).
5. They email support@fxphd.com, providing their certificate code and user name.
6. They will be admitted to fxphd.
7. For the Additional Course certificate, the recipient must already have a full membership to fxphd.com.
Within 24 hours of ordering, you will receive a gift certificate via email which you may provide the user.
We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with The Foundry to be the exclusive educational organization where artists can gain certification to be trainers for NUKE. This is the only way to become an officially certified NUKE trainer. After successful completion of the course, which includes passing both standard and practical exams, members will be listed on the Foundry’s web site as a Certified NUKE Trainer. These members can also nominate a selected place of work as a Certified NUKE Training Centre.
This curriculum is totally separate from our normal offerings, due to the fact that it is targeted towards those who wish to train other artists in Nuke. The program is not designed to make great shots for your reel, but to provide you with detailed information about the software and how to pass that knowledge on to others. fxphd prof Matt Leonard leads the course, and he has worked very closely with The Foundry to develop a solid and accurate training curriculum. Leonard has trained numerous artists over the years, so he is uniquely qualified to teach the course.
You can view information about the courses on our Nuke for Trainers course listing page.
To enroll, sign up here: https://www.fxphd.com/lounge/payments.php
Enrollment in the program costs $995USD and includes the following: