I have taken a few certification classes for Avid in Virginia. They were good classes. I was wondering how other Avid Composer/Express users get to really know Avid on a higher level. I have all the material that comes with the system and a couple more books from my classes (101, 110). I am trying to take my editing skill to the next level. I am good and use many different edit systems (Final Cut Pro). I mostly use Avid and would like to get better at some of the tools it has that I am not using.

I live in North Carolina and it is hard to get to traning out of state. To get a personal teacher usually cost too much. I can't really find many materials for Avid like I have found for many other software programs we use.

Any advice?

What certifications do you have and where did yo get them?

I took two Avid certified classes in Arlington Virginia at Henninger Media. The classes are listed by numbers for the level of difficulty and I took 101 (the first class) and 110 which was advanced editing techniques. Great place with all the bells and whistles facility any Mac fan would fall in love with. The classes are great and the teacher was excelent but as stated before it is a little hard to travel out of state.

I know most people around here use Final Cut Pro including myself but I am on a mission to master Avid. I guess it is not just Avid but moving into some advanced editing stuff you see the big boys doing. I have come to see the differences in Avid and FCP but can not honestly say one has limitations compared to the other. The thing I want to improve is my editing style. In the past I have used many editing programs including the old original Toaster. Still sometimes I watch a program and wish I was as good as the bid dogs out there.

Hey i live in northern VA. Marcus, how am i able to take those classes? Is there a website? How much are the classes? Thanks man

Ok I just looked at the website. Looks great, are they classes all day, are they usually lots of people in them, and do you take classes with pros, or are there lots of amatures?
Thanks

The classes go from around 9 AM to 5 PM. I had about 8 people in my class and they said that was a big class. The lady teaching the class has mastered Avid and has been in the production field a very long time. One of the shows she produces in Animal Kingdom. It is a nationaly broadcast program. In my class there were about three people who had no experience with Avid and they had a big struggle because we cover a lot of material very fast. One guy had been working with Avid for about four years. He just had a plan to take all the classes from the beginers level to the real hard advanced classes. So every class will be different but most of my group had a good backgroud in Avid.

You can skip the beginners class if you want. It was very basic. I learned a few things but I knew most of that stuff from teaching myself and going through the manual. The second class was a littel harder but if you are good with Avid you could maybe skip that one also. Now the third level class is very advance and you learn some neat tricks in Avid that you may not even know are there. Thats the one I want to take but I am having a hard time getting to travel to VA.

grad to help

If you're getting instruction from Avid Certification centers then that's the best schooling you can get in a short time. Beyond that you could look into some of the week long course offering from Maine Photographic Workshops (http://www.theworkshops.com/). But if you thought VA was far, try Maine.