Digital Video Workshops San Francisco TM

"After completing a one-year course at the New York Film Academy, I decided to brush up on my editing skills by attending Aron’s Final Cut Pro weekend intensive.  Wow, do I wish I had saved my tuition money and just attended Aron’s camera and lighting courses as well!  I was shocked at how simple he managed to make a program that had previously been presented to me in such a complicated and confusing manner.  Better still, Aron was at once entertaining and informative. I highly recommend this course to anyone who wishes they could learn the art of filmmaking without taking out a loan to do so."

Dan Sullivan

"I took Aron's Final Cut Pro class in November 2008 and was very pleased on how he taught the class. After purchasing Final Cut Pro, I had a few sessions at the Apple store. I still was not getting it. I was thinking about hiring a one on one tutor, but when I searched for final cut pro workshops in San Francisco, I saw Aron's Final Cut Pro 2 day workshop and immediately signed up for his class. I'm sure glad I did. I know Final Cut Pro well and now can edit my own movies. Aron has a different way of teaching. He has high energy, great personality, gets the students involved, and he is very funny. He won't continue the next lesson, until each students gets it. He also showed us some of his documentaries and taught us a little about filmmaking. He's probably the best instructor I have EVER had! Aron has a gift in teaching. The tuition was very reasonable compared from other Final Cut Pro classes taught in San Francisco. I'm planning on taking his video/lighting class in January."

Karen Clark

As a full time professor in one of the most highly regarded research
universities, I think I know a little about what makes a good teacher.
Aron Ranen is a great teacher and a premiere adult educator! What
emerges from his documentary course is his ability to create a natural
learning environment, get the students attention and keep it, provides the atmosphere that questions are crucial, and with warmth and humor expects more from students who have little to no knowledge of the filmmaking world. Ultimately, Aron's hands on teaching creates diverse learning experiences. The brain loves diversity...cameras, composition, lights, audio, gels, outdoor and indoor shooting. Hands on training is, of course, the best way to learn just about anything. There's only so far a manual can take you, and then you've got to simply plunge in,
and make your own mistakes. At the DVworkshops, mistakes are
not only allowed, they are encouraged. What Richard Feynman
is to the teaching of physics, Aron Ranen is to the teaching of documentary filmmaking. They begin with simple generalizations and concepts and then move toward both complexity and specificity with a childlike giddiness. After this class, you will enter the digital world and never want to return to ordinary reality!
 

Rafael C. Angulo
University of Southern California
School of Social Work
Associate Clinical Professor

"Thank you so much for sharing your expertise at the 2-day digital video workshop. The workshop was a revelation! I've taken courses in multimedia and digital imaging, and this class is a real leap forward. Although I had reviewed the tips on your website, your presentations and exercises allowed me to absorb them so much more thoroughly than was possible simply by reading. Yesterday's shooting and your critique also brought your points home, by letting me in make nearly every mistake you had warned about, and see the consequences onscreen. I recommend your workshop to anyone with an interest in making quality video, in expanding a photographic career, or in using video in marketing on the web.

Best wishes for still more success as video guru."

Beth Charlesworth

"I just wanted to write to you and commend you on your great workshop, DV Crash Course that I recently took. I got more out of this workshop then any recent class or workshop that I have attended and I want to thank you for that. Your hands on approach to teaching and the knowledge you share is worth much more than the cost of the course. You explained the how, what and why of digital video recording, visual story telling and more importantly the ease in which you make Final Cut Pro appear makes this once daunting program easy to understand. With a bit more experience I am beginning to really understand this program and feel it will soon be like any other program that I have mastered.

Being a freelance still photographer working for magazines, newspapers and wire services I began to see the writing on the wall as to where my industry was headed and began to gain an interest in video work. Not knowing where to start with instruction and learning I began to scourer the web looking for online tutorials. I soon began to realize that I needed more than the online tutorials and needed some real hands on training. Seeing you at a recent multi-media workshop convinced me that you were the " go to guy" for in-depth training. More research about you only convinced me that you are definitely the video guru and I immediately signed up for your class.

Thank you again for making the class very enjoyable, entertaining and most importantly a highly learning experience. Your humor, delivery and the innovative approach you have to teaching the important points that everyone needs to know about visual story telling and this ever changing industry was a welcome change from the recent classes I have taken.

I highly recommend anyone who wants to advance in the visual story telling world to not think twice about taking your class and sign up right away. Thank you for all you do for the industry."

David Paul Morris
Photographer
 

"I wanted to thank you for such and inspiring, informative and exhausting! workshop last month. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye and thank you. I want you to know that it confirmed a big change in my life to focus on being involved in meaningful media. I returned home, gave my notice, and will begin working for a media company in August. Thanks so much for the jump start and the highly engaging and entertaining teaching."

Best to you!

Lisa Doherty from Colorado

"As a professional infiltrator, video is a big part of my job. When I needed to learn Final Cut Aron Ranen's class was the perfect solution. Unlike other workshops that cram information down your throat, I found Aron's class to be both highly  informative and entertaining, with unique teaching methods that makes the information stick!  Hurrah for Aron!"

Harmon Leon (author of National Lampoon's Road Trip USA,)

"Aron is the best friend an aspiring filmmaker can have.  His DV Workshop Basic is fast, fun and easy on the wallet.  By the third lesson we were editing our own footage on Final Cut Pro!  And there's a madness to the method:  Aron mixes his Hollywood savvy and artistic sense with a totally warped sense of humor.  You'll love his comfy new Mission District studios, too!

Carl Russo, Film Journalist
(Oakland Tribune, indieWIRE)

"Hey Aron:

In spring of 2004 I took your Basic DVD class.  (I'm the guy whose quote
appears at the top of your testimonials web page).  I thought you'd like to know that I've had modest success with my super-short comedy, "Baby Pepper", which I shot and edited using the techniques you teach.

As of this writing, "Baby Pepper" has been accepted at nine film festivals
in such cities as Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Edinburgh (Scotland), and Melbourne (Australia).  In September, 2005, I screened it at the Milano Film Festival in Italy.

It was really a cheap production, and my technical skills are still close to
'beginner' status, but I thought your students would like to know how far
you can get with a simple idea and a good DV class."
 

Here's the film web site:
http://www.ratso.net/babypepper.html
 

Thanks,
Carl Russo

"Aron, Your lessons were perfectly formatted, practical, easy to comprehend and ideally suited to my professional needs.  You took the mystery out of this marvelous program (Final Cut Pro 4.0) and made it an extremely useful and productive tool."

Greg Lefevre, Independent Correspondent, San Francisco. Former CNN San Francisco Bureau Chief and Correspondent

Aron,

"I just wanted to say what a great experience I had in you documentary workshop. The amount covered was amazing - lighting, audio, the camera, what makes a good story & documentary, Final Cut, documentary highlights.... And have taken and delivered a lot of technical classes, I have to say you are an incredible teacher!. I will never think of that red overlay button as anything but the blood of the Jews building pyramids..and the A is for Aron text button - you've got some great memory aids. But I have forgotten the one question we aren't allowed to call you on.

Seriously though you have the patience of a saint, dealing with the various people and their anxieties, and you really put your all into wanting us to get it. The structure of the class was perfect - throwing us right into filming the second day (before I had time to think about being intimidated). I appreciated you inviting Bruce over to give us his take on good documentaries and our stories. And you went over and above the call of duty powering  through the creation of my video, taking it to the bitter end with voice over and music. Even though I thought I didn't care, I was proud to have a take home - though my daughters just mocked me.

THe week flew and all my technical and creative brain cells have been jumpstarted! I hope I don't lose the momentum. I am a day away from getting a PD150 on Ebay, and Final Cut is on its way!

Thanks again, and thanks for keeping your website up to date with all that info!"

Martha