I asked Lucy Nicholson, a senior staff photographer with Reuters based in Los Angeles, about the value of MediaStorm’s new workshops. Lucy attended in May. I’ve read a few posts that have questioned the cost, $3,500 for tuition only, and whether or not the course was worth the price of admission. Here’s her answer:

I think the course was well worth it. There were only 4 people in the course learning (2 photogs & 2 editors) and 5 people teaching. The tutors put in as much time as we needed & stayed working with us at night till we all couldn’t stay awake (not an exaggeration.) The time on the course was superbly budgeted – classroom learning was kept to a minimum; it was all about learning-by-doing supplemented by notes you could read in more detail at a later point. I think MediaStorm is doing some of the best multimedia out there, so just picking up their way of doing things was valuable in itself… There’s no correct formula with a lot of stuff, so it’s good to have someone who really knows what they’re doing give you a formula to start with + all their notes on Final Cut Pro settings to use etc which are appropriate for web journalism. I’d read documentary filmmaking, final cut pro, cinematography, film editing, radio production, BBC TV training books in the last year in an effort to try to get up to speed with the skills I might need for the future. This course really pulled it all together for me in a way which made sense & gave me a lot of confidence – not that I know a lot, but that I have a lot to learn & at least I think I’m on the right track for now! Hopefully I’ll be able to get a chance to do some more multimedia in between the day-to-day necessary parts of my job.