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   Training Review
   Total Training for Adobe Creative
   Suite 3 Production Premium
   Workflow
 
   Publisher: Total Training
   Website: http://www.TotalTraining.com
   Format: Instructional DVD for CS3
   Topic: Total Workflow for CS3 Production
   Premium

   MSRP: $99 (DVD);
   $299 (Part of Full Online Training)

   Expected Release: Available Now
   Review Date: August 1, 2008
   Reviewed By: Jeremy Hanke
Final Score:
9.9

When it comes to training, I see myself as the typical ADD filmmaker, with a lot of passion and drive, but who can quickly be weighed down, when sitting through a lot of training done at one time. Of course, when you are buying training, you want to know you are getting the most for your money and that there are hours and hours of training. Too often the training begins to have the misery quotient, wherein you FEEL those hours and hours that you bought and they are exhausting. There is no way to make the more elaborate parts of a program fun and engaging all the time. As such, this sort of training is easier to go through in chunks of time and tolerance. We’re lucky to manage to get through a few hours at a sitting, before our attention demands that we take a break and get on with some other of our daily pursuits.

To my pleasant surprise, Bob Donlon does an awesome job of creating the first training that you honestly will not want to stop doing until you have gone through all eight hours of it! I had a few additional things on my plate, which prevented me from doing it all in one sitting, but easily knocked it out in two nights and was pleased to see how much information Bob crammed into the training.

This is not my first exposure to Bob’s CS3 training. Last year, I was part of a group of journalists that Adobe brought to San Jose, for CS3 training, before the product’s public release. To ensure we were all on the same page, Adobe brought in Bob to lead the overall training. He is a thorough, effortless trainer in every aspect of the instruction. He really shines in this series and it is understandable as to why he much sought after for training conferences.


Bob Donlon shows you how to get a huge amount of the CS3 Production Premium workflow.

Comprehension
Bob’s style is very easy to understand. He breaks things down to a basic editing perspective, and then builds on the training point with multiple approaches to performing common tasks. This makes it easy to learn how to do things, in the way that is the most convenient to your style, using the program functions.

Since he starts out from a perspective that people with almost no editing experience can get into, you might think this would get annoying for more experienced people. However, I’ve been editing for a decade, with much being done on Premiere Pro over the last three years; and I found that the refresher course Bob offers is very useful and touched on some things I didn’t regularly do, that made the editing workflow much easier.

To ensure people can experiment without getting lost, if they do things differently than Bob does, a new version (of the original project that Bob created) is available, after each chapter you open up. This allows you to experiment with some creative things on your own, then when you want to continue following the training, you can easily get back to Bob’s exact copy and what he’s teaching, each step along the way. This allows the experienced people to move ahead to further chapters without any ill consequences


Bob shows you how to remove unwanted noise using some of Soundbooth's visual tools.

Depth of Information
The overall setup of this training was in the framework of creating a travel documentary. He follows a doctor who volunteers his services to the neediest tribes in the Amazon. Bob shows you how to cut the film together in Premiere Pro, craft a creative intro in After Effects, create a translucent bug for the show in Illustrator, adjust the audio of your dialogue AND create a soundtrack using Soundbooth; then, how to compose a creative DVD in Encore CS3 and export it out as both DVD and Flash. Additionally, he gives instruction on how to set up your camera, in OnLocation; build creative animations using new tools in Photoshop and the Puppet tool in After Effects; then utilize the improved Vanishing Point feature in Photoshop in conjunction with the animation abilities of After Effects, to create a 3D fly-by of a clinic; and finally, how to export to a variety of mobile devices using Device Central CS3.

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