AMSTERDAM—Abbywinters.com has announced the release of a content-making training site, learn.abbywinters.com. The site contains about 55 hours of training videos (complete with workbooks, tests and assignments) designed to support in-house staff and off-site contract shooters who produce content that meets the site’s requirements.
Many of the videos were made by abbywinters.com CEO Garion Hall, who said, “It’s a risk to ‘open-source’ our methods, as we discuss in detail the ‘secret herbs and spices’ to make an AW shoot… but any astute producer could look at our shoots and work that out anyway. By helping experienced content producers to learn our ‘paradigm’, we make it easy for them to earn money, while improving our content quality”.
Training shooters is primarily Hall’s responsibility; the old way involving six weeks of intensive one-on-one time. Now, the teaching and learning is time-shifted, allowing Hall to travel six months a year while remotely reviewing a shooter’s work.
Training staff and contractors is not the only goal, however. Hall also plans on launching a marketplace using abbywinters.com’s pay-per-scene technology, allowing producers inspired by the company’s paradigm to release shoots the site does not purchase, making them available to its member-base. The site will share in the revenue with the original producer.
The company says this will provide opportunities for customers to be more engaged, raise revenues, have a larger and more varied content-base, more frequent updates and increase models’ earnings, as they can also self-publish on the new platform.
“It takes around 60 hours to complete ‘the essentials’ course, which rules out the tire-kickers,” added Hall.
Pax, a contract shooter in training said, “I have some photography experience, and offered to shoot my girlfriend for the site. They introduced me to the training stuff, and now I am working through it – it’s engaging and interesting; I’m two-thirds complete. I see the 60 hours as an investment and a wonderful opportunity to learn from world-class professionals. I plan to become a full time shooter for the site.”
Misha, another shooter in training said, “I find the relaxed delivery really easy to listen to. I watch each video twice, so I really absorb it.”
Hall will attend some of the upcoming European conferences and is happy to talk in more detail about open-sourcing methodologies.
For more information, contact Brent Laughton at [email protected] or by phone at +31 20 622 7418.
