CA LIVE streaming course on bizi: Getting Freelance, Jobs, Pricing, Promoting & mo...

[Jason Manley]

TUITION IS BELOW!!!!!!! See you all soon!!!



Getting jobs, finding, pricing, and winning freelance, creative promotion, and supporting yourself as an artist are key to living as a artist in the world today. We will spend time covering every aspect, tool, and theory that the most successful artists in the world use to make their dreams real. You don't have to starve. You can do anything you wish with your art career if you just know the ways that it is done. This information did not come in art school.

Why me...In 2002 I used a meager 6050.00 dollars to build conceptart.org and found Massive Black Inc. with Coro Kaufman and Andrew Jones. Since then, I have amassed the largest client list in my field and the MB team has completed an industry leading 250 major projects for everything from God of War 3, Starcraft 2, Killzone 2, Sonic, Tony Hawk, Dragon Age, Army of Two, Fallout 3, Guitar Hero,...Toys like Laser Tag, major feature films, television commercials, books, and more. I built the very first entertainment art education workshops (there are now at least seven followers), helped build and fund our school, created our downloads program and our live streaming classes, designed conceptart.org's community, and have spoken on the topics of creative business at major industry events like GDC, GCDC, DICE, AnimFX, universities, and more.


Here are some of my clients (including 19 of the top 20 games publishers):

o 2K Games
o 2k Marin
o 3rd Degree Games
o Acony
o Andromeda Publishing
o Acquire
o Activision
o ArenaNet
o Arkane
o Atari
o Ayzenberg Group
o Backbone Ent.
o Bethesda
o Big Fish
o Big Huge Games
o Bioware
o Bizarre Creations
o Black Hole
o Black Rock Studios
o Blizzard
o BreakAway
o Buck TV
o Bungie
o Capcom
o Catalyst
o CCP
o CD Projekt
o Cheyenne Mountain
o Factor 5
o Co-Mar
o Codemasters
o The Collective
o ConceptArt.Org
o Critterpix
o Cryptic
o Darkworks
o Deadline Games
o Deep Silver
o Disney
o Disney Interactive
o Disney HSM
o Dot Matrix
o Double Helix
o EA Blackbox
o EA: DICE
o EA
o EA Redwood
o EA Vancouver
o Eclipse
o Eidos
o Edge of Reality
o Ensemble
o Epic
o Escalation Studios
o Flagship
o Fox Sports
o GameLoft
o GearBox
o Guerrilla
o Hasbro
o High Impact
o HCA Associates
o id software
o Ignite Studios
o Impulse
o Incognito
o InXile
o Intel
o IO
o Irrational
o Junction Point
o Kitchen
o Koch Media
o Kongregate
o Lightbox
o Liquid Entertainment
o LucasArts
o Maxis
o Microsoft
o Midway
o Monolith
o Move
o MTV
o NCSoft
o Nerjyzed
o NetDevil
o Neversoft
o Nike
o Nintendo
o Novalogic
o Obsidian Entertainment
o OddWorld
o Pandemic
o Planet Moon
o Production Road
o Project 51
o Pseudo Interactive
o Pyro
o Radical
o Rainbow
o Recoil
o RED 5
o Red Octane
o Red Tribe
o Ritual
o Sega of Japan
o Sega of America
o Sega R&D
o Sega: Secret Level
o Schell Games
o Seismics
o Sibilant
o Slipgate Ironworks
o SnowBlind
o SOA
o Sony: SCEA
o Sony: SCEE
o Sony: Online
o Sony: R&D
o Space Time
o Spark Unlimited
o Stormfront
o SuckerPunch
o Timegate
o Tippett
o Toys for Bob
o Trainit
o Trion
o Triumph
o Ubisoft Montreal
o UDA
o Upper Deck
o Vicious Cycle
o Vivendi
o Volatile
o Volition
o Vurdalak
o Young & Rubicam
o Zenimax


I am going to share information which you can, and will, directly apply to making your own career successful, regardless of your circumstances or creative path. This is not just for concept artists. This is for all artists and is designed for any art career you have in mind. I grew up dirt poor and was orphaned by seventeen. If I can make it, any of you can. I will be helping those participate understand how they can make their art career and freelance life exactly as they hope for. I will go over everything from promotion to gathering work to pricing, setting salaries, negotiation, and contracts. This is an all inclusive course.

Why support this: First because you need to know and understand all that you can when it comes to knowing what you can do to improve your ability to make it as a creative person. Second, because all CA proceeds are going to fund the brand new technology which we ordered last week. We are building the definitive hub for creatives to make it in the world, including improved galleries, professional promotional tools, a majorly upgraded job boards, the online school tech, and a host of other features which will give you and all the artists of CA a better base in which to access our traffic that reaches nearly ever major company, art director, professional artists, and even ways to help you earn a living. We also have some great tools that will improve your shots at opportunity, and success. I need to raise money to see this happen, and so here I am. My time is yours.

Join me this coming weekend. We have great stuff to cover.

When: Saturday August 1 2009
Where: Right here on ConceptArt.Org in the Live Education forums.
Time: 1PM-5PM Central Daylight Time (Austin Texas)
Tuition: 95 bucks.
How: http://www.conceptartstore.com/ininart.html

Watch this thread for more info!!

And more info will come too!



Jason Manley

[Aenhimal]

great!! there's going to be a masterclass every weekend? I'm going to be broke in a blink in that case haha

[PieterV]

I tend to worry allot about this subject, and it's an important one. So there's a good chance I'll join in on this one.

Is there a streaming test we can try out to check how well our connection holds up? Also, if you get disconnected during the lecture (which most likely will happen with my shitty isp), is there a possible problem with rejoining?

Will this be a video lecture, or just audio?

[Kvick]

I thought I pretty much had most color concepts down knowledge-wise before saturday, but you showed me how little I did . I'll definitely try to make it to this one too.

[Hive_minD]

such a pity that I missed the colour class. Gotta try and join this one, though I would pay extra if it would come as a download!

[B.Rockwell]

I'm there for sure.

[DefiledVisions]

I am also wondering if these streamed classes will be available for purchase in the future. I'm on holiday at the moment and don't have the possibilty to join in on these classes, and I think many others are in the same situation like me.

This is one movie I would not like to miss, since it adresses such important information.. and since I want to start freelancing soon I need this bigtime

[Greg Lambrakis]

Hey Jason, remember how I said if you ever did a class/download on this topic
I'd be the first in line? Well, I'll definitely be there on Saturday. Thanks for sharing
this stuff; really looking forward to it.
Cheers and all the best.

[Ninjac]

This class would be perfect for me! To bad I'll be out of the country when it is live. Hopefully it will be a dl in the future cause I want this info for sure.

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

The color class was all I could handle financially for now, but this does sound awesome. I've still got a lot of work to do on my foundations before i can go job hunting though. Hopefully they'll be solid by the time you do this course again, it sounds awesome .

[LostFayth]

Jason, is this gonna be repeated in a few months as well? I really want to participate, but two times 95 usd in a month would be just too much for me to spend.

[Steffler]

Guys I know your testing out the tech and everything, but I think everyone wants to have some sort of lasting copy for future reference. While all this is in beta anyway.

For example, I am still learning foundation drawing. When I progress into painting I will have to recall everything or refer to notes from this weekends lectures.

I know you guys are trying to protect yourselves from piracy but perhaps you could have a subscription based membership. A free membership gets you normal access like we have now. A monthly subscription would grant you access to non interactive videos lets say $25 per month. And for your live events you have to buy a ticket, say $50 for subscribers, regular price $95. Then afterwords its in the library for future reference.

Im not saying your product is not priced right but you could generate huge amounts of residual cash flow from the people your lectures inspire.

In your color lecture you mentioned a few times, having different levels of participation. Hypothetically speaking I may only want to hear the lecture, so I buy a one time pass. After watching, my interest goes through the roof because I can see this material is exactly what Im looking for, so I subscribe for a month. Now I want to break into entertainment art, so I become a premium member so I can get access to exercise files. Your lectures can attract new subscriptions by offering all that material we requested after the lecture.

Video blogs, video tours, live workshop streaming. You could commission the community masters to come to your studio and record a 30 min spot on various topics. That would benefit the artists portfolio as well as add one more recording for your library.

At the moment I have an annual budget of $1200 for subscriptions, workshops, conventions and digital downloads. Besides Kelbytraining and Lynda.com I havent found anything like those that are specifically geared to teach fine art or digital art. Except for Xia at Idrawgirls.com. Regardless of where it comes from I will spend at least that much this year. I would spend it all in one place; if such a place existed.

I love those subscription sites because I can learn the software, but im starving to find that same type of media in an artistic format. Sure, I can buy expensive digital downloads, but honestly I have been disappointed by all of them except those I got at Idrawgrils. Those are cheap downloads comparatively. They come with loads of files and the feature tutorials are 4 hours long. Everything else is free. Not to mention hes a great teacher, so im eager to be supportive.

Just my 2 cents. Im looking forward to more webcasts but at a $100 a pop my budget is gunna get creamed. I may pass on some subjects, but I would buy them all if there was a way to make it affordable.


Think of it this way. If you sold 100 tickets for the next show you would gross $9,500. Then its gone after 30 days and those 100 students might retain most of it afterwords. Now if you find a way to archive the material, without it getting bootlegged, you can then restream that same lecture. Which also increases the value of the content in the consumers eyes on the front end. So you would not only be able reach more artists but there is a record of the event for newcomers.

In the past I watched the highlights on youtube or used a free trial to sample tutorials. When I was first learning about subscription based training I canceled all of my online game accounts to make the switch. When I realized that I could build assets from the exercise files I upgrade to premium memberships. I can imagine Massive Black has a pretty friggen huge assets library.

So if those same 100 tickets also sold 50 subscriptions you would gross an additional 15,000 after just one year. All this would require fancy graphics and editing to really market it outside CA.org. Not to mention you need to have an archive to subscribe too. But I bet you could get the community to contribute to development for free tickets or something I would do it for free just to have it on my resume.

I guess thats more than my 2 cents huh?

[Trashy]

Jason after last class I'm already signing up. I don't really care at all if I don't have a dime left to spend afterward. I learned a lot last class, more then in any class I ever took. And hey anything to help you get the new tech going is a worthy cause. This is a subject I need to deeply understand more about also. I'll be there man.

[Rist]

Is it really the best you can do. One time only chance to see these over the course of 2 days? Not even that? Just been on Holiday and came back today, meaning I missed out on the colour theory. I am really disappointed because I would have thrown money at you to see that. Subscriptions for monthly, quarterly, and annual is essential for streaming videos.

I'm not too against the decision, and might be ignorant to all what's happening, but its making it really hard for me to buy into these videos now when I only have a very short duration to see them. I like to see my videos many times because I hate taking notes. This scheme is counter-productive to the way I learn. Good luck with it all the same.

[Aenhimal]

Those of us who have sing up for colour theory, can see the class for 30 days, so yes we can see it more than once, just not on "live"

[Rist]

Ah okay, that's alright then. Is there no way for those who missed the live session to still pay for the 30 day duration?

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

Guys I know your testing out the tech and everything, but I think everyone wants to have some sort of lasting copy for future reference. While all this is in beta anyway.

For example, I am still learning foundation drawing. When I progress into painting I will have to recall everything or refer to notes from this weekends lectures.

I know you guys are trying to protect yourselves from piracy but perhaps you could have a subscription based membership. A free membership gets you normal access like we have now. A monthly subscription would grant you access to non interactive videos lets say $25 per month. And for your live events you have to buy a ticket, say $50 for subscribers, regular price $95. Then afterwords its in the library for future reference.

Im not saying your product is not priced right but you could generate huge amounts of residual cash flow from the people your lectures inspire.

In your color lecture you mentioned a few times, having different levels of participation. Hypothetically speaking I may only want to hear the lecture, so I buy a one time pass. After watching, my interest goes through the roof because I can see this material is exactly what Im looking for, so I subscribe for a month. Now I want to break into entertainment art, so I become a premium member so I can get access to exercise files. Your lectures can attract new subscriptions by offering all that material we requested after the lecture.

Video blogs, video tours, live workshop streaming. You could commission the community masters to come to your studio and record a 30 min spot on various topics. That would benefit the artists portfolio as well as add one more recording for your library.

At the moment I have an annual budget of $1200 for subscriptions, workshops, conventions and digital downloads. Besides Kelbytraining and Lynda.com I havent found anything like those that are specifically geared to teach fine art or digital art. Except for Xia at Idrawgirls.com. Regardless of where it comes from I will spend at least that much this year. I would spend it all in one place; if such a place existed.

I love those subscription sites because I can learn the software, but im starving to find that same type of media in an artistic format. Sure, I can buy expensive digital downloads, but honestly I have been disappointed by all of them except those I got at Idrawgrils. Those are cheap downloads comparatively. They come with loads of files and the feature tutorials are 4 hours long. Everything else is free. Not to mention hes a great teacher, so im eager to be supportive.

Just my 2 cents. Im looking forward to more webcasts but at a $100 a pop my budget is gunna get creamed. I may pass on some subjects, but I would buy them all if there was a way to make it affordable.


Think of it this way. If you sold 100 tickets for the next show you would gross $9,500. Then its gone after 30 days and those 100 students might retain most of it afterwords. Now if you find a way to archive the material, without it getting bootlegged, you can then restream that same lecture. Which also increases the value of the content in the consumers eyes on the front end. So you would not only be able reach more artists but there is a record of the event for newcomers.

In the past I watched the highlights on youtube or used a free trial to sample tutorials. When I was first learning about subscription based training I canceled all of my online game accounts to make the switch. When I realized that I could build assets from the exercise files I upgrade to premium memberships. I can imagine Massive Black has a pretty friggen huge assets library.

So if those same 100 tickets also sold 50 subscriptions you would gross an additional 15,000 after just one year. All this would require fancy graphics and editing to really market it outside CA.org. Not to mention you need to have an archive to subscribe too. But I bet you could get the community to contribute to development for free tickets or something I would do it for free just to have it on my resume.

I guess thats more than my 2 cents huh?

Steffler, I kinda get what you're saying, but on affordability you really need to keep something in mind... A color theory class at my school (which is cheaper than most art schools) is over $2000 and doesn't cover much of what this lecture did. Factoring in that Jason burned up an entire weekend without making a dime off it, $95 is chump change. Just take good notes. If you missed something that you cant catch again over the next 29 days, others have been posting their notes in the forum as well.

[john_d]

The Color Theory class was out of control. It was about 7 hours long and didn't drag for a minute. I consider myself fairly well read on the topic, but Jason was teaching all sorts of ways to use color and value that I hadn't come across before. The streaming technology is actually really cool and worked great.

I went back and forth Sunday morning trying to decide if I really wanted to spend my day inside looking at my computer screen, but in the end I couldn't pass up the opportunity. If you're sitting on the fence about this next one, I encourage you to take the leap. While I obviously haven't taken the course yet, if it's half as informative as the color one, you will not be sorry.

But what I really wanted to say was everyone who is on holiday or working or whatever, you might consider signing up for the class anyway since there will be a streaming version of it online for 30 days afterwards (I'm assuming they're doing that for this one, too). You can't take advantage of the asking questions element, but you can watch it when you get back!

[Rist]

Can anyone from the UK make some comments on connection quality and the time of day the live feed was shown for the colour theory video? Thanks,

[hala]

Too bad I can't use my "education loan" towards these instead of my overpriced college classes. College doesn't really allow me the opportunity to budget for a monthly subscription.

Will try to attend this one though--this is definitely something that is hardly taught in school. I've only seen a couple seminars for this aspect of the art world at my uni. Only grazing the top of some of the deeper subjects of this topic.

Looking forward to it!

[arghmisfit]

This sounds really great!! I would be totally into this if i wasn't flying home that day.

keep up the great education!

[Hawgca11er]

Wow another one! The color theory lecture was amazing and well worth the money. I will be in every class from now on as long as I can afford it. Thanks Jason!

[Nrx]

Can anyone from the UK make some comments on connection quality and the time of day the live feed was shown for the colour theory video? Thanks,

amazing, 7 - 2am, not that bad all in all, i was actually in bed by the end and forgot to fire a few questions, but definately worth the money,


but i will now use caps because im slightly inebriated

JASON ITS TOO SOON MAN, LET MY BANK RECOVER :'(

[Steffler]

Steffler, I kinda get what you're saying, but on affordability you really need to keep something in mind... A color theory class at my school (which is cheaper than most art schools) is over $2000 and doesn't cover much of what this lecture did. Factoring in that Jason burned up an entire weekend without making a dime off it, $95 is chump change. Just take good notes. If you missed something that you cant catch again over the next 29 days, others have been posting their notes in the forum as well.

I completely agree. But the main competitor here isn't the universities. Its other online educators. Sure this is a great value as it is, when you compare it to just the tuition at traditional schools. But its expensive when you compare it to other types of similar online media. Granted there is a lot of value from the Massive Black portfolio, but were talking about fundamentals of art here. To get accreditation for the school he will have to teach those in addition to what other concentrations they start with.

Yeah Jason did a long weekend this time. But in the future as they produce more broadcasts its going to boil down to about a 4 hour lecture. Thats $25 dollars an hour roughly. Now at my university I spent about $1200 for an art course. I went 3 times a week, 3 hours each day, for 16 weeks give or take. About 144 hours of instruction. That averages down to $8.33 per hour of instruction. We spent about 2 weeks on color in my foundation design course and my instructor covered a lot of the same fundamentals Jason reviewed.


online accredited and non accredited training is exploding right now and it seems that Jason wants his new company to be able to teach students who would pay with financial aid and student loans. I dont see getting accredited for any other reason. Which I think is just awesome. I would change schools in a heartbeat. But by the time his school comes online I will have graduated and will be busy repaying student loans.

But what about all those people who cant get the funding to go to school. Even Jason says you dont have to have the degree you just have to learn the art. Or maybe art is just a passion and not a career. If this material was archived and accessible to review it could reach an even bigger market. I see many teenagers here on CA who are ready for advanced lecture.

Im just saying there is a real niche with online subscriptions. It could fund the start up of the school itself. Not to mention having the web/video tech ready for online programs. Its only a matter of time before someone has an online subscription plan for commercial art training, if it isnt already here.
I cant afford to watch very many $100 lectures that im not ready for. But even beginners are interested in the product. If you can reach them, viola...
There is your digital revolution

[Ian Barker]

Oh man... Jason, you're gonna ruin me. Maybe in the future we could have two weeks between classes? Not sure if I'm gonna do this one or not... I really really want to, since I don't think I'll find this info anywhere else, at least not easily. Just not sure if I can afford it so soon after the last class. Do you know if you'll be repeating it anytime in the future?

[The Lone Gunman]

I wouldn't mind dropping money on this at all! But is there anyway you could do one during the evening too?! Or at least a video download! My days are already spoken for, unfortunately. :/ I wouldn't mind gaining some crazy knowledge and supporting the community at the same time.

[growly beast]

I loved the Color Theory class! And I will probably attend this class. But there is some really important stuff you guys should consider if you want to keep this as a good but affordable source of income.

As the one above me said, I'd love to see a subscription available. Eventually, nobody's going to be able to afford paying 95 dollars every time there is a class. I realize you are just starting this out and testing how it works, but I feel this would be something really important to implement as soon as you possibly can, or at least hold off on classes until something is in place.

My reasoning is, at the price of 95 dollars with classes every weekend or even every month, it's an extremely hefty fee. A whole month (four weekends) is already $340! That's almost the price of rent! Not only that, but the information isn't even available for download, or even permanently - and if you miss a class period, you're completely screwed.

The worst thing about it is that it makes it extremely hard to pick and choose what classes one would want to take, because we have no idea of what is coming up next, if it will be the "omg can't miss class", or not. A schedule would make this even easier.

Hopefully my suggestions are useful. I just started coming to CA.org, and at the right time - these classes and the videos I've bought from MB are simply amazing. But if you're not going to offer downloads, there really needs to be a better system...

[Jason Manley]

First, thanks to those of you who attended the other course. Really. I had soooo much fun. It was the best weekend I have had in ages really. I feel like the questions taught me some things too..so thanks.

Second...if you can find what I have to say anywhere else, I will be personally surprised. I don't know another artist in the field who has built a client list like this:

I also do not know anyone in art who has the same up to date knowledge of multiple industries pricing, current going work values, negotiation, promotion, legal, and other freelance and career matters. You can take the top three MB competitors and combine them and I have still amassed more clients than they have and they have entire teams of biz and sales guys...MB, up until recently, only had me. I am sharing theories and strategies that you can implement in your own freelance work and career to get the job done.

There is no way some teacher at one of the private art schools knows all this stuff. No way at all. If they did, they would be doing what I do. So anyone that says they can find it cheaper elsewhere...go for it. It will not happen. If you have an interest in finding success, I am happy to share. The small fee is supporting the growth of this site and community, which has had a huge impact on so many peoples lives. Spending money on Lynda.com is not getting you a ton of new tech to use, for free, to be able to be more successful, nor keeping this site open and free for your learning and work use. CA is doing that. I don't know anyone else who is.

We are considering some subscription formats, but this live course program is here to stay. I cant keep it up forever or the bandwidth would kill us. We will see if we can find some solutions as time goes on, but for now this is how it is going to work. We are trying to do a great job and I think the reviews speak for themselves.

I can go down and take a one day class at a number of institutions, in the flesh, and get no ability to watch the video from it at all...and pay even more money. Just one look in your local city pages newspaper will show you that. This way of working keeps our costs balanced with the funding CA needs to grow. Believe me, we are doing all we can to offer the best deal possible. In all honesty, I think we could charge more for this stuff...others do. We are not. We are being fair as we possibly can..as we always do.

I will consider running a night course for the same topic. If there is enough support for it I will run it. I have to raise a tremendous amount of funds for CA's new technologies and am putting my full efforts and time into doing so. This all comes from the right place of integrity. If the leaders in CA put the time in, which they are going to, then it will happen and this place will have every necessary tool and program it deserves.

[Ian Barker]

Well said Jason, my only concern is that having two classes so close to eachother will keep some potential customers from being able to participate. Spacing them out even just a week more might make it a bit easier to save up.

That said, if you really want to attend these classes, you will find a way. Donate plasma. Pack a lunch instead of eating fast food. Don't buy that movie/game you were eyeing (you should be spending your free time drawing anyways). Don't go to the bar Friday night. Find a one day job on craig's list. Sell some old collectibles on ebay. It just comes down to how badly you really want to learn and mature as an artist.

Furthermore, if you are a starving artist, this is probably just the class you need. $95 for info on how to succeed as a freelancer/making it into the industry? Sounds like an incredible investment to me. If you attended the Color Theory class, read any of the reviews on it, or hell, bought any MB vid, you know that it's going to be well more than worth it.

[B.Rockwell]

I can already feel the anticipatory blisters from some hardcore note taking.