Up Your Game With The Learn Cinematography Masterclass
I think it’s safe to assume that almost all of you reading this post have at some point dreamed of being a high-level cinematographer. Maybe you’ve poured over the works of Roger Deakins, Emmanuel Lubezki, Vittorio Storaro, Matthew Libatique, and Hoyte Van Hoytema in hopes of absorbing some of their talent through a sort of visual osmosis, but just felt like you weren’t able to actually apply that to your own work.
Maybe you’re just starting out wondering how to begin, maybe you went to film school and stumbled out the other end clutching your diploma feeling like you didn’t learn much, or you skipped the hefty tuition fees altogether and opted to move straight out to LA, NYC, or some other filmmaking epicenter in hopes of breaking into the industry.
Maybe you’ve been through all of that and chose a steady paycheck doing corporate/industrial videos and have completely abandoned your dreams of becoming the next inductee into the ASC.
Hyperbole aside, no matter where you are in your journey, all of us hit plateaus in our career, and no matter where we are in our pursuit of happiness, sometimes a good nudge and some inspiration is all it takes to reignite your passion.
Enter the Learn Cinematography Masterclass— the online educational course for filmmakers created by DP/Director Jakob Owens, and his business partner/DP/longtime collaborator, Thomas Taugher.
Jakob and Thomas are no stranger to creating products and content for filmmakers.
The Learn Cinematography Masterclass is the third business venture launched by the duo, who also own and operate the popular TropicColour.com and PrismLensFX.com— specializing in custom-built lens filters and accessories, as well as offering LUTs, stock footage, stock photos, and VFX overlays at a budget-friendly price point.
They’ve also just launched a fourth and fifth business venture Learn Music Videos (A spinoff of the Learn Cinematography Masterclass), and Eclectic West— a 40 acre property located in Adelanto, CA that appears to be a film location paradise complete with pre-constructed shooting spots including a plane wreck, a motel, a dilapidated gas station, a roadside auto shop, a geodesic dome, as well as a vast mountainous desertscape— all with indie-friendly pricing to rent for the day.
“We just thought about what products filmmakers like us would use and want, and just started building and creating.”
"We're still working on developing and growing all of these companies and we're passionate about each and everyone of them,” says Owens. “We love how each business helps other filmmakers and creatives become better, and create better work.”
So is the course worth it?
Chances are, if you’ve stumbled across their ads in your social feeds with the promise of making you a better cinematographer for less than the price of a lens filter, you probably haven’t been able to shake their marketing efforts ever since. The question begs an answer— does their promise deliver? Let’s dig in.
We had a chance to review this monster course recently. Logging in to the platform for the first time, we were shocked at how much content and goodies were packed into the course— with over 13 1/2 hours of content available (as of December 2020), plus new modules and lessons being added regularly. The course also comes with lighting exercises, creative and business templates, film-related documents, as well as exclusive discount codes for FilmTools.com, PrismLensFX.com, and TropicColour.com.
The course itself is broken up into modules that cover everything from the fundamentals of cinematography, pre-production, prep, and color theory, to the more “nitty gritty" on qualities of light, preferred gear, business advice, and tips and tricks they’ve learned along the way, as well as a MASSIVE library of behind the scenes content from their shoots, and breakdowns of some pieces in their body of work. All of this combines to lay a thick foundation to boost your career as a DP.
Upon completing the modules currently available on the course, we chatted with Jakob and Thomas to learn a bit more.
KU: You run all of these businesses— how did you get started, and do either of you have a business background?
JO: No, neither one of us had any background in business or went to business school. We both went to film school, and at no point did we think we’d be opening up several companies.
TT: I have to credit Jake for his ability to build a YouTube channel and a community. When we first met, he was already well underway with sharing his process on YouTube, which at the time was (and still kind of is) rare.
But that’s what’s so cool about a partnership— you get to bring both of our strong skillsets to the table. Jake’s very tapped in with running and building the companies' socials and branding — and I’m more backend building the site and innovating different product ideas.
I think what helps too is our willingness to learn, and step outside of our comfort zone. Both of our mentalities from day one was to jump off the cliff and build the parachute as you fall. It’s risky, but it’s allowed us to get where we are at today.
KU: What made you say “Let’s put our freelance work on hold and start producing these products?”
TT: We’ve actually been lucky and never had to put our freelance work on hold. We’ve been able to do this along side our work. Any freelancer knows, you’ll work for three days one week, and then have one week off. So this has been something we’ve been able to do in between jobs over the last year. This was just the natural progression from [Jake’s] YouTube channel which he had been doing for the last decade. Our courses are just the natural progression of that.
KU: There’s an infinite number of free resources and paid masterclasses out there geared towards cinematography. How do you think your course differs?
TT: We live in a unique time where anyone with a camera (which is everyone now with their phones) is able to share knowledge. There is no shortage of that.
Something that sets our course apart is the direct correlation between our curriculum and our work. I was the kid always watching the DVD extras to see beyond the frame and see how certain scenes were lit. I learn from watching, not from reading a dated textbook.
JO: Whenever we have a massive project ie. film, music video, commercial, etc., we document the whole thing. And along with our fundamental lectures, we put that all on display with this course so people get to see the inner workings of a real set.
KU: There are still modules being added to the course on a weekly basis— what sort of timeline should we expect before everything is complete?
JO: It will never be finished. We will always be adding to the program, that's what's so unique. There's always more to cover.
KU: How do you recommend people watch this masterclass? Is this a binge-it-through-one-sitting type of course?
JO: I think a few episodes at a time is the best way to watch. You want to be able to digest everything, take notes, and soak it all up. There's a lot of content on there and that will only grow. The good thing is you can always come back and revisit any module whenever you want. Then when you make it through everything, just keep an eye out for the new episodes dropping every week, just like your favorite TV show.
KU: What are your plans from here? I see Learn Music Videos taking off— would we expect to see a similar presentation of material from that? Why break that off into its own class? Any other plans for other masterclasses?
JO: Yeah, our masterplan would be to create platforms dedicated to certain crafts. Some people want to learn all about music videos because that's what they want to do. Some may only want to do documentaries, commercials etc. So the grand idea would one day be a platform where you can come to learn any specific filmmaking type you want to learn or know about. But for now we're just focused on Cinematography and Music Videos.
KU: Thanks so much for your time and giving us a chance to learn a little more about this monster of a course!
JO: Thank you!
The Final Verdict
For $250, we would say this course is absolutely worth it for 95% of you out there. If you’re already booking huge commercial work, are used to working with proper film cadence, and delegating roles and collaborating with large crews, you are probably a bit beyond what this course offers… for the rest of you, you’re going to find plenty of value in it and little nuggets of wisdom to apply to your work. We found that even with years of experience, there was still a good bit of new info in here for us to chew on.
The course took us about 3 weeks to go through and digest. It is a LOT of content. While most lessons average 5-7 minutes in runtime, some topics range from as short as 1-2 minutes in length, all the way up to nearly an hour in some of the RAW BTS. This is not a course to binge. If you really want to absorb it, break up your viewings and take notes along the way.
If you can look past some random mistakes in the edit, typos in the on-screen graphics, and on-camera fumbles through reading some teleprompted bullet points in the fundamentals section, at the end of the day, the content is valuable. These guys are DP’s first and presenters second, which definitely seems how it should be, but may take a little getting used to as you make your way through the course.
The format of the Learn Cinematography Masterclass is a bit lop-sided. You CAN jump around, but I suspect most will do as we did and go through the course linearly— which means the front half (while super important and packed with tons of helpful information) feels like a bit of a slog to get through just because it’s more theoretical and dryer with a talking-head presentation.
Once you get past the fundamentals and into the BTS reels and breakdowns of their shoots, the material is so good you just don’t want to stop. We devoured that section as fast as we could.
It’s in the back half of the course that it quickly becomes clear that Jakob and Thomas truly know their stuff, and aren’t afraid to bare their mistakes on screen. If you’re anything like us, this is really where you’re going to learn the most.
One of the coolest things we found with this course was that even as we were going through it, new lessons were popping up every few days. And after talking with Jakob and Thomas, now knowing that the course will never be finished— the value of it just grows over time (which we also suspect will inflate the cost of the course, so invest early if interested.) Already since reviewing the course, the price has gone up a minimal amount.
We’ve been through countless online courses ranging on every topic of filmmaking, and none of them have offered this sort of rolling growth. That to us is really what makes the Learn Cinematography Masterclass special and worth the investment.
To know you can check in every few months to pick up some new techniques, tips, inspiration and knowledge is a pretty great value for the “less than the price of a filter” they are charging for the course.
https://www.learncinematography.com
https://jakobowensproductions.bigcartel.com
One final note here before we close this one out— if you sign up for the course, Kessler has now partnered with Learn Cinematography to offer a special discount code for students to use on our store.
