Celebrating its 10th anniversary year, Video Symphony, a TV & Film College and Career Center in Burbank, California has been awarded National Accreditation by Washington, D.C.'s ACCET (The Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training.)
Video Symphony's National Accreditation culminates an 18-month process, spearheaded by Video Symphony's coo Andy Webb, and VP/controller Paula Thomas, working closely with ACCET to provide the extensive data necessary. VS had to show compliance with more than 30 standards of performance tests, in the broad categories of instructors, curricula, satisfactory academic progress and completion of students, student placement, facility and equipment, management, and financial stability.
Mike Flanagan, founder/president of Video Symphony said, "We are delighted to have achieved this milestone. This accreditation provides us with a 'stamp of approval' by ACCET, signifying that we comply with the institutional standards of performance that are considered essential to a high-quality student education. The biggest challenge we needed to overcome was the structure of our courses and programs. We were founded as a corporate training, industry-certified, short-term training center, with courses that were two-three days long. Originally, students came in, took the classes, and were done. There were no ongoing standards of performance such as admissions requirements, testing, grading, completion time, and placement rate due to the nature of that short-term training."
He adds, "However, since accrediting organizations like ACCET are primarily reviewing career and technical colleges that instruct students for months and years, we needed to change our internal procedures, since short-term classes do not lend themselves to the performance monitoring needed for accreditation. It took us many months and a lot of customized database modifications to conform the short-term classes with a long-term comprehensive program of instruction."
Recent Video Symphony alumni now working in industry include:
Video Editing Students:* Jay Mappala, assistant editor, NBC* Michael Noble, assistant editor, MTV* Dan Morita, assistant editor, CNN* Chris Ryder, assistant editor, FOX* Linda Rzeznik Attias, assistant editor, UPN* Matt Sniegoski, assistant editor, Animal Planet
Audio Editing Student:* Steve Schartz, audio editor, FOX TV
3D/Visual Effects Students:* Briana Hamilton, 3D/FX digital artist, LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING. Now working at DreamWorks Studios.* John Cooper, technical director, Commercials Division, Rhythm & Hues
Video Symphony (www.videosymphony.com) is an authorized training center for Avid, Apple, DigiDesign, Sonic Solutions, Adobe, Alias and NewTek. The center provides comprehensive, professional-level instruction in all aspects of post-production for feature films, TV, video and DVD.
