Meet the Team

What do you specialise in?
Coming from an Illustration background, I predominately specialise in print-based applications such as Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. Past jobs have required me to be flexible and diverse, so I now also specialise in web-based applications such as Dreamweaver and Flash and e-learning applications such as Captivate too.

What did you do before this job?
I originally trained as a Technical Illustrator while at college, then worked in illustration studios in the UK and in Europe. I then took on graphic design work and worked in a variety of design studios. Took a few years out to study for a Bsc (Hons) in Multimedia and Imaging sciences at university, then returned to work as a graphic designer.
Left the illustration and design industry to teach at a Manchester college for two years and acquired a teaching qualification, leaving that job to join Academy Class.

What do you enjoy about training?
The best part of training has to be when you see someone has learnt new skills and they are able to apply the skills themselves, and that smile which appears on their face. Their confidence has been boosted and they have enjoyed learning, and they have the skills for their job or hobby – this makes training enjoyable.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Escaping – getting out and about. Travelling to new places and seeing new things, bit of camping, walking, cycling etc – too many things to mention.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
Take life easy and relax, nice house and time to enjoy my hobbies – easy.

What do you specialise in?
I am an Adobe and Apple Certified Trainer/Instructor for Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash and Final Cut. My particular specialism is video editing, having been an Authorised Trainer for Final Cut Pro since 2006, graduating to an advanced level trainer in 2008.

What did you do before this job?
Before I chose training as my main profession I spent 8 years teaching TV Production at Higher Education level in Scotland, during this time I gained Post-graduate qualifications in teaching and I also wrote courses for the Scottish Qualification Authority in video post-production that are still being used today. Towards the end of my time in education I was heavily involved with Skillset Media Academies.
Looking further back to the turn of the century (thats this century, not last!) before I became a teacher I worked as a TV Studio Director at a little TV station outside Glasgow. I still miss the adrenaline buzz that live TV gives you. We were all young and a bit carefree so it made for some interesting programming. And no interesting doesn’t necessarily mean terrible! I even had the pleasure of directing 80’s pop duo Hue & Cry’s 2000 comeback performance. I think I may also have killed it, because they were never seen again!

What do you enjoy about training?
What you are really looking for as a trainer is the buzz when you see or hear or feel the satisfaction from the delegates as they discover what an application can really do for them in their work. The moment they look back at last months big job and think, if only I’d known that then. I like the interaction within the group as well, bouncing questions around and enjoying themselves, you never know exactly where your going to go with each course, though you have a plan each group has different needs.
The honest down to earth reason I love training though, and this is probably the same for the other guys, so don’t believe what they say either, is this. Training is a performance and we trainers are frustrated performers. I like to show off my knowledge etc. Anyone who’s been on my classes will know all the bad jokes too! Thats probably why I went into TV as well, directing was a performance all of its own (this is all great therapy, how much do I owe you?).

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Living in Edinburgh there is plenty to do, but right now I’m at the “parent of small children” stage of my life so most of my time is spent on them. I’m a regular at the zoo and other similar organisations that have a family membership available. I’m also regularly employed as a private Taxi by the Smith family, though the pay is a disgrace. My main purpose at the moment though seems to be to learn every Brownie badge available, I’m just not confident I’ll pass them all.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
Actually this is probably an opportune moment to announce that I did in fact win £10 million in last weeks Euro Millions draw! Bit of luck there eh? So I’d keep an eye on the red tops to see what I do next if i were you! Does anyone have the Pussy Cat Dolls phone number? Can you pass it on??

What do you specialise in?
Autocad 2D & 3D, 3Ds Max, Sketchup, Autocad Architecture, Revit Architecture

What did you do before this job?
Lived my life in a tropical country, working as an Architect, Free lance 3d Modelling and teaching at Jose Maria Vargas University in Venezuela….happy days… I miss them

What do you enjoy about training?
The Weekends and holidays!!!

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
I really like travelling, watch movies and spending time with my family

Cats or dogs?
cats and dogs

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
I’ll give a huge party for all my friends in a prived island

What do you specialise in?
Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Digital Repro, ?Quark…and I can even train CorelDraw but nobody ever asks…funny, that.

What did you do before this job?
I’ve been training since 2000, and have been a freelance graphic designer since 1990. Prior to that I was production manager for a (fairly) large?commercial print shop in north California.

What do you enjoy about training?
I really really like the feeling that I’ve helped someone develop their graphics skills. Also, I’ve met some great people through training work – not only the people attending the courses, but other trainers.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Digging up medieval silver (found a hoard in July 2008), gardening, writing (three books in print, fourth on the way), painting (oils), pottery, playing the guitar (since age 12), taking care of everyone on my 2-acre smallholding. Well, OK, tinyholding.

Cats or dogs?
Sheep. Chickens. Dogs. Cats. In no particular order.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
Well of course I’d continue training…and I’d buy more land so I could take care of more ‘rescue’ animals (currently have 2 RSPCA dogs, 2 ex-battery chickens (4 more coming soon), 11 sheep. And I’d sponsor some Tibetan Buddhist monks. And, and …spend more time at home.

What do you specialise in?
My speciality is web & print based technologies and I’m a Certified Adobe Instructor in Adobe Dreamweaver, Flash, ActionScript 3, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and Captivate and I also teach some of the web languages; HTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML. There is a whole load more I teach but I think we’ll stop here.

What did you do before this job?
Before Academy Class, [B.AC], I had my own training centre in Ipswich where as a one-man band I ran the office, manned the phones and trained the courses. I had ran the office from a little shed at home to a 2-room office in the heart of Ipswich town for 4 years. I then decided to pack my bags & come to the ol’ big smoke.
Whilst training and running the office at Ipswich I worked as a freelance web designer and developer and had also worked on print based projects for various clients. Overall I have been using the Adobe products for over 15 years starting with Adobe Photoshop 3.0, and that was Photoshop without layers, imagine that!!.
I have worked with many companies in my time from large international banks to small and medium sized companies. I have worked with various design agencies in and around London. As a long term contract I had also worked at Al-Hayat (An Arabic newspaper) as an Internet publisher, responsible for publishing the news content on to their site. From that, I had gained a lot of experience from both the print & web publishing.
I’ve been instructing web technologies and Adobe products for nearly ten years now and I remember back in 2000 we had our classes designing web applications for smart phones saying that is how the future will be and now look at us all with our iPhones and Androids!! Only then we were designing most of our web applications in Flash not knowing that the most popular smart-phone of the future won’t like it.

What do you enjoy about training?
It is the buzz as many other trainers here agree on this one. We get addicted to the buzz and when you’ve tasted it you just want more and more of it. It does feel good to know that after a couple of days training and letting the class loose with their enthusiasm and desire to create interactive fantastic animations in Flash or illustrative designs in Illustrator that they come up with some fabulous pieces of work.
My job as a trainer is to show you how to use the tools at their best. How to get the best of them and how to get them to work for you. How to get the job done quickly and efficiently. And not only that, but to make it fun, interesting and entertaining. With all of that, this then inspires you to create marvels of creative art with the new set of tools that you have experienced.
On top of teaching and showing you how to use and learn the tools of the trade, I include tips, tricks and hacks of the trade. From keyboard shortcuts to industry experience to design techniques and I include real-life examples within our classes to demonstrate the use of the best production tools in the world.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
This might sound sad or even geeky but I just love tech, anything with the word tech starts tickling my taste buds. I’m a real fan of HTML5 and how fast the Internet is evolving and I’m an advocate of open-source technologies and a great fan of jQuery and don’t even get me started on the ActionScript 3 with what the guys at Papervision3D and Away3D are doing. We are just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is yet to come.
I’m also a great fan of Google, you may call me a Google fanboy and just love (nearly) everything what Google do or see. I also am a tech junkie in computer games development and just want to know what the next piece of games technology is out as that industry is just moving leaps and bounds. Just keep an eye out for OnLive! You can call me a geek!! I won’t be offended.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
£10 million, huh… just not enough. I need £1 billion just so I can buy twitter. Why? you ask. Well just because I could.

What do you specialise in?
I have been teaching and presenting Adobe applications for 4 years. I’m ACE and ACI in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Flash and Photoshop Lightroom. I became an Adobe Design Master instructor in 2009. I’m planning to teach Flash Catalyst and Apple applications in the near future.

What did you do before this job?
Freelance designer and instructor, Hungarian Adobe evangelist. I have my own creative firm back in Hungary.

What do you enjoy about training?
The excitement of meeting new and interesting people and teaching them complicated things in a fun and enjoyable way.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Hiking, photography, digital painting, playing and composing music.

Cats or dogs?
Cats.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
I would travel around the world 10 times and gather loads of inspiration for my creative work on the way. After that, of course, I will definitely come back to Academy Class :)

What do you specialise in?
In terms of software training, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and FrameMaker.

What did you do before this job?
I’ve long been a freelance trainer, not just in using software, but also in graphic design and print management. I’m an illustrator and photographer, and latterly moved into making instructional video and working with audio recording and podcast preparation. I’ve also done a fair amount of technical journalism in the field of publishing technology, which brought me into contact with the founders of Adobe Systems and other pioneers in the late eighties. In recent years I have become involved in running an online community which focuses on knowledge and information management, and social media.

What do you enjoy about training?
As a trainer, you have to quickly cotton on to different people’s experiences and learning styles. It is a challenge, but for a people-oriented person a very enjoyable one. The subjects we teach at AC are quite technical, and you can’t learn these skills by rote: I believe the most successful approach, for most people, is to help them dig beneath the surface and appreciate the internal rules or system behaviour of publishing systems. Training is also a bit of a performance art, like stand-up comedy. For example, I use some oddball metaphors to help people understand the deep workings of media software, file formats etc. And to connect to the social and industrial contexts in which publishing software is used, anecdotes of things that worked and things that didn’t help bring the subject to life.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
I’m a non-stop student with a deep interest in nature, the sciences, history and applications of computing. I can spend ages lost in a book or in Wikipedia. But I’m also active in volutary organisations, helping to arrange meetings and activities in the British Computer Society, the Information Design Association, the International Society for Knowledge Organization and so on.

Cats or dogs?
Definitely cats: I’d rather be friends with a beautiful independent creature than have one that’s dependent on me. (Oops, I think that revealed more about my life than intended.)

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
After paying some debts, helping some friends and fixing somewhere to live, I fancy setting up a media resource centre with a little recording studio, and working with a group of collaborators at making some really good explanatory video and on-line media.

What do you specialise in?
3ds Max, Maya, XSI, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 3D, Combustion, MudBox, Motion Builder, Sketch-Up

What did you do before this job?
Broadcasting, Games, Software development ( web & mobile 3D ), Games, Architectural Vis, ATC Training Manager, Heal the sick. – Every thing from Tea Boy to Art Manager.

What do you enjoy about training?
Not having to do a real job; and meeting people & passing on my knowledge.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
I have two children under five. Enough said.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
…buy Academy Class.

What do you specialise in?
Specialise in After Effects, 3d Studio Max and Premiere.

What did you do before this job?
Before this job I was head of motion graphics for a large Soho facility dealing mainly with film titles and trailers.

What do you enjoy about training?
What I enjoy about training is that no 2 courses are the same as people always want to learn about different aspects, plus it’s a nice buzz when you can give people the tools to do what they want to do creatively and watching them run with it.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Outside of training I make custom pieces of silver jewellery, and I’m also a magician. (I kid you not.)

Cats or dogs?
Cats – 5 to be precise

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
And if I won 10 million I would retire from public life and stop giving these damn interviews…… that and get so drunk I couldn’t tell the difference between fish-paste and tooth-paste….. ;-)

What do you specialise in?
I specialise in the print programs, Photoshop, Illustrator (my first love) Indesign and Quark Xpress. I love the romance of print, nothing like the smell of a job straight off the press… ahhhhh!

What did you do before this job?
Freelance designer and trainer.

What do you enjoy about training?
Seeing peoples eyes light up!

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Well I am a designer… so think of all the cool things you imagine a designer doing then put me doing that on a bike or in a tent… maybe at a festival or in a new country!

Cats or dogs?
I love them both! But if you really made me choose and it was a matter of life or death (not that of the actual dog or cat…!) It would be a cat – I love them for fooling humanity with their independence which lets face it, is just snobbery! Sorry dogs… you know I am the first to roll around on the floor with you but they made me choose!

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
Pay my way out of the question above so I could keep the dog and the cat (hooray!) Buy a VW transporter load it with good food, nice wine, guitars, laptops, friends, my new cat and dog… and travel around the world seeing cool stuff. After years of being a try hard hippy I would buy a place on the beach fill it with all the random crap I brought while traveling, throw wild parties and sleep in…. oh and pay my student loan off.

What do you specialise in?
Toby specialises in all the fun bits of web development; from making things wiggle in Flash, to building communal online spaces with Actionscript, Flex and AIR. A big fan of open source, he weaned himself off Microsoft years ago, preferring to play with Eclipse, OpenOffice and Ubuntu. Even so, he reckons Microsoft Silverlight is great, as it gives Flash a much-needed bit of competition. On his laptop, Photoshop sits alongside Fireworks, and Expression Web sometimes has the edge over Dreamweaver, so he can reach for whichever tool is best for the job in hand. And if nothing else quite fits the bill, Toby gets stuck in to the raw XML, crafting XSL transformations by hand where needed.

What did you do before this job?
Previously a physics teacher, Toby spent several years in aerospace before settling down to full time training delivery. He still turn his hand to proper development projects, to bring real-world experience to his training. He is an irrepressible optimist, and loves training people to own the solution to their problems. Toby has trained grannies, schoolkids, CEOs, professors, Lords, disabled people, creatives, programmers and pretty much every type of computer user there is. Many years of training experience mean he can generally find a way to explain just about any topic to anyone.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
An inveterate tinkerer, Toby loves taking stuff apart, often getting it back together again too. For years Toby ran a youth charity, driving a fully-equipped double decker bus to disadvantaged housing estates so young people had somewhere with decent facilities to call their own. Still involved with community work, Toby is a school governor amounts other things.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
I’d give it aaaaaaaall away to charity’, then everyone feels good.

What do you specialise in?
Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended (3D and video), Illustrator CS4, InDesign CS4, InCopy CS4, Acrobat 9, QuarkXpress 8.

What did you do before this job?
Magazine Design

What do you enjoy about training?
Meeting loads of interesting people from a myriad of industries and interests and helping them to become better at what they do each day.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Photoshop (A real geek). Horse riding, rugby (sadly retired continue to offer advice from the touchline ), meditation, military history, painting, photography.

Cats or dogs?
Horses & Pony’s.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
Set up the Caribbean branch of Academy Class or anywhere away from Gordon English Rain.

What do you specialise in?
I mostly specilise in Video production related training.

• Final Cut Pro
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• DVD Studio Pro
• Encore
• Motion
• Color
• Compessor
• Basic camera skills
• Video for the Web
• Podcasting
• Powerpoint
• Keynote

What did you do before this job?
BSC in Electronic Imaging & Media Communication – A Television & Multimedia Production degree course
Technical Support Analyst for Various Video editing hardware / software solutions – Media 100, Pinacle, Apple
Product consultant – Video editing hardware / software solutions
Freelance video editor
DVD producer

What do you enjoy about training?
I enjoy meeting a variety of people from many different backgrounds with differing requirements; & the challenge of imparting practical knowledge in a ways that are tailored to the understanding of each individual.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Cycling, Skiing, Good food, cooking, watching football & cricket, traveling to new counties, History, Reading

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
After sorting out my family, buy a house in UK buy a ski chalet in Alps, buy a villa somewhere hot, bank the rest & take couple of months off a year for holidays for as long as possible.

What do you specialise in?
Programming and software design and development, along with server/client-side web development. This includes C/C++, Object Orientation, Design Patterns, database design, UML, (X)HTML/XML/CSS, JavaScript, JSON and AJAX.

What did you do before this job?
I was a lecturer at Roehampton university, and before that I worked as a programmer for a number of software development companies in and around London.

What do you enjoy about training?
Primarily, I enjoy communicating profound and important ideas to fellow developers, and helping them therein (I hope) to take their understanding and insight to higher levels. I also enjoy the travel aspect that comes with some training assignments, and value the peerless opportunity that training offers to sample a cross-section of the software-development community. I also value the opportunity that training brings to further my own understanding of programming.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Cooking, photography, reading, music, the sciences, chess, travel (and programming, of course).

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
It’s hard to know where to start: Aside from giving a sizeable chunk to various charities and friends, I would travel right round the world. I would then buy a dream home, populate it with sultry maidens (probably naked), and would then sit for a while wondering what to do next. After that, I would get back into doing something with programming – nothing, not even a lottery win or sultry maidens, can keep a keen developer from his keyboard.

What do you specialise in?
Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Captivate, Indesign, Photoshop, xhtml, css, html 5, javascript, search engine optimization, and general web design techniques.

What did you do before this job?
I have been an IT/Web trainer for about 12 years now; prior to this I was a multimedia developer for a college, and prior to that I was young. Still am though.

What do you enjoy about training?
I really really really enjoy the interaction with people of different backgrounds and skill levels. I enjoy the challenges and rewards of helping people learn more about the products they are interested in.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
Gardening(I am nurturing tomatoes, peppers and garlic at the moment), maya(my beautiful daughter who tries to ruin my tomatoes, peppers, and garlic), cleaning the house, essential oils, and music.

Cats or dogs?
I prefer wolves; a wolf is my cat and dog.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
I would decorate my house with the notes, and then set fire to the house, and then try to claim insurance money. Seriously, I don’t know. Philanthropy comes to mind.

What do you specialise in?
Having had a wonderful career in all aspects of Television, I still enjoy cutting a sequence that entertains, or informs, even a 30 second demo.
I have been an Avid specialist since 1991, and I am also currently excited with the progress that Adobe have made with CS5-Premier/Photoshop, and Premier Pro.

What did you do before this job?
I have been a freelance, Director, Cameraman, Soundman, Editor, Dvd authorer for many years

What do you enjoy about training?
Making people realise that even the most experienced and busy Pros, had to learn at some stage, and did/do not always know all the answers.

What kind of things do you enjoy doing outside of training?
As I am heading towards semi-retirement, I can indulge my love of grass cutting and garden maintenance, and amateur home music Production.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
Build a music studio in Surrey, and another in Spain.

Originally from Turkey, Ozgur Gorgun moved to the UK in 2005 to continue his career. He studied Digital and Lens Media at the University of Hertfordshire, where he later received an MA degree in Film and TV Directing – which has been his primary occupation for the majority of his life. Ozgur has been working in the film industry both in the UK and abroad with roles varying from directing to producing and editing. So far, he’s written and directed five short films, a feature drama, two documentaries, a number of music and commercial videos.

His credits include: Butterflies Never Die, Interference, The International, Hope Island, Road to the Front and Desaturated Dreams. Some of these titles have been very successful at the international film festivals.

What do you specialise in?
I specialise mostly in video related products, such as Premiere, After Effects and Final Cut Pro. I also train in Photoshop, Lightroom, Captivate, Acrobat and Digital Photography

What did you do before this job?
Before joining Academy Class, I worked as a director, editor, scriptwriter and cinematographer in productions varying from feature films to documentaries and shorts. I also still run my own production company which is active both in the UK and Turkey, that’s home.

What do you enjoy about training?
The best thing about training is actually being able to share my knowledge with others, while learning new things from them – regardless of their experience. The other cool thing is to get to meet new people from different backgrounds and industries.

What kind of things do you enjoy outside of training?
I have a never-ending passion for filmmaking. So when I’m not training, I watch/write/make films. I also do photography, which excites me just as much as films. Other than that, I really enjoy trying out new things and visiting new places.

Cats or dogs?
Dogs. If possible, Golden Retrievers please.

If you won £10 million on the lottery tomorrow then what would you do?
After having a classic car collection in my garage, I would probably set up a studio. There, I would have departments for music, design, photography and film – all under one roof. With the rest of the money, I would run the business and multiply the first £10 million!