Outstanding provider of workforce development services
Profiles in Success: TAFE NSW – Northern Sydney Institute
Sydney, Australia: TAFE NSW – Northern Sydney Institute (NSI) is one of Australia’s largest vocational and training institutions, and has a reputation of being an outstanding provider of workforce development services. The institute’s reputation has been earned through the delivery of courses and programs that are of the highest standards. In film and broadcasting media, this is being achieved in a newly implemented training environment based on Apple technology and Final Cut Studio.
Letting industry and teachers decide
The decision to implement Apple Macs and Final Cut Pro was one that resulted from a challenge presented to Elizabeth Smith, Associate Director of ICT, Media and Arts. According to Smith, she put it to staff members that they decide on what media production system was to be purchased, based on their experiences and knowledge of the film and television broadcast industry.
Our goal is always to ensure our facilities and training meet the needs of industry. So in determining the best solution, we created a focus group consisting of representatives from Fox Sports, Channel 9, Channel 7 and others, along with our own staff. During the focus group meetings we discussed the skills our students would need to have in order to meet the immediate and long term needs of the industry.
— Elizabeth Smith, Associate Director of ICT, Media and Arts
The outcome of all focus group meetings combined with input from staff and comments from various industry partners, was an agreement that a Mac-based digital media production environment was the best option.
So it was that during late 2006 and the early part of 2007, NSI partnered with Apple on the implementation of a digital media editing, production and post-production workflow consisting of 30 quad-core MacPro workstations running Final Cut Studio with Apple Cinema HD Displays, an Apple Xserve and a high-capacity Xserve RAID.
The student advantage
Aside from the fact that NSI’s focus group showed that the film and television broadcasting industry is moving steadily towards the broad-based adoption of Final Cut Studio and digital broadcasting, Smith states that the institute’s decision was also based on a growing trend to outsource production to small, agile and cost-effective independents.
“The industry is moving towards favouring people who can provide a complete shoot and edit service without the need for exorbitant budgets and other overheads,” Smith says. “And Final Cut Studio is the solution we have adopted to fit in with this trend. People can install and run Final Cut Studio on little more than a portable computer; yet gain the full functionality of a professional production and post-production environment.
“We’re already finding that students are purchasing the software themselves and using it on their own Mac at home, which is precisely how many of them will be operating once they finish TAFE NSW and enter the professional workforce.”
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