When was the DVPA started?
The DVPA began as an online community of DV editors and producers supporting each other in the mid-90s. At the time it didn't have a name, just a bunch of people posting questions & answers and offering each other advice.
The DVPA was officially incorporated as an association in the Spring of 1998.

Can you describe the DVPA and it's role in the industry?
The Digital Video Professionals Association (DVPA) is an international community of new media professionals that provides membership to all those who are involved as visual communicators using digital media. This includes, but is not limited to, producers, directors, educators, animators, videographers, editors, motion graphic artists, film groups, production managers, video game developers, advertising agencies, television stations and design studios.

The purpose of the DVPA is to provide members with technical resources, training, industry news, and discounts on hardware and software, and to further expand their understanding and appreciation for the field of Digital Video. Members of the association share their resources and expertise with each other to further the advancement of the DV industry. By providing affordable access to new media tools and training, the DVPA encourages its members to try new forms of communication, which benefit members, their clients and the visual medium as a whole. The DVPA is the largest organization in the world devoted exclusively to meeting the needs of those who use DV technology.

What are the benefits of joining a professional trade organization?
There are many reasons to join a professional association. Being able to network and communicate with other like-minded individuals is usually at the top of people's list. A place to get product recommendations and a bit of technical help is another. The DVPA has tried to expand the notion of what is possible for an association to offer by including a large discount shopping service and an online school for the best in training among its many offerings.

Is DVPA the only organization devoted specifically to digital video?
As far as we know the Digital Video Professionals Association is the only association in the world devoted exclusively to meeting the needs of those who use DV technology. While there are a few other video related groups that offer digital video topics as part of there overall message, the DVPA exclusively supports every area of the DV spectrum.

What is the DVPA doing to contribute to the success of its members?
The DVPA expands the technical and creative knowledge of its members by providing access to the latest information and promoting the sharing of creative techniques. This interactive sharing of knowledge is one of the key ingredients to the DVPA’s success. Some of the many topics of interest shared by DVPA members include: Special Effects, DV Editing, Animation, HDTV, DVD equipment and authoring, QuickTime, MPEG, Color Correction in Film and Video, Video and Audio Streaming, Analysis of New Production Tools, among many others.

The DVPA has also setup the Buyer’s Club exclusively for it’s members that is the ultimate resource for digital video professionals to save money on all their purchases. Buyer’s Club members pay just 3% above cost for most all of their hardware, software, video gear and peripheral purchases.

Members are given special access to custom-built extranets with some of the leading international reseller groups. Member’s have the ability to research and purchase items 24 hours a day/7 days a week from anywhere in the world. Four major international resellers that have already been approved are CDW, MacWarehouse, PCMall and MacMall. It is amazing to see how easy it is to research products and pricing and still save hundreds of dollars on just one order. Both CDW/MacWarehouse and PCMall/MacMall have also dedicated specific sales associates to working with DVPA members who are trained to help DV professionals find the solutions to their needs.

What is being done to train members for the technological advances occurring in the DV industry?
The DVPA holds several regional conferences throughout the country each year. These conferences bring in the top trainers of the hardware and software products that DVPA members use everyday. Conference attendees get world class training at a fraction of the cost it would take to bring even ONE of these individuals to their studio for a single day. The DVPA also produced the Digital Video Production Workshop for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in the years 2002 & 2003 and currently provides training and instructors for the POST|Production Conference at NAB (2004 - Present) .

The DVPA also has it’s own Online University which is covered further in the next section.

Does the DVPA offer any educational programs for its members?
Besides the conferences, the DVPA offers the DVPA Online University, the ultimate resource for learning DV applications without going into educational debt. This service covers all major software applications with full screen streaming video clips of step-by-step tutorial based training available on your desktop 24 hours a day/7 days a week.

For years, members of the DVPA have been asking association management to come up with a way that they can learn all the creative applications that they use in their daily course of business, without having to fly to a special seminar for training or pay outrageous fees for in-house training. This request was finally granted in April of 2003 when the Online University was launched. The entire system is powered by the powerful Virtual Training Company mechanism and more information can be found at www.VTC.com . This service contains over 40,000 streaming video training files on every subject imaginable, making quality DV education available for FREE with membership!

Members have access to web based software training for DV, Graphics, and Animation programs like Final Cut Pro, Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Carrara Studio, ProTools, Director, 3D Studio Max, Maya, QuickTime, Acid Pro, Flash MX, Fireworks MX Cleaner, and many more. The association has also made the decision to invest in training resources outside of the DV domain for those members who need to interface their skills with others. Some of these video training lessons cover topics and applications including Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Adobe GoLive, Microsoft SQL Server, Mac OS X Jaguar, Adobe PageMaker, FileMaker Pro, Perl Fundamentals, Oracle9i: SQL, Windows, PHP Programming, Visual Basic, and many more. The DVPA is committed to the continuing growth of its library of training for the benefit of its members.

The training services of the organization have been greatly expanded with the addition of the DVPA Online University. However, the system also functions as a fantastic video-on-demand technical help and resource center. Should a member ever become stuck in the middle a creative session, say while color correcting an image in Adobe Photoshop, all they need to do is go to the online university, click through the table of contents for the right clip, watch the brief tutorial, and return to work without interrupting their creative workflow. Technical and creative help has never been easier than this!

You can see a list of all the tutorial courses available in the Online University (along with their descriptions and samples of the training) by going to the VTC web link listed here:
http://vtc.com/products/showall.htm

DVPA is currently an online community; do you plan to expand it to include individual chapters in geographical regions?
We've looked at the issue setting up individual chapters several times in the past, but the majority of the membership doesn't believe that the benefits of a monthly meeting would warrant the expense. Instead, the association has set up regional networking meetings that occur a couple of times a year. We’ve held these events in Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Las Vegas just to name a few. We even held an event in Des Moines, Iowa, to coincide with a Digital Television Conference and to provide some face-to-face networking time for those members that live in the Midwest.

Even though we do not have local meetings, members still communicate frequently with each other through our DVPA listserve or in the discussion forums. Members also receive technical resources, training, and discounts on hardware and software, among the long list of benefits. Most members find that these facilities are much more effective and impact their lives to a greater extent than what is available to them through a local chapter. Fortunately, we also have great relationships with many of the local independent video organizations in most of the larger cities around the country for those members that are looking for a regular monthly meeting to attend.

What kind of future do you envision for the association?
We definitely envision a future of growth for the DVPA. We are already seeing a convergence of other industries coming to the world of Digital Video. Graphic designers for print are becoming Motion Graphic Artists and joining the DVPA. Programmers are becoming DVD authors and joining the DVPA. Even broadcast engineers are becoming HDTV editors and joining the DVPA.

As the future becomes the present it looks like we will see all industries using Digital Video as their visual communication medium of choice. This means that the Digital Video Professionals Association needs to be ready to support them when they get here. We are working towards that goal now.

What is being done to attract new members?
Honestly, we don’t do that much traditional marketing to attract new members. Most new members find out about us from either word of mouth, attending one of our conferences, or by doing a search on the web. The most common phrase we hear at expo’s that we attend is, “You guy’s offer so much, why have I never heard of you?” With the DV industry growing exponentially every year, we are actually a little nervous about doing a large direct mail campaign or taking out ads in major trade publications for fear that we won’t be able to adequately handle the response.

What advice can you offer to someone interested in learning more about digital video and becoming a working professional someday?
The best advice we can give is to just get involved. There is no substitute for simply picking up a DV camera and shooting some footage or sitting down in front of an editing program and putting your story together. The mere act of actually doing something makes all the difference in the world. So if you are a student, use the equipment in your schools media center to tell a story that is important to you. If you are a home hobbyist, grab the family camcorder and download some free DV editing software for your home PC and get to work telling your story.