Splice of Life : Adult School Comes of Age, Focusing on High-Tech Fields Like Film Editing

What David Harrison remembers most about his last job as a housekeeper for a lodge in the Grand Canyon was its deadening monotony.

Every day of work last summer began at 7:30 a.m. and ended only after the Ventura resident had scrubbed 18 toilets and made 36 beds.

Frustrated by the string of low-wage jobs he has held since quitting college, the 34-year-old decided to go back to school. Now he spends his days at a computer learning state-of-the-art animation and film-editing programs as part of a course offered by Ventura Adult Education.

“My real dream is to be an independent filmmaker,” said Harrison, taking a break from the keyboard and mouse at Adult Education’s new Technology Development Center in Ventura. “But I don’t know how viable that is. At least I am finally exploring the art background that I have.”

Although the center still offers traditional training for people seeking careers as bank tellers and medical assistants, the adult school is one of the few in the region to go high-tech and begin preparing students like Harrison for jobs in film editing and multimedia.

Recently settled into 55,000-square-foot quarters along the Ventura Freeway, the new school, which is part of the Ventura Unified School District, has moved headlong into the computer age, boasting more than 300 top-of-the line PCs and the latest software.

As a sign of the hype surrounding the new center, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) plans to visit the school on Valentine Road at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday “to see what her tax dollars are paying for,” instructor Terry Wieser said.

Although the cost of Harrison’s eight-month, multimedia program--about $7,000--is high, it also appears to have paid off for most of the class’ recent graduates.

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Of the program’s four graduates so far, one landed an animation job with Disney, another is doing public relations work on the Internet in New York for a rock group and a third is working with a local production group for a new television series called “High Tide.”

“There’s a ton of work out there, and there are not a lot of people out there qualified to do this,” said Steve Nelle, one of the computer course instructors, referring to the multimedia field. “It’s an industry that is looking for talent.”

In eastern Ventura County, Simi Valley Adult School launched a multimedia program last September and now has more than 150 students learning the nuts and bolts of the field in self-paced courses.

“We have students coming from all over Southern California for these courses,” instructor Marsha Robison said.

Although Hollywood remains the center of the entertainment industry, a cottage show-biz industry appears to be sprouting in Ventura County. Film crews are shooting “High Tide” in Ventura, and Bouquet Digital Studios opened a 26-acre film production facility near Oxnard in March.

Art Lopez, Bouquet Digital Studios’ operations manager, said the foray of adult schools into high-tech training “is redefining the whole purpose and meaning of adult education.”

Until about a decade ago, the adult school taught mainly vocational courses in bookkeeping, word processing and other office skills. Many of the 500 adults who take courses at the Technology Development Center have been injured on the job, laid off or never had a career.

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But a growing number of students such as Harrison are coming to the school to jump-start new careers. Adult school Principal Barry Tronstad said the school needs to stay on top of job market trends so that graduates learn skills that will land them jobs.

“We really have to know what questions interviewers are going to be asking three years from now,” Tronstad said. “It’s all crystal ball stuff.”

The school now offers three types of courses that train students to use audio, visual and computer technology for architecture and medicine, for advertising and public relations, and for film.

Because the center charges for courses, about 95% of its $1.5-million annual budget comes from students. The rest comes from state subsidies.

But students say the money is worth it.

“I feel very lucky to have landed here,” said Joanna Linn, a Ventura resident in her 40s who is making a switch from a career in book editing to film. “I feel like I don’t have to worry about getting jobs.”

Linn credits a specialized computer course she took at the center for getting a job designing a “virtual” aquarium, which features no live fish, but instead ocean environment created with film and sound.

Harrison, who had no experience with computers before coming to the school, is already following up on job leads in film and computer graphics, even though he does not graduate until November.

“I am starting right now,” said Harrison, who said he may have to move to San Francisco, New York or Seattle for the right job. “I know that it can’t wait until the last minute.”