Education & Classes in Universal City

From their home base at Van Nuys Airport, the certified flight instructors at Encore Flight apply what they learned as students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to the training of new pilots-to-be through everything from discovery flights to full pilot's certification. The crew goes to work aboard an extensive fleet of Piper and Cessna light-sport aircraft, or doles out instruction while safely planted on the ground inside two FAA-approved flight simulators, one a stationary apparatus and the other a full-motion Redbird FMX. Fully enclosed in the Redbird's cockpit, students experience the motions of actual flight on all three axes and enjoy more than 200 degrees of wrap-around visuals, helping them spot hazards such as oncoming flocks of birds or commuting superheroes.

Growing up, Katie London helped her mother cook weekly meals for dining rooms full of friends and family, employing diverse recipes inherited from her Italian and Jewish grandparents. So when she decided to share her culinary skills with the world, she kept things in the family, enlisting her father, Jeff, a former CPA, to help her establish Katie's Cooking School.Staged in a classroom that mimics a home kitchen with its residential appliances and cabinets, Katie's classes for kids and adults emphasize practical skills and simple recipes that the students can recreate at home or in the kitchen section of the nearest Home Depot. The class schedule rotates on a monthly basis, adopting a new seasonal, geographic, or dietary theme each time. Past projects have included selections from around the world such as homemade pasta with meat sauce, Danish pancake balls, and moo shu chicken.

Realizing their community's limited resources for foundational art education, the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art was founded in 2002 as a portal for blossoming art students to sharpen skills with the help of talented, professional artists. Thus, an eclectic team of instructors took shape through a hand-selection process that yielded skill sets from the realms of fine art, entertainment, and paint-by-number calculus. Now in its 10th year of art education, the school—named a top 10 school worldwide by American Artist in Nov. 2011—acts as a springboard for students pursuing degrees in fine arts or the digitally driven video-game and film world of entertainment art. Individual classes afford à la carte education for beginning and advanced students of sculpture, drawing, painting, and illustration. Regardless of the field of study, LAAFA seeks to assist all students in completing advanced degrees at other institutions, accessing local art resources, and solving Van Gogh's tricky magic-eye series.

Living up to their slogan "Everything Rotorcraft," Rotor F/X runs the gamut of flight-related services by selling and repairing rotorcraft, in addition to offering flight training, transportation, and quick aerial tours of the Los Angeles area. As a prop company, Rotor F/X has a reputation of building believable cockpit mockups, aviation sets, and scale models of planes and helicopters. As a testament to their ability to enhance stunts, effects, and camera shots with their replicas, the crew of the History Channel's Modern Marvels asked them to construct a experimental helicopter that not only lifts up into the air, but travels back in time to prevent the original Star Trek from being canceled.

Since 1995, Bang Comedy Institute and Theater has trained performers in the art of the extemporaneous. In the process, it's built up a history of boosting the careers of comedic actors such as Jane Lynch, Jeff Garlin, Janeane Garofalo, and Fred Willard and the personal joke writers of several heads of state. Hailing from backgrounds in film acting and writing for shows including MADtv, the faculty turn students into confident stage performers in classes that sharpen skills in character development, long-form scene structure, and physical awareness. Many students go on to star in shows on the company's stage.