Avid Studio Helps Bring History into the New Millennium

Sweatman used Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection to create the Balsall Common documentary

Balsall, Coventry, UK, September 2011… It’s been said that we are all stewards of our history. For Tony Sweatman, that stewardship has become a passion, thanks to a growing affinity with Avid Studio.

Sweatman’s recently completed documentary of his lifetime home of Balsall Common traces the area’s legacy, from its 16th century roots and 19th century settlements to present day. The fascinating and finely detailed production is perhaps most impressive for the fact that it was created not by a professional editor, but by a self-described retired grandpa.

Though Sweatman’s interest in photography dates back to his youth, it was his retirement in 2004 that paved the path toward a deeper relationship with videography. “When I retired we decided the time had come to do some travelling,” he explains. “We had booked a rather expensive holiday to New Zealand, and of course, we wanted to make sure we had a good record of it. So next thing I knew, I’d been coerced into buying a video camera.”

Of course, as he observes, the question that arises with such a purchase is what to do with the output. “So I had a look around the web, and came across Pinnacle Studio. I bought Studio version 9, and felt right away it was a great package—easy to use, very intuitive. I followed it through versions 10, 11, and on through version 14, and eventually had an invite from Avid to be one of about 100 beta testers for the new Avid Studio.”

Exploring the early versions of Avid Studio was a unique experience for Sweatman. “The very early versions of the program were a bit limited,” he says. “But the folks at Avid were keen to hear everyone’s feedback and suggestions, and to their credit, they really listened. The version they released was head and shoulders above the early beta versions.”

The transition from Pinnacle Studio to Avid Studio was neither difficult nor challenging, says Sweatman. “Initially, it was like walking into a dark room and not knowing where anything is, but the workflow is very intuitive, and it was easy to get used to. I guess the true test for me came when I was in the midst of a project, and I was in a bit of a hurry and I thought, ‘well, maybe I’ll boot up Pinnacle Studio and finish it up in that.’ But I found it was missing so many of the features I’d already begun to use and become accustomed to in Avid Studio. I knew right then there was no going back.”

Sweatman works on a documentary project in Pinnacle Studio.

Sweatman cites Avid Studio’s transitions library as a favorite feature. “It’s a really useful assortment of transitions, and there’s a lot of flexibility when you’ve placed them in the timeline,” he says. “With Pinnacle Studio, the selection was a good bit more limited, and the transitions were usually fixed in duration.”

Adding music is another area in which Avid Studio excels, says Sweatman. “Scorefitter is wonderful,” he says. “The music is royalty-free, and the beauty of it is that you can construct a score that’s a perfect fit for the length of the clip. It’s also nice when you can sort of line up certain little bits of the music to go along with the visuals. It really makes a difference to the viewing experience, I think.”

But the biggest advantage of Avid Studio is what it does for creativity, says Sweatman, offering as evidence a sequence he built with older 19th century photos of the village morphing into present-day shots of the same locations. “With Pinnacle Studio, you’ve just got a single video and single audio track,” he says. “But in Avid Studio, you can just keep adding tracks. It enables you to do so many different things. It tends to make me much more open to experimenting and trying new things, because I’ve got the tracks to do it.”

Sweatman morphs an image of the old village hall into the new village hall.

“I felt I’d gone as far as I could with Pinnacle Studio,” he adds. “But with Avid Studio, the program has so many features, I’m always finding something new to learn.”

Since adopting Avid Studio as his medium of choice, Sweatman has taken to the documentary format in a big way. “We had a gent come and give a talk about the Titanic, and that turned into a project of documenting parts of the ship that were made locally here in the UK,” he says. “Then I did a video of a tour we did in New Zealand, and I’ve just finished up a project with a fellow who was born not far from here in the 1870s, who narrated the story from his deathbed. And then the Balsall history project was so popular that I’ve now got a request to do one for the village next door.”

For Sweatman, it’s an opportunity to not just do something creative, but to also help preserve history. “It’s a good feeling to know that you’re creating something that will potentially last for hundreds of years,” he says. “I’ve always been a history buff, and always been prepared to do the research. But Avid Studio is really the catalyst that enables me to tell the story. Without it, I’d be a painter without any brushes.”