A Fresh Approach to Corporate Video

The corporate video post-production market is sometimes dismissed as being not quite as professional or creative as its counterparts in broadcast and film but the same technology is available to all and the producers of promotional and training videos are taking full advantage of what it offers. UK customer Michael Fairbairn is doing just that with Avid Xpress Studio to cut together videos for the Waitrose supermarket chain.

The early days

As was traditional for video producers, Michael Fairbairn would sit in the client enclosure at the back of the edit suite, watching the editor splice together the material he had supervised on location. "It was frustrating because at that time I didn't understand what could be done," he explains. "I could see that the editor was doing great things, like flip a talking head from one side of the screen to the other by simply pushing a button, and that appealed to me."

This interest in the hands-on business of video led Fairbairn to book himself on a course in Avid Media Composer. At the time, seven to eight years ago, Media Composer was used by the majority of facilities in Soho and became something of an industry standard for off-line editing. Fairbairn recalls this was a time when 1G drives were hired in by the day and, despite his acquiring editing skills, an editor would still be engaged to work on the project.

I could see that the editor was doing great things… and that appealed to me.

"I would discuss with the editor what I thought would work but nothing changed for three years," Fairbairn says. "I didn't do any editing at all at that time, but while from my point of view I could see the benefit of having our own system, a Media Composer was a major investment back then and I couldn’t see the company taking the plunge."

A great many potential users of non-linear editing systems felt the same and so the coming of lower cost but still fully functioning systems, such as Avid Xpress DV, provided the opportunity to build an in house facility, doing away with the need to go to a commercial post house for preparation and off-line editing.

Bringing the work in-house

Fairbairn tried out Xpress DV 3 and was pleased to find that time had not dimmed what he had learned on the course. "I was worried that I wouldn't remember anything but I did and I picked up how Xpress DV works pretty quickly," he says. "Things had changed from the course but nearly all editors do things differently from each other and from how manufacturers think their systems should be used."

Fairbairn made the case to Waitrose that with the number of projects he was producing and the cost of Xpress DV, it would make financial sense to buy a system. Once the system was installed at Waitrose's training centre in Finchley, north London, Fairbairn had the time and opportunity to develop his editing skills. "With all computer software you've got to keep using it all the time to become proficient," he says.

I picked up how Xpress DV works pretty quickly.

More recently the system was upgraded to Xpress 3.5, a move justified by the increased use it was getting. Towards the end of last year Fairbairn realised that what he calls "crunch time" was approaching, when a serious decision would have to be made about which direction to take next.

The raw footage for Waitrose's training and presentation videos is shot on DV, having moved on from Betacam, DigiBeta and, occasionally, film. The finished videos are duplicated onto CD-ROM but DVD is being used increasingly, both for playback at the branches and for showing rough cuts to the company employees, called “Partners”, and executives for approval.

Fairbairn and his crews have been shooting in 4:3, largely because the television screens used for play-back at the branches are older models and are best suited to that aspect ratio. But Fairbairn had been contemplating a move to the widescreen 16:9 format, primarily for creative reasons. "We shoot on some beautiful and impressive locations," he explains. "In New Zealand for videos about lamb and wine and Scotland for salmon. With landscapes like that 16:9 looks better."

The complete solution

As a compromise videos were mastered in both 4:3 and 16:9, particularly as some were used at conferences, where larger screens would be used. More practical considerations were also guiding Fairbairn's thinking. DVD was being used more often and there was a need to put subtitles on for hearing impaired Partners (employees). Outside specialists had been sub-contracted for the task but in the budget-conscious world of corporate video a way to subtitle in-house was preferred.

We shoot in some beautiful locations, for example in New Zealand for videos about lamb and wine and Scotland for salmon.

These, and other considerations, led Fairbairn to the Avid Xpress Studio, which was installed at the training centre on 18th October 2004. Avid Studio had not been on the market long but Fairbairn says that it "ticked all the right boxes". He explains, "There was the DV and 3D capability and I had been working with Boris FX and Graffiti on the other suite. The bonus now is that I don't have to worry about dealing with other suppliers of third party software because it's an all-in-one package."

Avid Xpress Studio ticked all the right boxes. It incorporates everything I need and wanted.

Despite his enthusiasm for the different video editing, compositing and finishing tools, the audio editing and mixing facilities and the DVD authoring capability, Fairbairn admits that, for the moment at least, he is not using everything that Xpress Studio offers. However, he is now performing some sub-titling in house and uses the Digidesign Pro Tools components to add guide voice-overs to give the executive decision makers a sense of how a finished production will look and sound. "I do as much audio preparation as I can," he says. Fairbairn is now performing all his own off-line editing, but still uses a commercial facility for the colour grading and mastering.

The Xpress Studio was installed by Avid reseller Root 6, who also provide support. The system has 2TB of storage, allowing Fairbairn to digitise everything shot on location and keep it online for future reference. "A normal project has about 10 hours of footage," he says, "which is cut down to around 20-minutes. Material is shot with the idea that we may use it for something else in the future, so it pays to keep everything."

There are no plans at present to migrate to high definition and in general Fairbairn is still familiarizing himself with his new system. The only frustration in the edit suite these days is the lack of time to experiment with all the tools he now has available to him.