In the field of video editing, Thomas Ian Mora – known to everyone as Timmy – is the boss.

His employees at Visual Art and Production gave him that title for his skill in taking raw video footage and condensing it into the shortest, most compelling stories possible.

Visual Art and Production celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, but Mora has been in the business for 45 years, spending five years at Trinidad & Tobago Television (TTT) before leaving to start Video Associates in 1981.

At TTT, he established a reputation as an editor, and credits the late Curtis Wilson for teaching him the technical aspects of that discipline. Take, for instance, a 1979 special which launched the brass band Shandileer. Carl Jacobs and Robin Imamshah made their entry coming out of a “spaceship,” much to the delight of their manager, Gary Dore.

“I never worked so hard on a show,’ said Mora.

“The premiere ran on TTT for a minute before there was an island-wide blackout. That really depressed me,” he laughed.

This was long before looping television shows became the norm.

When TTT went through industrial-relations issues, Mora picked up his placard at lunchtime and picketed like everyone else. Eventually, he along, with colleagues Andy Smart, Stephen Lee Pow, John “Buffy” Sinanansingh, Donald Lee Fook and Gregory Wilson, left to start their own company: Video Associates. Mike Gonsalves was the first trainee.

“We left TTT in February 1981 and were successful from the start. We had two older heads on the board of directors, chairman Ken Gittens, and Kelvin Scoon. They guided us in business and financial matters. We bought state-of-the-art equipment from the US.

“At TTT I had mostly worked on programmes. I never did an ad before, but I quickly learned to tell a story in 30 seconds.”

From 1981- 1985, VA, at 17 Saddle Road, made its money mainly from commercial production.

“Our first commercial through Atlas Advertising, run by Roy Boyke and Pat Wong Chong (Ganase), was done for Kirpalani’s when the new store opened in West Mall.”

Production houses Banyan and AVM were already on the scene and were producing a lot of TV programming. VA soon became the premier production house for commercials and controlled that segment of the market in those early years.

“We made a good profit, had money in the bank and invested in new gear in 1983. But we all felt we weren’t doing what we really wanted to do, which was good television programmes.”

One day, Horace Wilson came to VA with four scripts for a drama series called Turn of the Tide, set in Tobago.

“Stephen Lee Pow, our general manager, took a chance and invested in the project. We hired Wilbert Holder to direct the local soap opera.

“The first four episodes were produced and presented to Lonsdale Advertising, who loved it, and said, ‘Why don’t you do 13 episodes, a whole series?’”

VA hired Cliff Seedansingh as director of photography and his wife Liz, an experienced production manager (who worked on Raoul Pantin’s movie Bim). Christopher Pin