James Stier

Wow.

Its the only word that some up an emotionally charged week I have had while working on documentary following the journey of 21 amazing young people, all of whom were taking part in a leadership course ran by Momentum Youth Development. The course is designed to promote team work, leadership and communication. However, it has done something more powerful than those skills combined. Its genuinely changed peoples lives, especially my own.

Young people from Macedonia, Netherlands and the UK all came to London to work on a number of large scale team activities, such as forming their own business to running a live TV show. The documentary followed the activities on a day to day basis. It has been one of the toughest challenges, both physical and mental we have faced recently but we wouldnt have had it any other way.

A big thanks to everyone involved, especially Gary, Richard, Paul, Andrew, Trevor and Luc for all their assistance with the production… not to forget Alieu, Sahal, Steff, Shabana, Samuel, Despina, Kristina, Bledi, Dane, Daniel, Dragona, Leonie, Marko, Miriam, Norma, Marjo, Susan, Charlotte, Manouk, Hieke and Rachel.

I am away in Scotland until the end of August, and post production is scheduled for September… hopefully an upload online by then. In the mean time here a few images from the event taken by Richard and Leonie.

More info can be found here: youthmomentum.org/?p=1330

James.

Happy New Year! 2010 is upon us and the new year welcomes a new project and the Road to Macedonia.

The Road to Macedonia (R2M) is a European project that takes 3 regular guys on an extraordinary adventure, on motorbikes as the make there way to, you guessed it, Macedonia and back.

What impact do our lives have? Most of us will ask the question of whether the work and decisions we each undertake makes a difference. Road to Macedonia is a discovery of just that. The decision of 3 adventurers to take stock of their lives, to discover where they have been and where they might be heading.

The reason for the adventure stems from reflection, a chance to find out if the actions one of the riders took made a difference to hundreds, possibly thousands of lives. Meet Paul Oxborough, at 40 he he is taking stock of his life by making a journey to a country that is very special to him, Macedonia.

Paul has worked throughout Europe all his life as a youth worker, empowering young people to change for the better. Accompanied by two friends, each with their own personal reasons for discover, development and change.

In 2010 the adventure begins, and will documented in 6, 1 hour TV documentaries. The bikers along with the small documentary crew are discovering people they once knew, becoming embroiled into the cultures, homes and hearts of the people they visit, culminating in a biker escort from the largest motor bike club in Macedonia.

Sounds like fun? Well, it should be, more information can be found at www.roadtomacedonia.co.uk, stay tuned. All the best in 2010. James.

Update – we have been shooting some concept material over the last few days, here is a teaser to wet your appetite, stayed tuned here and at www.roadtomacedonia.co.uk/news for more info. Thanks for watching.

An update of some of our more recent projects, big thanks to Gary, Ryhs, Paul, John, Darrell, and everyone else who were a big part of these productions in early 2010 and 09. As always you can view the video below or on Vimeo. Enjoy it.

2010 Showreel – Voidcomp from Voidcomp on Vimeo.

On one of our latest project we have been testing out some new equipment specially geared towards vehicles. This has been in preparation for and up and coming adventure project but its also been an ambition of mine for some time now. We produced a promo for the new Seat Ibiza SC Sport using some new suction mounts from Manfrotto and some supports provided by Hauge.

Hauge are a UK based company who supplied the jib, mounts and the cups.

One of the rigs we used is the double suction mount. We shot using an SLR, allowing us to keep the weight down which was fixed on to a plate attached to the main bar of the rig. The cups can can be attached to any flat non-porous surface, we could run with one or two mounts but for added safety I would recommend using two any external shots, we used a single mount for some of the interiors.

Speaking of safety, we hooked up the camera to the mount using carabiner clips as the weakest part of the rig is the plate. The mounts themselves, as expected are solid and are made by Manfrotto, as long as the surface is clean and flat removal of the mounts is near impossible until you break the seal intentionally.

The camera plate is a good size which supports the camera over a greater area preventing any movement in the camera’s plastic casing. A double ball bracket, along with the tubular structure, enable the camera to be mounted in a variety of positions with relative ease. This does depend on the vehicle, a Land Rover Defender for example would be ideal, as was the old style Honda Civic Sport we used as the second car, the Ibiza was very curvy and proved to be more of a challenge to get the angels we required.

Overall the mounting solution performed amazingly well. More info here.

Just wanted to update you on the video we produced for Sheffield University, it was great project to be apart of. This is quick compilation of some of our favourite moments cut to music, co-produced by Gary Taylor, and big thanks to him and everyone at the University especially Caroline Parkin for all her support. Enjoy.

Sheffield University – MRC Video from Voidcomp on Vimeo.