Lights, camera, action for Andreas

KNOWN as the ‘Godfather of community watches’, Pinetown resident and video activist, Andreas Mathios has dedicated his life to community upliftment. Motivated by his motto: “Filming ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” prompted him to join Blue Security as the community and media liaison, a week ago.

His purpose is to package community news and success stories for the recently launched, Blue TV. Mathios founded Community News Network TV in 2004. It was part of a initiative called Campus TV using mainstream technology with high-end edit suites.

He was supported and mentored by Jasper Cecil, the director of the audio visual centre at UKZN‘s Howard College and Westville campuses, at the time.

“As technology started changing, I felt the need to tell community-based stories without going through professional audio visual centres and production houses. For example, if you wanted to highlight an environmental problem in your area, you could do it yourself, without engaging the services of production houses. It’s easy and accessible.

“Its also a platform for the community to share visual information about good news stories,” said Mathios.

Surprisingly, Mathios never studied videography, he was self-taught. With the help of his mentor, Jasper, he grew into video editing and worked as a free lance videographer for Carte Blanche, SABC News and Checkpoint (eTV News).

He also filmed many multicamera shoots like the Fifa World Cup and more.

Armed with high-end video cameras, microphones and an edit-suite, he also uses his smartphone that can download a video app, to get that quick uploads to his CNNTV.

“I believe the cellphone video production will revolutionise the way media tells stories. Even though some media houses are doing it now, I believe it’s going to improve ten-fold,” said Mathios.

He goes beyond the call of duty

One of the first videos he ever filmed was of a veld fire near a creche in Pinetown in 2007. He contacted various authorities immediately and filmed the entire incident after the children were evacuated from the creche.

Debbie McPhail, the owner of Cherubs Day Care Centre, described Andreas as a caring person who goes beyond his duty for his community and its animals.

“It is very comforting to know that he is always available to us in times of need, however big or small,” said McPhail.

Some of his uplifting stories include a rescue of an abandoned baby in a black bag in Hatton Estates in 2015.

He was working at SACan at the time and the video he filmed went viral.

“Visuals gave life to that story. It was brilliant that two security guards could highlight the plight of this baby and create an awareness in the community. The news spread and the baby was eventually adopted,” said Mathios.

Mathios  also sponsored a music video for Eugene Msomi, a security guard who used to work at Sandy Centre.

This was part of his 67 minutes for Mandela in 2013.

The video was a huge success and assisted Msomi to grow as a musician. He also dedicated his filming to animals rescues, which of course was encouraged by his wife, Nikki, who runs Pet Rescue Pinetown.

His plan is to grow interest in community broadcasting.

Some of his videos already has 155 000 views which shows public interest. Mathios has many future projects he’s hoping to launch.

Keep an eye on him as he continues to fulfill his passion for capturing good stories on videos.

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