Alex Marsh is now a  resident of Vredehoek, Cape Town.

He’s chosen a life in the Mother City and life in London for a few months of every year. Currently in a slick apartment on the slopes of Table Mountain, his boost will be the World Cup come next year.

Alex specialises in providing 360° videos to clients in various market sectors around the world. It is in rather high demand as it is a fantastic new form of advertising and marketing, particularly for the internet division.

This unique and interesting profession branches into a variety of sectors including the security, web advertising, reconnaissance and in exhibition work.

For the industry, there have been many challenges which have become a hindrance, particularly in travel and tourism.

“The economy is slow and budgets have been cut back considerably for 2009.”Alex told me. “As the economic crisis hit the West so hard, as a result, tourism has been on the decline in Cape Town, and numbers have dwindled.”

But Alex remains optimistic about the coming summer months. He adds that the winter weather is “dreadful” but confidently assures me that “summer in Cape Town allows for possibly the best outdoor filming anywhere in the world.”

Add onto that the addition of the World Cup, hopes are that the economy will stabilise, more than what people will predict.

I am quite fascinated. Mind you, I think that this type of camera work is revolutionary when it comes to the current generation of imagery we have in South Africa. These types of filming have been seen more recently in one of Google’s projects to create Street View for all of its existing maps. Just two days ago I saw a car with one hot-looking camera mounted on the roof-racks… the car was Google-branded.

With the implementation of this in a city such as Cape Town – there is a high demand for some new form of film technology. If we’re ever to advance technologically… I think that it is moves such as these that will effectively move us out of the “African Age” once and for all. In all honesty I feel that I am a first-world citizen reluctantly living in a third-world establishment. It’s time for change.

Check out Zippy’s offiical 360 Filming website here

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