Leaving school. Starting Eastern Video.
Wedding videos were the beginning of Jonathan’s sole-trader business. The starting point for the production and engineering work that came later.
01 / OUR STORY
It started with
a wedding video.
Then the road opened up.
Jonathan Thursby started Eastern Video in summer 1986 after leaving Norwich School with A levels. He planned a gap year before studying mechanical engineering at Imperial College, but wedding filming took off and he never went to university. Eastern Video began as his sole-trader business.
Around 1992, he stopped filming weddings as he started working on Top Gear.
The work developed into more than operating a camera. Jonathan describes building complete systems around separate cameras and tape recorders, including mounts, batteries, controls, microphones and interfaces, then finding ways to keep them working through vibration, heat and water.
Corporate films, location filming, editing and post-production remained part of the wider production story. The recovered archive below shows how that practical engineering supported the finished film, from motorsport footage to the Lotus Change the Rules production.
From weddings to Top Gear.
Jonathan stopped filming weddings as his Top Gear work began. A move into television, followed by the specialist minicam work of the next chapter.
Inside the action
Minicam work across the World Rally Championship, British Rally Championship, BTCC and offshore powerboat racing. A chapter of the EV story confirmed by Jonathan Thursby.
Different environments.
The same practical thinking.
Rallying, offshore powerboats and ocean racing taught different lessons about keeping cameras alive. In his interviews, Jonathan connects those lessons directly to the next opportunity: applying camera engineering to the heat, pressure and reliability demands of the oil industry.
That became the EV Offshore chapter of Jonathan’s career, a separate business story that later included international growth and Enersol’s acquisition of EV in 2024. It is founder history, not a current Eastern Video holding or an offer of EV technology.
The production story also gained a permanent home when Extreme Video acquired Epic Studios in 2012. Jonathan describes a long-held ambition to run a television studio and help develop a media hub in Norwich.
Jonathan’s fuller founder history
