Back in the early 2000s, you could barely move for GhettoCam stickers. They were found on spots nationwide, skateboards, cameras, you could see them in photos in magazines, Sidewalk even gave GhettoCam stickers away at one point. "Good shit filmed real bad" was the slogan of the project, which should give you a solid idea of the aesthetic the crew were aiming for.
Quite literally the entire U.K. scene at the time appeared to be behind the mission, and it seemed there would be at least one person wielding a beaten up GhettoCam on every media mission, or passing tour. From an outsider's perspective, it seemed that the idea was this: wherever skateboarding was taking place, there would always be an alternative angle, someone who was officially in the mix but not a designated media type. The footage they captured would not be handed over to the company/magazine/primary filmer that had spearheaded the session, but would be fed back to the central GhettoCam hub, where an alternative record of U.K. skateboarding in the early 2000s was steadily being compiled. I might be way off the mark with that assumption, but that's certainly how it appeared to my uninformed eyes.
But as quickly as GhettoCam became omnipresent, it all went quiet. No video ever appeared, the stickers fell out of circulation, and the project became the subject of many "what if...?" style conversations.
Then, a fortnight before Christmas and almost two decades later, Franklin Stephens paid John Cattle a visit on the Isle of Wight, armed with an assortment of tapes and an ageing hard drive. He handed over a teaser that was apparently constructed years ago - entitled Stocking Filler - with the assurance that more GhettoCam business will follow in due course. "All of the footage he has is nuts", says John; "proper golden age nostalgia".
Stocking Filler was released by Wight Trash Skateboards over the festive period, and features the likes of Vaughan Baker, Harry Bastard, Joel Curtis, Ben Grove, Mike Wright, Toby Shuall, Paul Carter, Benny Fairfax, Mark Baines, Simon Skipp, Gaz Jenkins, Frank Stephens himself, and many more. Dive into this early 2000s time capsule below, and anticipate the wealth of archival GhettoCam gold which will hopefully be appearing soon...
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