We are directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, and storytellers who believe experienced people should remain close to the creative work.
Together, we bring decades of experience across commercial advertising, documentary filmmaking, institutional communications, public service, agriculture, conservation, infrastructure, sports, and cinematic production.
Selected portfolio examples include productions by VISION5 and relevant work completed by our team members throughout their careers. Project credits identify each team member’s role and the original producing organization.
James Bustamante is a filmmaker and senior production leader with 25 years of experience spanning documentary, commercial, institutional, educational, executive, and public-service communications. A native of Las Vegas, New Mexico, James holds a Bachelor of Moving Image Arts from the College of Santa Fe. His filmmaking foundation includes an internship with Ron Howard during the production of The Missing, selection as a director for the New Mexico Filmmakers Intensive, and a writing apprenticeship with filmmakers Gregory Nava and Barbara Martinez Jitner. His early career also included production and assistant-directing work on feature films. James brings that filmmaking perspective to work involving education, infrastructure, power, water, public information, executive communications, technical operations, and deeply personal human stories. He spent seven years managing a multidisciplinary video and photography team and has led projects requiring complex logistics, organizational coordination, accuracy, safety, and close collaboration with executives, engineers, educators, field employees, community members, and technical experts. Through VISION5, James leads creative development, client strategy, directing, producing, cinematography, editing, and project delivery. Across his career, his work has earned five Emmy Award wins and multiple additional nominations, including two Best Director nominations.
Ron Harrison is a senior director and producer with more than 30 years of experience in documentary, infrastructure, public-service, community, and institutional storytelling. Ron specializes in finding the human story inside complex subjects. His work is grounded in thoughtful research, sensitive interviews, strong field production, and respect for the employees, technical experts, organizational partners, and communities represented on screen. His selected directing and producing experience includes Light Up Navajo, a documentary story involving tribal electrification, infrastructure, remote communities, and human impact, and Fire and Water, which explores forest health, wildfire, watersheds, natural resources, and public education. Ron contributes to VISION5 productions when an assignment benefits from his strengths in documentary development, stakeholder storytelling, institutional communications, infrastructure, and community relationships. Across his career, Ron’s work has earned five Emmy Award wins.
August Thurmer is a director and director of photography whose work brings cinematic scale and documentary honesty to commercials, films, and conservation stories. He works fluidly between directing and cinematography, leading complete creative productions while also collaborating closely with other directors, agencies, and production companies as a cinematographer. Raised between northern New Mexico and the Bay Area, August grew up between the traditional storytelling and acequia culture of the Southwest and the emerging worlds of computer art and sports culture. His earliest photography began with his uncle’s Vietnam-era Minolta SR-T 100. Early filmmaking with the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land, Northern Australia, followed by his visual-arts education at the College of Santa Fe, established the foundations that continue to shape his work: natural light, real locations, patience, and thoughtful collaboration. August learned production from the ground up—working as a production assistant, driving camera trucks, and leading camera departments before becoming a director of photography. That path gave him a practical understanding of how every department contributes to the image and how calm leadership helps a crew perform at its best. He also works selectively as a commercial director. His experience spans compact documentary teams and large-scale productions across outdoor, automotive, technology, consumer, healthcare, university, sports, agriculture, conservation, and purpose-driven work. Selected clients and collaborators include WNBA, UC San Diego Health, Toyota, YETI, Charles Schwab, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Mazda, The North Face, Nike, Ford, U.S. Bank, Coors, Purina, Google, Beats by Dre, Patagonia, and Honda. Selected film work includes The Plastic Detox, Unbroken Ground, Yellow Rose, Artifishal, and The Scale of Hope. August was part of the recognized team for Anthony Bourdain: Explore Parts Unknown, which received the 2019 James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Award for Visual and Technical Excellence. The Scale of Hope received an Impact DOCS Award of Excellence and the AICP Award for Best Branded Content & Entertainment and entered the permanent archives of the Museum of Modern Art. An outdoorsman and father of two, August is particularly drawn to stories about wild places and the people protecting them. At VISION5, August serves as Director of Photography and helps shape the visual language, crew, equipment, and field approach for work that needs to feel both cinematic and true.
