I was recently approached to direct a corporate promo for the JUMP conference in London. The brief was simple, boy trains alongside girl, boy and girl realize its better to move together, happy ending. Of course, the boy part is easy. There are a multitude of extremely talented Traceurs out there who would all have done the part exceptionally well. The problem, is finding a girl. Think for a second how many girls you know of that practice Parkour. I was able to name four, three of which I knew personally, Luci from LA, Alexandra from Russia and Pamela from Austria. The other lady was Carolin from Germany, so I called Jason Paul and he put us in touch. We’d found our girl from Frankfurt, so I decided why not also bring Jason over for the male part, and that would take care of that. They are already good friends so they already have genuine friendship and comfortable understanding and ability together.
The shoot started on the Southbank, then moved around London to capture a transitional flavor of a bit of a journey and to allow for lots of different types of movements, before the final shot at the top of the ‘Old Billingsgate’ building, a popular trade show venue. It was ideal weather for the movements, Jason and Carolin worked amazingly together, Jon Lucas was on set to shoot stills and I had my lovely assistant Alex Potts on hand to be amazing and look beautiful. I always enjoy shooting corporate productions because you get permission to access locations that usually aren’t viable, in this case the Old Billingsgate building, just next to Tower Bridge. It was an interesting little rooftop spot and had we had more time there I think there were some really good movements to be found.
After the shoot, Carolin flew straight back but Jason stayed and we made a trip to Cambridge for a few days. Filmed some cool things, had a good time, ate lots of lemon sherbert (cant get it in Germany) and enjoyed the time together. It truly is a blessing that often, these kinds of projects allow me to work with athletes who I already have strong friendships with.
Images courtesy of Alex Potts
