We recently produced a promotional film for Turbolenza, a lively Italian brand with roots in Professional Skydiving. Here, we take a behind the scenes look at the video, share a few things you might have missed, an explain Turbolenza’s ethos of ‘Following the Flow’ that the film embodies.
My direction for this film was mostly an attempt to show some parts of the city of Cambridge that often don’t get to be seen in the more typical Parkour video. For example, oftentimes a Parkour video will consist of key clips of movement one after the other (ala Professor Longhair) however, in Cambridge or any city for that matter, there are certain movement situations that usually get left out of these types of video. To best convey Turbolenza’s brief, I opted to co-ordinate one long run with athletes jumping in and ‘following the flow’ as the video progressed. This allowed me to choreograph shoot certain Parkour sequences in a new way, as the movements now had more of a purpose and ultimate end goal.
To introduce Kie at the start, the very first few clips with the figure running past the flowers & leaves is actually Austin. Originally I’d planned out a more location-focused starting, to show Cambridge more clearly, but after some edits it didn’t fit properly, so myself and Austin shot a few pickups. As result, the introduction to the video works better, slowly introducing Kie through the environment is much less jarring than the sudden change from pretty building cutaways to action footage.
The whole first sequence with Kie was filmed over a few days, as I needed different parts at different locations. After editing, grading and flipping a few shots, the run can be cheated into feeling like one cohesive piece. Much to the same degree, the second act with the tumbling, when Alex is introduced was all filmed on the first day of the shoot, when the sky was at its greyest.
Austins section of the video was designed to be more Parkour focused, with long sweeping shots establishing that they are following each-other, whereas the previous section showed Kie and Alex as closer to moving next to each-other. This section has my favorite shot of the film, captured by Jamie from atop a nearby building, where the athletes effortlessly traverse across the railings in one long distance pan.
Finally, we introduce Luke. For this part, I wanted to symbolize something to show that the opportunity to follow the athletes movement is very attractive. Thus opting to have Luke ride against the three runners, then drop his current activity and turn around to join them, suits that symbolism accordingly. With Lukes addition to the roster, the four athletes place their focus onto generally moving through Cambridge. Rushing past people and into the Market square, where the flow of the video changes to fit the music.
Whilst filming each individual section of the video, we captured a lot of singular movements that were perfect for the later stages of the video. I blended choreographed runs with three or four of the athletes, along with singular clips of one or two people interchanged athletes moving as-well, to vary some of the pacing as-well show some more impressive movements which weren’t suitable for all four athletes to choreograph around (for example, the double flip over the river).
Then I finally brought the film to a close by wrapping with a selection of the most impressive sequences, followed by a few shots of the athletes climbing to the final scene. During some of these parts toward the very end, I did some basic sky replacements as some of these shots showed a grey sky too clearly, but a bit of post production remedied a lot in terms of the general appearance of them. For the overall grade, I experimented with crushing the blues and conversely, warming the whole image. I felt that going too cold and attempting to desaturate would detract from the energy of the piece, so instead I boosted the contrast and clarity of the image, vignetted slightly and generally tidied up the exposures to give that high energy vibrant look of the final film.
The shoot would not have been possible without:
Kie Willis, Alex Potts, Austin Phillips, Giles Campbell-Longley, Jamie Alexander, Loren Whitlock
Here are some Action and Behind the Scenes stills from the film!
