This past weekend saw many of the team down at our LEAP training facility in central London for an action shoot with film-maker Julie Angel, to put the finishing touches on a new documentary that has been commissioned about the creation of the world's first official managed parkour park.
Today saw the first airing on national TV of Channel 4's Concrete Circus - a look at the spectacular side of various 'urban' disciplines including skating, urban trial riding and, of course, parkour.
Over the last couple of years we have seen the parkour community of Ohio State in America grow and thrive, becoming a tight-knit and dedicated unit known as Parkour Horizons. Their film-maker, Craig Pentak, recently released a short documentary looking at the development of this scene and the film blitzed the festival circuit ending up with a Best Editing Award, and Nominations for Best Director, Best Foreign Film, and Best Screenplay at the 2009 Palermo International Sport Film Festival.
Earlier in the year we worked on a groundbreaking project with artist Layla Curtis and the City of Westminster which aimed to capture the trace of movement over urban terrain on a thermal imaging camera. The resulting art exhibition was showcased in the summer, and now this new film by Julie Angel reveals the entire behind the scenes process.
A brand new documentary by Julie Angel featuring Stephane Vigroux, Forrest, Johann Vigroux, Thomas Couetdic and many more from Parkour Generations will soon be premiered in London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. A trailer for the behind-the-scenes documentary can now be seen here. The film follows the making of a series of artist's films by Layla Curtis using thermal image technology, a project that was commissioned by the City of Westminster. Groundbreaking stuff.
Academy student and film-maker Karen Palmer has just entered a new short film focussing on portraying the mental aspects of parkour training into the Daily Telegraph's Film Challenge competition. Entitled 'Mental Block', the piece focuses on another Academy student, Alli Shelton, as he goes about his own practise. It can be viewed here and is definitely worth a look.
For the last couple of days we have had a small production unit from German parkour collective, ParkourOne, filming the classes and running interviews. The footage is to be used in a documentary showcasing the rise of parkour in the UK. When it is released for general consumption we'll let you know here.
ASPHALT SHORTS is an annual festival of short films about cities and urbanism, projected outdoors by city|space. Now in its fourth year, the event draws a large and enthusiastic audience, creating an impromptu public gathering in an otherwise forgotten corner of the city.
