Monday, September 8, 2008

parkour doc for USC's 'impact'


this past saturday, i got the chance to take part in a parkour segment that is being produced for USC's show entitled 'impact.' sidebar: this may be the only time i help out on anything connected to U$C, but eventually i broke down for the greater good of parkour. 'impact' is an award-winning television news magazine produced by USC journalism students that airs on public access all throughout california and nevada, so i will be curious to see how the final product turns out.


they chose to set up filming at santa monica college, which is a nice change since a lot of recent footage about the discipline has spotlighted the UCLA campus. this was my first visit there, and i was surprised to learn that the campus is actually bigger (and nicer) than i thought. six of us traceurs from www.pkcali.com (cliff, kerris, jo, taylor, shiloh and myself) were on hand to help out senior producer cristina bishai and her trusty DP, who shot all the footage on HD.





we did some precision jumping on benches before moving on to a nice fountain in the middle of campus, where we displayed a variety of moves including vaults, cat grabs and rolls onto cement. we hit up two more spots to practice on rails, wall climbs, tree climbs and quadrupedal movements and ended on individual interviews, where we were asked standard questions like how we got started, why we take part in it, what we get out of it, etc.