Sunday 6 July 2014

Parkour and Venetians on my mind.



I've been having a miserable couple of days and spent this afternoon making an exhibition of myself in Caffé Nero while I was plundering the free WiFi.

This photo is from The Wicked Venetians Hobgoblin launch party for their excellent recent ep; they've also just released a new video which is good (if relatively restrained compared to their live peformances), here's the link - check it out;

Horrified

They also have a couple of old videos on Youtube (Wicked Venetians TV) which use news video footage to make some good points.

But I was attracting an audience over my shoulder because I was wasting time watching 'Parkour' or 'freerunning' videos.

Works for me.

Mostly filmed in the red suburbs of Paris or down in sunny Marseilles, these are kids doing stunts on the roofs, balconies, staircases and public statues of decaying 1960's French housing estates.

Sommersaults, diving from roof to roof, jumping off buildings, leaping over moving cars; they are breathtaking and for me its an out of body experience.

Some videos are filmed at night with the free runners wearing suits lit up by LED's, in one case a free runner is covered in flames (its FX but hey).

Sometimes you watch the stunt filmed through a camera on the free runners head. Wow!

Whenever I watch them, I attract a stunned semi circle of people behind me trying to look as if they aren't interested and when I finish I feel better.

Check out 'Parkour' on Youtube....the police chases are good too - the ones that aren't staged.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)



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