I've long been a fan of African music, and am also interested in keeping IMP-Style wide-ranging, so Ah Ndiya was my first experiment into the genre. It's definitely the prettiest song I've danced to; but my dancing is not exactly pretty, so I didn't know how the collision would turn out. I certainly have no training in West African dance, but then, I have no training in any other dance, either.
On Thanksgiving Day, 2008, I figured I'd take advantage of the potentially relaxed security, by shooting part of Badder Badder Schwing, at the Hollywood sign. As the sun set over the Santa Monica mountains, I figured it was time to start gathering footage for Ah Ndiya, which wanted beautiful backgrounds to match the music. I was joined during that silhouette shot, by a surprise participant, a gentle stoner who was also seeking to get close to the Hollywood sign. I told him it was likely that his footage would only make the blog, but he didn't mind.
The day after Thanksgiving also seemed like a good one to defy usual security, but it wasn't: I got kicked out two separate locations (including the one on the rose colored steps in the video, above). The first one I lost so fast, that I didn't even get any usable footage. Right around the corner from that, I found the fire truck doing some kind of maintenance or test or something. They held still while I danced in front of them for one and a half takes, and then doubled around to give me a nice closing shot.
I relied heavily on the Bunker Hill part of downtown (the same area I shot Grand Avenue in), because the locations were much more beautiful than most of my industrial spots. That area is ideal for parkour; there are tons of features, levels, and pedestrian walkways, with surprisingly little law enforcement. There are still potential consequences, however: the shots on the edge of the pedestrian walkways don't reveal the 25' drop down to traffic, below.
I love the tunnel shot, which provided a rich, beautiful background to carve out my silhouette. Shortly after that, I finished the evening playing with the twin fountains, and getting wet playing one fountain like a zither.
Under a stretch of Grand Avenue, there is a ground level utility road, for deliveries, etc. For some reason, they had a white dumpster parked in the middle of the road that night, and I loved the symmetry with the V-shaped overhead lights.
I wasn't at all surprised to be kicked out, when playing with my staff in front of the Bank of America building; just surprised it took so long for them to do it. "Some crazy guy's out front swinging a stick around" - I can only imagine.
The ramp from Flower to Hope offered two shots. The first (with the lit parking garage in the background), was just me taking advantage of the slope, and using the added momentum to change how I related to leaps and spins.
The second, the transition from one ramp to the other, was (as many things in these videos are) scarier in real life than in the video. You can see the 10' or so drop to asphalt; but what's not so visible (except in the clip, below), is how the space in between the ramps is over a 40' drop down to street at the ground level.
As always, I'm eager to share my bloopers, trips and stumbles. I cut the blooper reel to "Ah Ndiya"; funny how that song makes even falling down seem beautiful.
My first shot for "Work It" was an audacious climb up a crane, and an even more audacious climb down. The crane was behind fencing, at First and Santa Fe. I saw the move in my head, but I wasn't quite prepared for the reality of it. Up the crane, no problem, down to the top of the red pulleys, no problem. Going below that was a bit more of a mental game, because from up above, I was no longer quite sure how I was going to get down.
I hit a fear block on the red pulley. The drop below wasn't quite what I imagined. From the ground, the twin cable loops appeared to dangle over an 8' drop to earth. But from above, I realized, I was further back, over a 15' pit, invisible to camera. And the metal plate that edged the pit suggested that I wasn't gonna get close to the shallow side, even swinging with all my might. I wasn't directly over rebar or other sharp items, just the dirt slope of the pit, but right next to a massive girder, which I was afraid of falling on.
I had planned to dangle from the bottom of the looped cables, and swing myself to the safety of the shorter drop, but once I was hanging, I realized I wasn't going to get enough swing in them, to clear the metal divider. I could just imagine falling 8' onto a crotch-full of metal plate, and there wasn't enough arc to get past it. I wish I could say I figured it all out, and executed accordingly, but truthfully, I let go, because I didn't have anything left. I was stressed out, terrified, and utterly uncertain as to the outcome, but trusting that plan b (into the pit) couldn't be worse than what plan A was turning out to be (a trip to the emergency room, with a busted crotch).
I dropped hard, but the landing was soft, a slope of loose dirt. Nonetheless, I sat in place for awhile, feeling my system work the shock through it. There had been a lot of fear, a lot of stress, and my body was shutting down. But I was home safe.
Went by this little abandoned coffee shop on 37th, Hacienda something. I was first attracted by its gutted pay phone; it seemed ripe for playing on. But when I glanced through the windows, I saw this beautifully lit view, chance sunlight coming through the windows, but every bit as perfect as a movie set, HMIs pounding in.
The little gap on the upper left is the space I shimmied through. The square fits my hips, and little more. The design was perfect for breaking in, because there was a robust shelf in the women's room (just inside), at exactly the same height as the hole. Ideal for breaking in, but even more important for breaking out.
37th is in the industrial part of Vernon (a redundant statement), and there is zero pedestrian traffic, so it was easy to skinny in and out without being seen. The dogs, just one property east, were pretty persistent in calling out their alarm, but no one came to investigate. I scouted first, and was hoping I could open a door from inside, but nothing would unlock. The only way in or out was through the window. I scooted everything in, onto the shelf, and then out, a small drop to the concrete. My coat and pack were too big to fit, so I snuck them around the corner, setting the dogs off again.
The interior was flimsier than I thought, and pieces swayed and rocked as I danced on them. Part of the front counter (a piece of almost paper board) came loose and I set it aside. When it came off, the piece holding it on came loose as well, and I ended up gouging my knee on a newly exposed nail. Thankfully, someone had left some of their hardware lying around, including a hammer, so I was able to pound that nail down.
A little tease, of some of the footage from the Hacienda:
As I continue seeking things to play on and with, I have to go further afield from my known stomping grounds, or I have to dig deeper within them. The latter was the case on Monday, as I scooted on Z through areas I had shot for "Pass That Dutch" and "Shorty, Put it on the Floor". The first thing I saw was a small cluster of wheeled racks (for clothes?) in an alleyway behind a business that was open and active. When I first rode through, there was a worker dumping out trash right next to the racks, and so I moved on. But nothing else was calling me, and the racks seemed like an ideal first dance, so I made my way back to the alley. After setting up and rolling the camera, I snuck up to the racks, and wheeled one away. Damn, they were loud! I half expected to be shut down before I even got the rack down to my camera. But I actually got in a good three minutes or so, before one of the workers yelled at me to bring the rack back.
I wheeled the rack to them, a tiny bit wary. There was a bunch of guys, who evidently had watched the ending of my play. But that was the good part; they were too amused by how much fun I was having, to really get negative with me. The guy who had first yelled, and who seemed to be in charge of getting the rack back from me, could barely contain his smile, and even thanked me, as I dropped off the rack, thanked them, and headed out.
The big smoke stack thing also allowed a serendipitous window of opportunity. The sun was near to setting; just as I set up my camera and walked over to it, the owner of the one car that was in the shot came out of the plant, and drove off. Not only did he clear the car from my frame, but he missed catching me climb, by about 30 seconds.
Climbing up to the apparatus, I had to pass a window into the plant. I could see a worker within, but his back was turned to me, and all the machinery around him was very noisy, so I just scaled and trusted.
I had some mental stories about how there would be flimsy electrical conduit all around the apparatus (there wasn't) and how offensive it might be to the workers that I play on their machine. I never tested the latter theory, but it turned out the apparatus, as impressive as it is, was not functional, and sat open and rusted. It turned out to have a great surface for dancing and climbing, and I played until the sun went down.
Yesterday, I finally realized a dream, of shooting onboard an L.A. Metro bus.
The Metro yard has been a magnet to me, for some time, but the buses are all locked away behind a fence, and there are plenty of workers in that area.
I was riding Z around the lower east-side of downtown, but not finding anything that called to me, that wasn't well-populated. I wanted to take advantage of it being Saturday, to do something I might not otherwise have access to. And that made me think about the buses.
I was able to slide camera and tripod through a small gap under the fence, but I had to go over it, myself. Evidently, there were workers there, because I saw one riding by while I was in a bus, but none seemed to see me.
I started dancing in the first bus, and was on my third take when I heard the electric hum of a utility cart, riding by. Thankfully, the worker was heading the other way, because I could see the back of his head clearly. It made me realize that, if he came back the same way, he would likely see me, and the gig would be up, so I moved to another bus, and got the driver's seat shots.
Saying that this video is my favorite yet is somewhat redundant; I fall in love with each as I make them, and thankfully, each is supplanted by the next. "Bad Boy", however, had a lot of special appeal for me, not the least of which was the name of the song. Is it just coincidence that the shirt I chose to wear with this song happens to read: "Catholic Schools?" Nothing to do with my beliefs or how I was raised, by the way. Just a nice colorful t-shirt I bought at the thrift shop to wear at Burning Man.
I've been drooling over the thought of climbing a crane, for some time, but they're so high-profile, potentially dangerous, and usually on guarded construction sites, that I have, thus far, only dreamed from a distance. In this case, however, events came together perfectly. I had just finished playing on the concrete features at the stairs leading up the 1st St. bridge. The sun had already gone down, and my motorcycle was blocks away, so if I was going to take advantage of the twilight hour, I needed to find a new obstacle nearby, and it had to be one that worked well in silhouette. On the far side of the bridge, I could just see the top of the crane. It seemed unlikely that it would be unguarded, but I knew that I had to try. The construction was part of work being done on the bridge, in order to ready it to hold a light rail line, running parallel to traffic (the tracks lead to the entrance of the subway tunnel that I trespassed through and explored earlier - video still to come). From the bridge, I could see workers loading up semis on the far side of the construction site, which was otherwise empty. If I were to take the pedestrian route into the site, I'd have to make my way through the workers, so instead, I scaled down through scaffolding that butted up against the bridge. Even that was an adventure, as I had to squeeze through gaps too narrow to contain me and my backpack (which has the camera inside, and tripod and motorcycle helmet, strapped to the back). So I had to dangle the pack through, and loop the arm straps onto some rebar, and then skinny through after it, pausing, mid-climb, to sling the pack back on.
The crane itself was a lot less scary than it looked from a distance. The rails that make up the crane arm are easy to grasp, and it was unlikely that I'd slip off of it (unless I hit a patch of axle grease, the curse of climbing construction equipment). But there was still a psychological hobgoblin I needed to tame, since I was going over 40 feet up on an unfamiliar structure, without any safety gear, nor anyone to help me out, if I should fall. Apprehension about being caught just heightened the fear. I climbed the first time, on the inside of the arm, figuring I would be more likely to be able to catch myself, if I slipped. But after I started feeling more comfortable with the structure, I made a second climb on the outside, and then tried dancing on it, in the closer shot. At one point, I noticed the workers at the semis had noticed me, so I hastily climbed down, but then no one came to throw me out, so I got back on.
Since no one had evicted me after my most obvious stunt, I figured it was safe to explore the rest of the site. This included the enormous girder, which was supported by the crane, and rested on three pillars in what was otherwise just a big hole in the ground. This also included a giant drill machine (the enormous bit was nearby, planted in the soil). On this machine, I did run into crazy axle grease, a stain on my jeans' knee which will show up in many videos to come.
Not all the obstacles I faced for "Bad Boy" were new, but even the ones I knew reflected the fears I've had to face in learning parkour in my late 30's. The wheelchair ramp (and adjoining stairs) were actually my training ground for learning to land on rails. When I first started making parkour a near-daily priority, I was working in Glendale, and was able to jet out to the ritzy Bunker Hill part of downtown (where I shot Grand Avenue ). The wheelchair ramp allowed me to slowly work my way toward leaping and landing on rails, which is pretty scary to begin with, because of the fear of slipping. One moment (which seems so minor in context of "Bad Boy") was actually terrifying to get started: a jump from the wall onto the rail next to the stairs, because of the complexity of the rail, and even more, the apparent threat of the fall on the other side, with all kinds of edges and ledges to get tripped up on. An overactive and paranoid imagination is the death of parkour, and I had to train a lot of worst case scenarios out of my head.
And then there was the phone. I'm extra geeked about playing with props, because they are my less explored half of discovering how to dance with the physical world. I chose the location for the rails there, and because dancing in front of a church had a nice "bad boy" quality to it. But I was immediately drawn to the pay phone, and the yellow receiver just made it that much more interesting to play with. I had goofed with a pay phone once before, in a Stick's Riffs that I shot but never cut, my play at Mariachi Plaza, in East L.A. Here is a bit of that footage, my first phone foray:
On a different day of shooting, primarily focused on "Gimme Sum", the twilight hour offered me a cluster of nice locations on the south-west side of downtown (near the Staples Center), where I hadn't played before. The vaults from the freeway to the onramp, like many acts in these videos, were scarier in real life than on tape. What you can't see in the video is that the small concrete bridge between the two roads is above a 30' drop to asphalt. My top-rocking dance in the alleyway wasn't very scary, but, as it happened to be right behind a strip club, and I was dancing just at the beginning of happy hour, the heavy traffic through there ended up shutting me down. And no, no one at the strip club offered me a job.
I love taking advantage of sunset to get silhouette shots, because dance often works better when it's just the outline of the body (like the fountain scenes in Grand Avenue ). Thus, I took advantage of a rooftop parking garage to place my tripod, as I danced at the crest of the adjoining roof. I've been kicked out of a lot of places while making these videos, so for a video called "Bad Boy for Life", it would have been shameful, if I didn't get evicted, at least once.
The Felix Cadillac shots in the passersby video were from the last set-up I shot for "Bad Boy". However, when I got to editing, I realized I had plenty of footage without that shot, and it was such a cool set-up, that I realized I'd rather save that location for my "Ragga Jungle" IMP-Style, which is coming soon. So I'll have to sneak back and shoot some more, now that I know that they're not offended, only amused, by my dancing.
As always, I am proud to present my trips, stumbles, and near-falls, because they are evidence that I am constantly going beyond my previous experience, exploring a wider range of what's possible for me (and what's safe)!
