Assassins Creed Meets Parkour from Ronnie's Perspective

You have probably seen Devin Graham's (Devinsupertramp) new video on youtube called "Assassins Creed Meets Parkour in Real Life". (if not watch it below!) I just wanted to share what my experience was like in making this video.

I came to know of Devin Graham through his "Worlds Largest Rope Swing" video (Who thought that I would be set up filming a video with him shortly after.) The prospect of being in one of "Devinsupertramps" videos was exciting. I knew that if it worked out from the beginning this would definitely help my stunt career grow. In the stunt world it requires more than just having the talent but also the contacts. You need to know people. I finally got hooked up with the one who I knew would help step my career forward...
 

The early stages of planning began in early April of this year. I sent my body measurements to Allison Dredge, who would be the one building the Altair costume from the ground up. She built it specifically to allow me to move in it seamlessly, with out it being to bulky or constricting. From the video you would say she did a great job right? 

Parkour was one of the top video requests Devin would receive and finally with a combination of timing and the right people, an Assassins Creed Parkour video would commence. I met Devin through the parkour team Ensoul, a Clothing company with a parkour, break dancing and bmx team. Check out their page: Ensoul 

Devin and I planned to meet in down town Salt Lake to begin our filming. He had no idea what I could do, so our first day was to scope out some sweet spots and explore what kind of parkour and free running/assassins creed mix style moves we could capture. Devin was fun to work with, he was way cool, friendly,  and didn't pressure me to do anything I didn't want to. Everything in the video I did by my own free will. Some things scared him a bit though, but he let me do them. Sitting on the edge of that building at the beginning was one of those things. You can also see Devin's reaction to that and more behind the scenes in the behind the scenes video.

Everything I do I make sure I feel confident in my ability to do it.  I don't just go extreme and yell "live or die" as I flip off the edge of a building. Everything I do is very meditated and planned. As cool as scars might be, I don't really want to bust anything open. Because of my approach to parkour and free running I have never received a serious injury, and there were no serious injuries in the making of this film. There are always little bumps and bruises, I strained my wrist a little bit on the dumpster jump and no it was not from the top of the building but maybe 6 feet up from the top of the dumpster. I was actually really excited about that shot, it turned out amazing!

After a few days of filming in May, we initially thought the video was finished. Later after Devin left town he realized there were a couple shots that needed to be redone. Devin was busy for the next few months traveling to the crazy places he goes, but you probably already know that.

During this time I got a back injury, not serious, but it prevented me from training for a couple months, so it actually kind of worked out. By the time Devin got back and was able to finish filming these shots, my back was good enough to do what I do best.

The main shot we had to do was the green screen shot and redo my actual jump off the building, because it didn't tie together very well at the time. We also filmed some more of the free running shots at this time you now see in the video. Filming the green screen shot had to have been one of the more painful stunts I have done. Initially the stunt sounded fine, but I've never actually hung forward on a rope like that before and let me say if my face didn't show it, it was kind of painful. I knew it would be worth the shot though, and it was! It turned out even better than I could have hoped. So during this strung up stunt I had to look like I was falling, so balancing my body against the green screen I positioned my hands and feet to appear like I would as if I had just jumped off of a 10 story building.

Finally 2 days before the release date we again had to film the jumping off the ledge shot for a 3rd time. We met up in Salt Lake again just for this one shot, and it starts raining, and I somehow forgot my hood and arm gauntlet! An iconic peace of the Assassins Creed games. It was getting close to dark, so with light rain and no hood we wondered if we could still make it work. Because of the way the shot was done previously most of my upper body is not seen so we figured we could make it work. We ran up to the top of the parking garage to find the ledge I jump off of. While it was raining the the sunset came out and made for the 2 second beautiful shot you now see in the video of my jump. It was perfect. That's a wrap! Just as we were making our way to the cars we got a heavy down pour. It seemed the universe aligned for us the moment before so we could get this shot just in time for the video to be released.

We are planning to make an even larger scale Assassins Creed  video based on the Third game coming out but that's up to YOU! So if you want to see us make that video remember to Like the video and leave a comment letting Devin know you want to see a second one.

I also will be doing a series of Assassin's Creed Parkour Tutorials, so if you want to get started in learning parkour like the Assassin's Creed subscribe to my channel: RonnieStreetStunts I will also be uploading many other videos.

Can't wait to work with Devin again in the future Subscribe to his channel: Devinsupertramp

-Ronnie Shalvis