Kung Fu and NCP Penthouses.

So early tomorrow morning I'm setting out to do some 'guerilla' filming in the Manchester.  It's for a set of martial arts sequences with an 'urban' twist: Crouching High Street Hidden Dry Bar perhaps.

Now I've filmed many locations in the city (and other cities) for certain jobs that get thrown my way occasionally, usually sequences of buildings and cityscapes and busy bee workforce.  This is slightly different however.  I'll have a couple of martial artists (I myself like to partake in a dash of Kung Fu when my backs feeling supple and generous) and will attempt to film a few fight sequences within the city.  My best bet is to find a couple of NCP car parks and head to the top, open deck floors.  These usually guarantee an excellent 'surround view' of the city and it's rapid changes and it's ever increasing large buildings.  

To be fair to NCP as long as I politely ask if it's OK to take a camera up on their premises (I'm usually paying the exorbitant parking fees as it happens) they'll leave me to my own devices.  Mid winter on a cold and dark Sunday evening isn't my best notion of fun but sometimes needs must.

A short while ago (for the same project) we filmed in a city subway at night.  The fella's (one a black belt master) were dressed in 'urban street gear' i.e. hoodies and elastic 'kekage'.  Once rolling they'd go for it big time, and every once in a while a passer by on their way home from work would freeze at the ensuing rumbles in front of them (not at all allaying their fears that subways are edgy places at best).  It essentially resembled professional happy slapping episode destined for Youtube, so I'm not surprised people were a little taken aback.   I'm sure they were intelligent to understand what we were doing and no authorities were to be dispatched our way that evening.

Still, a  quick glance at these choreographed scraps would allude to something a little sinister.  Part of the training in martial arts is the ability to take 'hits' and because we are striving for authenticity the fights have to look fairly realistic.  Of course I'd said it's extraordinarily rare for two trained martial artists to happen to meet in the street and start a shindig and street fights don't look anything like this quite beautiful art form.  Perhaps instead I should just get them blind drunk on Special Brew and tell one the other deeply insulted a respected member of their family...

So, if you see some fancy fighting taking place tomorrow morning, you'll know not to be too concerned...actually, I believe Lee 'Scratch' Perry is in town and he's a big fan of the 'Fu' perhaps I can get him to come along and join the fun?  Dub and scrapes atop a multi storey NCP.