The Commons

413 is a video fully created by Connor Pennington. After having moved to Boston for 5 months Connor returned home to where he started his parkour journey. Since being thoroughly involved in the community that is. The growth Connor experienced in that 5 months is what inspired creating this short but sweet 3 minute video. From beginning to end the movement, filming, and editing all inspire emotion in the viewer. Whether it’s melancholy through the isolated feel of the B-roll or excitement through the anticipation of the movement the goal is to make you feel something. Being edited, filmed, and performed by Connor Pennington the creative control was solely in his hands.

Connor Pennington is an athlete now based out of the Commons’ household in Boston, Massachusetts. He is going on his 12th year of training and has since made his mark on the community. Originally from Monson, Massachusetts Connor wasn’t super involved in the parkour scene. He told me he used to just train doing hard tricks rather than actual parkour because that’s what he knew coming from his background in diving. However since his move into the Commons’ house his style and mentality on his training evolved greatly: through going to jams and constantly being around parkour people his ideas on what could be changed. This led to the creation of the account @trainy_days as well as this video 413.

413 is the area code of western Massachusetts where Mr. Pennington is from. The location this number represents holds great significance to Connor as it’s where he grew up and began training. There are three very unconventional type of spots in the video. These are the spots where Connor first started training, so going back after so much growth allowed for a lot of new opportunities. Not only in movement but also in creative control in film making.

Connor has a background in photography and this played into the filming of 413 immensely. He had been solo training so often before his move to Boston that he wasn’t out of his element during his 3 day trip. From the beginning he knew the filming was going to be static. During our interview he told me “I felt very much at home making that video.” So when he had the idea to create 413 he wanted to do what he had done for years but at a much higher creative level.

In our interview he told me “I have a background in photography, so that was one of the biggest things in making the video. [It] was getting the composition right” For a photographer the composition is the main part of a photo, so when you apply this thought to filming movement, camera placement because a whole new level of artistry. He said, “you can just set up a camera and point it and capture all the movement in there, but I wanted to frame everything like a photograph”. Imagine every frame of a video taken out as a still image: Connor’s goal was to be able to move through the frame and have every second hold up as a picture. This was Connor’s main idea in creating 413. However, leading into editing Connor said he didn’t have many ideas for what he wanted it to be.

He had said “I didn’t know what song I was gonna use, I think I edited it like 3 times to different music, and it was all in that editing process that I came up with the final product.” The first step to great editing is great filming and Connor had already done that part beautifully, so step two was just figuring out what felt right. Connor said to me “I just had the clips, and I had to put them together in a way that made sense to me and that I thought worked.” And it worked.

Baby Blue Sedan by Modest Mouse sets a tone for the video that’s followed by picturesque B-roll to kickoff the photographic filming style. Connor creates a feeling of solitude through clips that may drag on for a bit longer than expected, but in the same light a feeling of self-motivation with clips like the ender. It inspires me to train for something. As parkour athletes we always say we “train”, but for what? This video inspires me to train for one, myself, but for two bigger projects that I want to create. This is how I believe Connor’s whole creative process has created one of the best short films this year.