The only next step available to them is peers ‘outside’ their activity group, which tends to materialise as sponsorship by some company, often only loosely connected with an activity, looking to associate itself with (often) young people, whereby they can brand them for the rest of their lives and all the jealous people, can bitch and moan about them taking from ‘the man’ and ‘selling out’ etc.

*yawn… give it a rest.

Soo… how is this all connected to ‘getting sponsored’ like the title says then?

Well, lets face facts; you have a skill, which in most peoples eyes is pretty impressive, crowd pleasing and ‘cool’… companies want to be associated with impressive coolness, and therefore either spend vast amounts of money, trying to look cool (and often failing) or hanging their products on people that tend to be cool, without trying much.

In nutshell, companies want to be associated with:

clean, good looking, healthy, active, talented, positive, confident, role models.

That list is important to remember, cause if you honestly don’t adhere to that spec, then no matter how hard you try, you ain’t even getting a foot in the door.

Now notice I didn’t say ‘super-models’, I didn’t say ‘weathly’ or ‘intelligent’… because those things aren’t required. All companies need is a good walking talking naturally impressive ‘coat hanger’ to represent them in the social circles that they are desperate to break into… probably looking to launch a new range of catalogue products for the spring/summer 2010-11 range.

How exactly would a company do that?

well they’d probably sponsor a high profile, social media network, full of desperately seeking attention ‘media whores’ and then encourage as many of them as possible to join in their fun, spending their marketing budgets. One example would be the recent Adidas London 2012 urban athlete marketing campaign they’re running. A channel is set up on YT for people to send in their best clips. And for all those that are raising their eyebrows, in preparation of complaining about the corporate ‘machine’ taking over the fun stuff. Well, keep thinking that dim people, cause that is a perfect example of how a company with budgets available ‘reach out’ to the masses and invite them to get in contact. Once you’re in contact with them, you can begin a dialogue, and its that conversation which will add to your visibility within their company. And that’s half the battle. Getting your name and face known within the walls of the brands is where it all begins.

Another approach people aren’t aware of is through shops. Pick small shops, with products you like, Nixon Watches for example, or Billabong clothing, perhaps Fly sunglasses. Well each ‘little’ shop will have regular visits either from reps directly or to the salesmen through telephone orders, the smaller the shops, the more acquainted the owners tend to get with the distributors and employees. Now lets say over the course of a few weeks, you got chatting to your local shop owner and mentioned that you’ve a bit of an extreme flipper… photogenic like with good steez and all that shizzle. It won’t take long for you to establish a little rap-or with the guy… and once you’re on good speaking terms (buying products there helps btw) … you can start asking questions. Like do they know any reps or contacts at the distributors that you could send in some photos or portfolio for flipping, in the hope of getting a bit of supportive ‘flow’ on the go. Play the owner your show-reel, show some kick ass photos (you don’t have any?? damn, get that sorted!) … and basically work on winning the man over with your ‘grinning like you’ve just passed your driving test’ smile and witty charm.

It works, believe!

Oh and don’t give up. It’ll be tempting to do all the above to one shop and sit back and see what happens…. but nah, go to every little shop you can find, get your face in their face, make every rep, salesman, and distributor know who you are and that you’re looking to become their next clothes hanger for their 2010-11 range.

This is the common route to sponsorship. When competitions aren’t available, you gotta go directly to the source. And remember, you gotta look good, smile, laugh, be happy and be a clear notch above the rest of the wannabe’s begging for attention.

mark

I have more to add on this subject, but got fed up typing. Might add another ‘part 2’ later.

Got a video you want people to see? Send it to me and I’ll show it to thousands of people.

Her winter edit is live, check it out and go give her props either on her YT channel or her website… her dedication is undeniably incredible:

Casting: Wednesday 30th November at Nash Studios, 2nd Floor, St George’s House, 14-17 Wells Street, London, W1T 3PD

Travel/Shoot: in Buenos Aires between the 9th – 22nd December. All artists
required for a minimum of 4 days.

Fee: £300 bsf
Travel/lay days: £150
Release: Worldwide (excl. N. America & UK)
All Media – 2yrs from first air date – (tentatively March 1 2012)
Buyout: £16K
No 20% additional agency fee as being paid from UK

This commercial is made of of a series of vignettes of interesting, weird,
wonderful and beautiful faces. NO SMOKING IS REQUIRED IN THIS COMMERCIAL.

Seeking:

SKATEBOARDERS: 32 years is the absolute minimum age requirement for legal reasons.
We need excellent – semi-professional skateboarders. Please do not suggest
people who are of questionable ability.

Would be great to see some clips, youtube links etc

Must have valid passport.

GIRL OPENING EYES: 32 – 41. Normal woman, attractive but interesting. Nice body, fit & healthy.

She should come to the casting in gym gear.

MUST BE 32 OR OVER FOR LEGAL REASONS

FREE RUNNERS: 32 – 42. Guys and girls who will be required to freerun.

We will need to have clips of them free running as we won’t be able to do it
at the casting, so any youtube links etc would be great.

THEY CANNOT HAVE SPONSORSHIP ALREADY

MUST BE 32 YEARS OR OVER FOR LEGAL REASONS

This just got sent to me… a bucket load of fails: a joy to watch. Ouch. There’s a load more from j0nn0r0x btw. Go check it.

They are looking for skateboarders and free-runners 32 years + for a TV advert casting in London tomorrow – fee is very good £16k – our 20% if successful. Call Director Gareth Jenkins on 01276 415800 if anyone is interested.

I get these enquiries all the time. Anyone want it?

The UK’s Top Sports & Lifestyle Agency | Modelling Agencies London
www.wathletic.com
W Athletic is the UK’s Top Sports & Lifestyle Modelling Agency in London specialising in athletic, dynamic models & talent for commercial work.

I’m really enjoying having no active community here, this entire site is now a case study for me and my work. Smashing. However I’m struggling with the concept of letting it die.

I think I will fill it with adverts and try and scrape £20 a month out of Google Analytics.

I’d also consider handing the site over to someone else, maybe as a co-author, co-owner etc. Anyways. I’ve more work to do. Mark

However… one thing I hate is trickers and flippers trying to be something that they are not good at. Namely: directing & acting and particularly recreating fight scenes. Most flippers can barely do filming and editing well… why chuck another couple of layers on top of the workload that makes the job even harder and weakens the already struggling routine? I don’t get it.

Anyways… so when I saw that Andrea produced, directed and edited this video, I had my head in my hands. However, at least it’s not acting out a script. It is however showing Andrea at his best (and aparently happiest) displaying his creative movement, loosely held together with a hint of storyline (As if Jason Bourne could dance?).

So, this is good, its filmed really well, edited to the music excellently and doesn’t try and be anything than it is – creative movement set to a good audio.

It’s Art baby… if you don’t understand it… accept you have a gap in your knowledge and move it. Check it… then go leave the man some thumbs up:

One second there’s noise, then the next there’s nothing until the landing happens. What can you hear? I hear nothing except my held breath.. perhaps a heart beat or 2.

Actually, now I’m thinking about it, I can hear the voice in my head. It’s the one I’ve trained to count my through the process of extension, compaction & extension again.

When I started flipping, I had to figure out the timing of rotations, I was over rotating too much or I was opening out too quickly. I had to figure out a way of timing it. I count. What’s your approach?

I click my teeth together… biting if you like… just a little click: 1, 2, 2 and a half, land… something like that. Clicking teeth helps me duplicate success. A good example is front flips. Backflips are easy, you throw up and spot the landing and the rest is history. With front flips… it’s a totally different beast. The landing can’t be spotted until it’s too late.

I’ll spot a point on a wall opposite, normally above head height at a 10 or 11 o’clock angle. I’ll punt up the chuck, spin it round until the spot is visible then open out. It’s all over so quickly there isn’t much else to think about. However take that jump to a trampoline and I’ve got so much airtime I don’t know what to do with it. This is where my teeth clicking comes in handy.

As soon as I take off, I’ll start click counting and between then and spotting the wall, I’ll measure the clicks. Once I’ve found the sweet spot, generally I can recreate it. As long as I replicate everything else obviously: the power, the flick, the angle, the speed.

When you throw everything into the mix the margin for error is high. Repitition hey? Where would we be with out it?

How about you? How do you time your spacial awareness when upside down? If there any tricks or tips you can share? I’d love to hear them in the comments :)

Mark

The Blog-Health-o-Meter reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 62,000 times in 2010. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would have performed about 3 times.

In 2010, there were 141 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 650 posts. There were 20 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was October 18th with 278 views. The most popular post that day was how to fix a sprained ankle..

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, google.com, search.conduit.com, youtube.com, and google.ca.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for parkour, how to fix a sprained ankle, how to get hits on youtube, how to get more hits on youtube, and how to get youtube hits.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

how to fix a sprained ankle. August 2007
109 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

SEO: youtube videos – getting more hits. June 2007
45 comments

The secret to Youtube hits June 2008
4 comments

Parkour Kat… October 2007
11 comments

How to fix a sprained ankle 2 September 2007
28 comments