HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT

It seems like ages ago that Phil Waddle first contacted Worldwide JAM with his concept. Like many millions of people across the globe, Phil never missed an episode of the BBC's top rating 'Top Gear'. The program has recently surpassed 'A Question of Sport' as the most in-demand show for live audience tickets. In the last year, Top Gear received 390,000 applications. It would have taken 29 years worth of shows to accommodate everyone.

Phil Waddle

Top Gear is big. 6 million UK viewers, 350m+ worldwide and exported to 90 countries.

A tremendously popular segment of Top Gear is 'Man Vs Machine'. The premise is that one of the show's hosts driving a car under review, challenges an elite, extreme sportsperson in an 'A to B', race. Previous episodes included an Audi RS 4 Vs Free Climber, Renault Clio Vs a Mountain Biker and even a Mazda MX-5 Vs a Greyhound.

Phil has a passion for Parkour so it took him under a nano second to put the concept together of having a unique 'Man Vs Machine' challenge where Top Gear would take on Parkour through a inner-city landscape. As much as the idea was a cracker, Phil thought he was too young to be taken seriously by the BBC. As many of you know, getting ahead is mostly based on who you know rather than what you know.

In December 2005, Phil decided to pitch his concept to Worldwide JAM in the hope that we may be able to help him drive the idea through the front doors of BBC house. A few phone calls later, we had the contact details of Top Gear's research department. A proposal was drawn up and emailed over. We waited.

And waited.

In fact we waited until we thought the idea was a no-goer, and then put it on the back burner.

In February 2006, we got a call from Alex at Top Gear. Seems they loved the concept but with the Winter Olympics taking much of their time, they had not been able to research the potential further.

In March a meeting was scheduled with Worldwide JAM, Alex and Exec Producer Andy Wilman. Andy is 'the MAN', at Top Gear and recognised as the chap who put Top Gear back on the BBC schedulers map.

During the meeting a number of scenarios were brainstormed. The original concept of three traceurs was initially trimmed to a solo athlete. We knew however that Parkour looks far more dynamic when a number of traceurs are running in convoy. Eventually Top Gear agreed on two.

Next step was location. Top Gear had been traveling all over the world filming various projects and they were keen to do something closer to home. With a certain young bloke called Daniel Ilabaca making quite a name for himself in Mike Christies Roger's Mobile TV Commercial, we thought this might be a great opportunity to work with one of the up-and-coming stars of Parkour. Being from Liverpool we suggested to the BBC that Merseyside would make a superb location for the shoot. To prove our point, Daniel's older brother Chris Ilabaca designed a run and spent 3 days in dreary conditions photographing every stage in detail.

It seemed that Top Gear had previously filmed in Liverpool and had always received tremendous support from the City and its people. The decision was made.

A second traceur needed to be found. We needed someone with media experience, someone who could help choreograph the action and assist the production team keep filming days to a minimum. Kerbie was just on his way back from filming James Bond in the Bahamas and was up for the job if the jet lag didn't get him first.

In April, Top Gear's 'ace' director Nigel Simpkiss took his production crew to Liverpool for four days filming. The sun shone, Kerbie and Daniel were injury free and the shoot went like clockwork.