Assassin's Creed Parkour in Salt Lake City

A filmmaker and a stuntman team up to film a real-life rendition of the video game assassin’s signature acrobatic moves, set in downtown Salt Lake City.

Just playing the character Altair from Assassin’s Creed makes me out of breath, which says a lot about parkour expert Ronnie Shalvis’ abilities recreating moves from the game—and also that I should probably exercise more. Shalvis teamed up with filmmaker Devin Graham to showcase some AC-style free running, flipping and wall-scaling across Salt Lake City.

Aficionados of the brand will appreciate that Shalvis’ studied Altair’s moves for the video, such as where he scales up a downtown parking-garage wall or where he flings himself up a construction scaffolding and the part where he shivs a mall security guard at City Creek with his hidden blade. Except for that shivving part—which I lied about being in the video—Shalvis nails all of the video-game character’s epic moves and then some.

The only scene that was doctored with the assistance of a green screen is the opening clip, where Shalvis dives off a very tall parking garage into a dumpster.

According to Shalvis’ blog, that drop was only from about six feet above the dumpster. Shalvis also pointed out that all the moves executed in the video were done with plenty of planning. “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.”