The feature length documentary David Blaine - Below the Above was made by Lauren Hannon and Richard Gordon during their final year studying for a Multimedia Technology and Design degree at Brunel University , and was submitted as their final year project for the course.

Documenting the events that occurred during David Blaine's stunt was not planned or intentional, as neither Richard nor Lauren knew much about David Blaine, his magic, or his endurance stunts.

At the beginning of Blaine's stunt, both were students preparing to go into the final year of their degree at Brunel University, each with vague and uninspiring ideas of what they planned to do for their self set final year project. If it were not for a chance encounter one evening, they would not have come together to work on a joint project and ultimately create David Blaine - Below the Above.

 

On their way home from a birthday party, students Richard Gordon and Lauren Hannon decided to go and see "that American guy in the box" as reports on the news earlier that day (of people throwing eggs) had brought him to their attention. They arrived at Potters Fields at around midnight, and headed through the dimly lit, deserted park towards the River Thames where Blaine's box hung. As they passed through, they noticed a lone man dressed in a suit, crouched over a large blue plastic sheet on which he was meticulously sticking strips of masking tape. After a short discussion the pair decided this guy was definitely a bit strange and well worth going to talk to. Quickly forgetting about David Blaine, they headed over to say hello.

The man they had encountered was a gentleman named Francois Greeff. At first glance, he looked like a successful business man. He was dressed very smartly, wearing a dark suit, a pristine white shirt and a perfectly tied silk tie, all brought together nicely with a long versache overcoat. Not the sort of person you would expect to find alone in a park in the middle of the night playing with masking tape, but all was not as it seemed. On closer inspection, his shoes were tatty, scuffed, and had no laces, his bag was a large and very worn hold-all, and sitting on top of it was a rolled up sleeping bag. Yes. He was homeless. It's not often you come across a homeless guy in a suit, but then it's not often you come across a character like Francois Greeff. The fact that he was homeless and dressed in a suit was one of the less remarkable aspects of his character, all of which are revealed in the Below the Above documentary.

Francois has bipolar disorder, a mental illness which sends him on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, rocketing him from severe depression to manic highs then dropping him back into deep depression. The night which Lauren and Richard met him he was flying high. Witty, charming, charismatic and articulate, they were instantly engaged in conversation with this odd character who's jokes and stories flew perfectly without hesitation. A few curious passers by would stop to see what he was up to - but would quickly continue on their way when they realised that he had no intention of giving them a straight answer! Hours passed with the pair happily helping him to stick masking tape onto his blue sheet without needing to know what they were doing, or why they were doing it! Eventually Francois asked them what they were doing in the park at 2am and on finding out they had come to see David Blaine, but not actually made it, he sent them on their way. They headed towards Blaine 's dusty flood-lit compound, where they saw David suspended in his box, curled up in a ball, fast a sleep. Nothing much was going on other than a few stray drunks shouting up to David for him to wake up so he could wave at them, so the pair decided to head home. They went back through the park, stopping to say goodnight to Francois who seemed to have taken to a shine to them, as he decided to let them into his secret. He pulled a large cardboard box out from behind a tree and slowly opened it to reveal a set of giant chess pieces inside, and the masking tape on his blue sheet had formed a nice chequered pattern which would act as a perfect chess board. His plan was to challenge David Blaine to a game of chess the following morning, but he needed one last bit of help. He wanted the words "U R NOT ALONE" written across the chess board. Why exactly? Well of course he wasn't going to tell them - they would have to come back the following day to find out! He bid them goodnight and headed off to the compound where he would set up his sleeping bag to sleep below David Blaine's box.

The following day, Richard and Lauren headed back down to David Blaine, this time taking a video camera borrowed from university with them. David Blaine accepted the challenge of a game of chess and Francois revealed to the pair his master plan. When they had filmed everything they thought there was to film - they decided to call it a day. As they were leaving the park, they spotted a makeshift camp and almost couldn't believe that ANOTHER person could be living in Potters Fields, so they went to investigate. To their surprise, there wasn't just one other person that had decided to live below David Blaine during his 44 day stunt, but a whole load of people had decided to do this. Each had their own individual reasons to be there, and in effect had taken on their own personal 44 day challenge below David Blaine.

To read more about the people featured in the David Blaine - Below the Above documentary visit THE CHARACTERS page.

The two students couldn't believe that so much was going on below David Blaine's box and the newspapers hadn't reported it. All the media seemed to be interested in was what the latest thing to be thrown at the box was, so they decided to follow the people that lived below Blaine and document their stories.

And so the documentary began...