We’ve been working with the acclaimed director of photography Richard Stewart, know particularly in surf-circles for his involvement in ‘Powers Of Three’, and have been filming up and down the country to capture spectacular footage of beaches, coastlines and waves with some of the UK’s best surfers in tow.

We wanted to create an inspirational vision of some of the best waves and most beautiful coastlines in the country, and contrast them with the environmental threats facing our beaches and surf spots today. With footage from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and surf action that includes shortboarding, longboarding and bodyboarding, it’s a real rarity in the surf genre and one that evokes the current surf scene in the UK.

The film features some beautiful and impressive surfing from Candice O’Donnell, Gabe Davies, Sam Bleakley, Nathan Phillips, Toby Donachie, Jacks Johns, Trev Garland, Jayce Robinson, Richie Sills and a number of other home-grown talents who donated their time to be part of the production.

These beautiful surfing and scenic images are juxtaposed with innovative animations focusing on our current campaign issues, from combined sewer overflows and marine litter, to coastal development threats and protecting the increasingly pressurised surfing resource that is waves. The characters in the animations, surfers Candice O’Donnell, Toby Donachie and Jack Johns, react to the environmental problems they come across, resolving them by taking the issues to those in power. The film also ends with the next steps you can take as a fledgling campaigner, from reporting pollution incidents to the Environment Agency to exposing a problem with the help of the local press to renewing your membership with Surfers Against Sewage.

With the increasing environmental pressures on coastlines around the world, including the wave resources itself, there has never been a more important time for surfers to campaign to protect the environments and waves that make our sport such a unique pleasure. The ‘Protect Our Waves’ film is meant to not only remind you of the beauty of this wonderful sport we share, but importantly to inspire you to use your voice, use your skills, use your network to help preserve this amazing gift for future generations.

We are hugely grateful to Radiohead, Ben Howard, Jackson C Frank and Martha & the Arthurs for donating the music for the film – an amazing soundtrack from some inspirational musicians.

We are currently organising a mini tour of the film with our partners The Surf Screen, and will be showing the film in the coming weeks with the help of some of our regional reps. Dates will be posted here on Drift, as well as the SAS website, or you can join our Facebook group and keep up-to-date with the latest announcements.

Confirmed screenings
26 February – World Premiere, Miners and Mechanics Institute, St Agnes Cornwall, from 7pm
28 February – Solva Memorial Hall, Solva, Pembrokeshire, Wales, from 7pm
3 March – The Roxy Bar and Screen, Borough High St, London, from 7pm
7 March– Tynemouth Life Brigade Watch House, Tynemouth, from 7pm

We would particularly like to thank Richard Stewart for all his hard work and energy on the project. We would also like to thank the Quiksilver Foundation, the EoG Association for Conservation and The Surfer’s Path for their support.

Ross Johns was half the team that produced the critically acclaimed Brit longboard flick “State of Play”. Since finishing that project he’s been hard at work on his own film, titled ‘Fusion’ and promising to feature a veritable smorgesbord of high level surfing on long and shortboards.

Ross has spent a lot of time sleeping in his car, clocking up the miles up and down the southwest, the northeast and even to a few slabs in Scotland (see the opening picture).

No official release date yet but keep your eyes peeled, it’ll be worth the wait when it’s done!

Christiaan: Hey Dustin, tell us a bit about yourself… Who are you? How did you get roped into shooting ‘Picaresque’ with Mikey DeTemple?
Dustin: I’m 27, I have an amazing wife and two beautiful kids – Salah is four and Silas just turned two. I live in Florida, shoot video and film full-time, and travel a lot. Day to day is working a lot, chasing my kids, trying to bass fish, and wishing Florida had more waves.
I didn’t know Mikey DeTemple – he got in contact with me saying he wanted to make a longboard film. Mikey had never made a movie before and didn’t have any money, which made me laugh, but something inside told me to believe in his idea. So I did. I am not a longboarder – to be honest I had never really ridden one – but we really clicked as friends and started plugging away on what is now ‘Picaresque’. Its great to see the DVD, have no regrets, and know that I made a great friend.

Christiaan: What about the process of shooting ‘Picaresque’… How did it compare to other productions you have worked on?
Dustin: Start to finish, I worked on ‘Picaresque’ for about two years – a little over a year-and-a-half shooting and many months in post-production. Production was real shoe-string until funding came through, which allowed Mikey to finish it. I was pushing for film from the start, but Mikey wasn’t sure. I told him HD sucks, and when we got the first batch of film back from the lab… he was a believer too!
Highlights for me included getting to know all the surfers in the movie. I made many great friends on this project: Harrison [Roach], Christian [Wach], Tommy [Witt], Scotty [Stopnik], Chad [Doyle], and Chris [Christenson]. It was also amazing to get people’s responses to the film, which were very encouraging. My friends in the “shortboard world” were even excited.
Any issues we had were simple ones, such as music rights and deadlines. But they turned out not to be issues at all really. The trips had their little adventures. But like Yvon Chouinard says, “It’s not an adventure, until something goes wrong.”

Christiaan: How do you see ‘Picaresque’ sitting within the surf film genre? What do you hope an audience will take a way from watching it?
Dustin: ’Picaresque’ isn’t a surf documentary; there is no story. It’s just a beautifully visual surf film. No voice-overs about traveling or waves. Just surf. Surfing is fun – a surf film should be the same. The highest compliment someone paid ‘Picaresque’ was to say “It made me want to surf.”
There’s no formula to the film. I love showing sessions, not just the best tricks or whatever – I’m not a huge fan of surf porn. I wanted to show these guys doing what they love, I really wanted that to come through on screen.
We also selected a non-traditional soundtrack for a longboard movie. There’s no jazz, and from the get-go I really wanted to use different music and make faster edits. We aren’t re-inventing the wheel, but again, we wanted to make it fun – the kind of movie you watch before surfing or something.

Christiaan: Do you feel that the surf movie genre has much left to offer its audience in terms of original content?
Dustin: I think people will always be excited by and enjoy watching a well-made surf movie. Also, there are so many more stories to tell. A ton of stories! I love it all; I keep getting sucked back into making surf films, my brain never really stops.

Christiaan: Who or what influences you and your work?
Dustin: My main influence is God, He is the most creative person I know. My wife is my most honest critic and biggest encouragement, my kids influence me to be young and work hard. My dad for holding me accountable in business matters.
In the industry I am influenced by Joe G, CJ and Damien Hobgood, Greville Mitchell, Dane Reynolds, Scott Soens, Rick Jakovich, Thomas Campbell, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Steve Soderburg, George Lucas, Nike Commercials and ‘The Office’.

Christiaan: Film or video? Why? Is it important?
Dustin: Film. Hands down. I love selecting film stocks and weird lenses. I love loading the camera. I love the smell of film. I love hearing the camera run. I love not being able to see what you’re getting. I love getting a package from the lab… It’s like Christmas!
HD has its place, and a lot of my commercial work is in HD. But I heard a great quote by DP Sam Bayer once, “I love film like I love my wife. I’m not going to cheat on my wife, so I’m not going to cheat on film.” I feel the exact same way.

Christiaan: What are your surf movie aspirations?
Dustin: Right now, I am working on a film with Dane Reynolds. It’s a dream really. We are shooting it all in Super 16 and, well, it’s Dane Reynolds. It’s an honour to shoot this. We hope to get weird and have fun. Got some different trips planned and have hopeful music ideas. I keep thinking, why me? What did I do? As for the future… this is as far as I can dream right now.

Mr B, whose fourth film, ’21 Days Later’, is out this month on DVD, chats to Christiaan Bailey about his work, trying to extract money from the surf industry, and the British surf film scene…

Christiaan Bailey: So, who the hell are you and why should people be interested in your work?
Mr B: I’m Mr B, I previously shot, edited, and produced ‘Performing Monkeys’, ‘Driven’, and ‘Substance’. All my films have been based around Britain and Ireland and have all focused on British and Irish surfers. They all in some way try to show the best surf and surfing that the British Isles have to offer, so if you enjoy watching our surfers going big in cold waves, check out my previous films.

CB: What defines your approach, what are your aims/ambitions for your work?
Mr B: I’ve always tried to be quite strict with the standard of surfing that makes it into my films. I have seen in the past that, sometimes, British surfing has been portrayed as thousands of levels below international standard and I really wanted to avoid this. So I’ve always tried to work with the surfers I consider the most talented where possible. However my idea of what great surfing has changed over time and I’m really looking at how surfers keep flow in their surfing.
I also have wanted to keep my films exciting, entertaining and not too serious (‘Driven’ obviously an exception) because I was just fed up with the all-acoustic trend surf films had gone into. But it always goes around in circles, it went from one extreme to another, raw punk trick flicks in the 1990s to mellow, acoustic, insightful (with a dash of hypocrisy thrown in here and there) films in the 2000s. Not generalising or anything!

CB: Who/what influences/inspires you to produce these films?
Mr B: Obviously the waves and the surfing. I love surfing and filming in the UK when it’s good. As far as surf film influence, I wouldn’t pick one particular director, just various surf films that inspired me.

CB: This is your fourth film now in four years, so how do manage to fit it all in and sustain your level of production?
Mr B: It’s been a lot of work. I always get told that I’ve got the easiest and most fun job in the world by all my friends, and I know I’m lucky to be able to do it, but they don’t know the amount of work that goes into making the films. From shooting to getting them out on the shelves – it’s a long process. For about three years I sacrificed a lot of my personal life to be able to keep up the productions, but I have burnt out on it the last year. Luckily for the most recent film I had all the footage already and I didn’t set myself any deadlines so there’s been nowhere near the same pressure.

CB: Please tell us about your latest project, how long has it been in the pipeline and what was your vision for it?
Mr B: I actually shot this film in 2006. It was all shot in the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia where I went on a boat trip with seven great British and Irish surfers and photographer Roger Sharp. A short DVD was edited up of the trip and given away with Slide Magazine, which Tim Nunn edited. Last year I started going back through and logging all the footage from the trip and realised there was so much footage that didn’t get used. Tim had no budget and literally no time to edit the film, and he did a fantastic job, especially considering the time constraints, but I just felt like I wanted to make a film about the trip in a different format where you learned a bit more about the surfers and the waves.
When I shot the trip, I didn’t really have a vision for the film, as I was just about to release my first film and was just onboard to film the surfing and get to know everyone. When I started to go through the footage again last year, I thought I’d like to make a film about the Mentawais where you learned more about the actual waves themselves, rather than just a montage of highlights to music. I couldn’t go back and shoot interviews there, so I decided a retrospective voice over would work well.

CB: How would you say this latest work builds upon your previous films and is it in any way a departure or change of tack for you?
Mr B: It’s definitely a change of tack. With this film I wanted to convey the different moods of each break, and also wanted to give a bit more insight to the surfers thoughts about the waves and a few different aspects of surfing. I think overall it’s quite a feel good film too. It’s also got two female surfers on (I haven’t had any female surfers on my previous films).

CB: How did this film come together and who are the principle parties involved?
Mr B: I got together a rough first edit of how I wanted the film to pan out and then spoke to and showed three of the seven surfers who were on the trip to see if they’d be interested in recording some voice over to give some insight to about the waves, the trip and different aspects of surfing. So I arranged for myself, Lee Bartlett, Sam Lamiroy and Alan Stokes to record the voice over, as well as a full commentary over the film, which will be on the bonus features. The other surfers on the trip were Reubyn Ash, Easkey Britton, Robyn Davies and Mike Morgan. Other than that I did everything on the film – shot, edited, produced, directed, titles, map effects, made the tea.
I would like to say thanks to Roger Sharp who contributed some fantastic photos from the trip for me to use in the cover and poster, and to John Downie for doing an exceptional job on the graphics.

CB: You have been entering Board Shorts with experimental edits of your features, working in conjunction with other artists. How has the experience of working with other artists been and how has it inspired your current work?
Mr B: It was great giving someone else the freedom to create part of the film (the soundtrack) and for it to dictate how I edit the film. It completely alters how you approach filmmaking on your own and it’s more spontaneous and fulfilling because you have to adapt to what the other artist is contributing to the film. I’d definitely like to be part of more collaborations.

CB: What are your ambitions for your work and for you as a surf filmmaker – where would you like to get to, what would you like to achieve with/through your work.
Mr B: My ambitions are to first get a budget to make a film; unfortunately it’s got to a point where it’s just not viable to simply sell your films. I’d really like to get to a position where I could shoot and direct a film with a budget that I work on with other people (cameramen, editors, producers etc) to create a really high quality, interesting production. My favourite thing is to shoot in the water, and I’d love to be able to film more water footage for other people’s productions – particularly with the surfers that I have a good connections with.

CB: Do you have a vision of a film that you would like to make given unlimited budget/time/crew etc?
Mr B: I have got a film in mind, which a couple of us are planning and trying to raise a budget for, but I can’t disclose details. It will be a documentary and will have a much broader appeal to the general public. If it comes off it will be pretty exciting but it’s a long way off yet. I’d love to get it broadcast.
I’d love to have a budget to go and spend some more time with Al and Cotty and do some more exploring with them too.
There are a lot of films I’d like to make thinking about it, I just need the budget!

CB: Tell us a bit about the UK surf film scene, what do you think of it and how do you think it stands up alongside other countries’ offerings?
Mr B: The UK surf film scene is massively under-budgeted. Overall it’s a group of independent filmmakers doing what they can, when they can. British surf companies don’t really see surf videos as a marketing option (unless it’s cheesy little web casts or something) compared to other countries, but you can’t blame them because maybe the marketing reach isn’t there with a British surf film! Mikey Smith has recently managed to tap into a bit of budget with ‘Relentless Revolution’ and ‘Powers Of Three’ and it was great to see him do a fantastic job with it, both films turned out great.
Obviously this puts the British surf film scene a bit behind other major surf countries like Australia and the US in the finished production level because they have so much more money to throw at their films, but it also gives the British filmmakers a bit more freedom to make what they want, and Mikey and Lee Evans have shown that the production quality and level can still be outstanding.
British and Irish surf films also have their own unique feel about them which comes from the landscape, light, water colour and temperature, and the individuals that have to put in that extra effort to surf here.

Find out more about ’21 Days Later’ here.

‘Searching for Michael Peterson’ by Jolyon Hoff is a documentary telling the moving story of one of Australia’s greatest surfers, whose career was cut short by mental illness.

For five glorious years MP led the Coolangatta Kids and won virtually every event he contested, including three Bells Beach Pros back-to-back. His brilliant, aggressive surfing provided the centrepiece for Alby Falzon’s ‘Morning of the Earth’ in 1972, and MP never looked back. His final tour victory, at the inaugural Stubbies Pro at Burleigh Heads in 1977, is regarded as the high point of the early professional era. Sadly, a year later, triumph turned to tragedy and Michael’s demons claimed him.??In 1983 he was locked up after a 15-car police chase across Queensland and finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He never surfed again.

‘Searching for Michael Peterseon’ screened to sell-out audiences across Australia. Don’t miss the opportunity to catch it in the UK. Screening dates include:

* Tues 4 August: Roxy Bar & Screen, Borough High Street, London (SE1). Doors open 7pm, screening at 8pm, £3 on the door.
* Wed 5 August: The Sallis Benney Theatre, Grand Parade, Brighton. Doors open 7.30pm, screening at 8pm, £5 on the door or in advance through Brighton Dome Box office: 01273 709 709.
* Fri 7 August: The Lighthouse, Poole. Call 0844 406 8666 for details.
* Sat 8 August: Solva Memorial Hall, Solva, Nr St Davids, Wales. Screening at 8pm, £5 on the door.
* Sun 9 August: The Cube Cinema, 4 Princess Row, Bristol. Screening at 8pm, £5 on the door.
* Tues 11 August: Bude Community Cinema, The Parkhouse Centre, Bude. Screening at 8pm, £5 on the door.
* Wed 12 August: Carnmarth Hotel, Headland Road, Newquay. Doors and bar open at 7.30pm, screening at 8pm, £5 on the door.
* See www.thesurfscreen.com for details and updates.

Searching for Michael Peterson Trailer from jolyon hoff on Vimeo.

“I loved it” Scott Hulet, The Surfer’s Journal
“Brought a tear to my eye” Alby Falzon, director of ‘Morning of the Earth’
“At last! A surf movie that gets in your face and personal!” Bob McTavish, legendary Australian surfer & shaper

The key thing for me about making ‘Singlefin: Yellow’ and later, ‘One California Day’ (with Mark Jeremias and Build Worldwide) was that it was never about just making a good surf movie. It was always about trying to make a really good film. A film that could play at festivals and allow me to make more films and not necessarily surf projects. Which brings me to an important point for anyone inspired to take on this craft: Who is your audience and what is your goal as a filmmaker?

Guys like Bud Browne, Greg Noll, Hal Jepsen and Bruce Brown were some of the surf genre’s first the pioneers. Since those early days, surf films (like many products), have morphed to meet consumer and producer needs, resulting in what I see as several different sub genres.

There is:
. The Hollywood surf film: ‘Big Wednesday’ is hands down the best. There have been some really bad ones. Kudos however goes to A+ shooters like Don King, Sonny Miller & Mike Prickett for at least capturing the action beautifully… Too bad the stories seem to often be cheese ball. It is nice to see surfing shot with big money behind it.
. The corporate marketing movie: These generally profile team riders as a way of exploring and promoting brand values. They are easy to recognize, as they are usually pretty heavy on product placement and brand exposure. Arguably, Noll was also the first to utilize the original genre to represent his surfboard designs; the first industry marketing movies I suppose.
. The all action trick flick: this is what Taylor Steele specialized in with his early work and for many, the perfect pre-surf warm up. Often shot on video, these skate movie inspired videos are often focused more on great action than great production value but Steele has excelled by having both.
. The full on documentary: Examples of this, in my opinion include; ‘Bustin’ Down the Door’, ‘Riding Giants’ or ‘Surfwise’. I classify this type by interviews with a talking head (on camera), answering questions from an interviewer, classic documentary style focused on people who surf.
And lastly, where I feel my films fall:
. The independent experiential doc: I feel this is more surf film than the full on doc, but more about the lifestyle and the story of the experience than the marketing and action flicks. These films are independently produced, often without sponsors and embrace grass roots ways of getting the project out. In my opinion, Chris Malloy rejuvenated this sub genre with ‘Thicker than Water’ and this was furthered by Campbell’s ‘The Seedling’. Older films that might fit this type are ‘Five Summer Stories’ and ‘The Endless Summer’. They are as much about the experience of being a surfer, as about the documentation of the act or art of riding waves. Chris Malloy once told me that the surf film genre was built by surfers, traveling with their friends and documenting these trips to share with “the crew” back home. As he’s so modestly coined his own work – “these are just our home movies, thanks for watching.”

All these sub-genres tend to have different audiences who embrace the various work and this is why I always tell inspiring filmmakers: know your audience and what kind of film you are trying to make. You can’t make everyone happy, it’s truly impossible, but if you know your audience, you have a great place to start.
As far as weaving “story” into the films, I think to really convey or document the “experience” and share it with your friends – there has to be some level of storytelling. Otherwise, the audience is going to have no clue as to what is going on. I know for Mark Jeremias and I (very well shown with Mark’s DRIVE skateboarding series), we’ve tried to create a hybrid. In our world, there is content and story for a non-core audience (as in not a core surfer/skater) but we also capture the beauty, grace and excitement that is the act of riding and participating (for the core person). I like to say that I make films about surfers, not surfing. It starts and ends with the people and their stories but the imagery and the wave riding hopefully keeps the core surfer stoked.
For us, the hope is to make films that will enjoy a long shelf life. We don’t want to offer a “flavor of the week.” I think having interesting characters and showing their experience is key. Bruce Brown did this as good as anyone ever will with ‘The Endless Summer’ and that is why that film is still relevant today.
Ultimately you need to draw inspiration from those who have gone before (you can learn a lot this way). Then, know whom it is that you want to communicate with, be creative and shoot to the best technical standard you can. These are passion projects. You will either have to fund it yourself or find a way to “pitch” or sell it to investors. If your vision is clear and you can communicate it before cameras roll a single frame, you will be able to find support. If you are super lucky, maybe someone will embrace your vision enough to pay for the production on 16mm or even 35mm (film is a beautiful medium and 35mm is the Hollywood standard). I’d love to tell one of our simple campfire surf stories with Hollywood’s big budget toys – it would look amazing on the big screen and that’s really where surf movies belong.