a few years ago now i made a surfing film called ‘lines from a poem…’.
its focus was on classical longboarding using traditional equipment. although the film was essentially a collection of current footage that i shot, it also incorporated a blend of super-eight footage of '60s log riding that i was fortunate enough to get my hands on. i just happened to meet an elderly neighbour of a friend who had a few reels of super eight laying around. it was a joy for me to include his never-seen-before-seen work in my movie, because otherwise it would just be rotting in a shoebox in his shed, lost to the world.
i’m now working on a second film whose focus is in part about exploring a diverse range of waveriding toys. i reckon the whole anything-goes movement in surfboard riding is not an exclusively ‘now’ phenomenon. people have been making & riding a range of left-of-centre boards for a long time & i would like to recognise them in my next film.
so the point of my post is to ask if there is any swaylockers out there who have old footage of themselves or others surfing; whether on logs, singlefins, fish, mats, twinfins, thrusters, bellyboards, bodysurfing, handboards, or whatever; who are happy for me to use the footage in my film. i’m not just interested in footage of famous surfers, but laymen too.
i know there’s lots of footage out there, in people’s sheds or under beds or in attics. i’d love to have the chance to give the past a chance of seeing the light of day once again.
ideally, i’m after eight or sixteen millimetre film that has been transferred to mini-DV, or to quicktime files on DVD.
i apologise for interrupting a surfboard design website with this post, but i reckon there’d be more than a few members of our sways community out there who might be holding a bit of special film from yesteryear.
hey ben. thanks for the offer, but i’m actually after older stuff, especially 70s, 60s, 50s straight-eight or super-eight or even sixteen.
if you’d like your footage put on dvd, it’s possible to pull stuff off vhs to a digital format. most places have a transfer house. look up something like ‘dvd memories’ or ‘digital transfer service’ or whatever in the phonebook. there’s a bunch of them around.
… when video took over , I thought " I’ll never watch this film stuff of mine again , and no-one is interested in it , anyway " bzzzzt… wrong.
when I left Sydney in 1983 , among heaps of other stuff, I threw out an hours worth of super eight and yes , even some STANDARD 8 movies [all the kodak 3 minute ones , spliced together…footage from the late '70s of l.a. , bower , d.y. point , me skating [as a 16 year old ].
…oh well …
I guess I’d better not do the same with my v.c.r. footage , then , eh ?! [I’m guessing it won’t last 20 years , so I’d better save up the pennies , and do what you suggested , Nathan . ]
… when video took over , i thought " i’ll never watch this film stuff of mine again , and no-one is interested in it , anyway " bzzzzt… wrong.
when I left Sydney in 1983 , among heaps of other stuff, I threw out an hours worth of super eight and yes , even some STANDARD 8 movies [all the kodak 3 minute ones , spliced together…footage from the late '70s of l.a. , bower , d.y. point , me skating [as a 16 year old ].
…oh well …
oh ben that’s heartbreaking! like all the stories of classic logs getting stripped down (or worse, thrown out) during the ushering in of shortboards. but i guess everyone has stories like that. i remember giving away old twins and singles to kids in my neighbourhood in my early teens because i thought only thrusters were cool. wish i had them now. (& the irony is now that my thrusters are the least used boards in my quiver - lol).
but for all the film & foam that has been discarded over the years, i know there must be some beautiful old boards & classic footage sitting around in attics, basements, under houses.
i’d love to have the chance to help that kind of footage see the light of day. & i guess this thread is a bit of a shot in the dark, but where else but sways might i find folks who have old reels of surfing.
…the point of my post is to ask if there is any swaylockers out there who have old footage of themselves or others surfing; whether on logs, singlefins, fish, mats, twinfins, thrusters, bellyboards, bodysurfing, handboards, or whatever; who are happy for me to use the footage in my film. i’m not just interested in footage of famous surfers, but laymen too.
i know there’s lots of footage out there, in people’s sheds or under beds or in attics. i’d love to have the chance to give the past a chance of seeing the light of day once again.
ideally, i’m after eight or sixteen millimetre film that has been transferred to mini-DV, or to quicktime files on DVD.
i apologise for interrupting a surfboard design website with this post, but i reckon there’d be more than a few members of our sways community out there who might be holding a bit of special film from yesteryear.
