LATEST: COMMUNITY TOP: The Storm Surfers camera crew secure their purpose-built 3D camera rig to the fishing boat, which is about to take them 75 km offshore to a never-beforesurfed break. Photo: Mick Curley INSET: The camera boat gets knocked by a massive swell, almost destroying the Side x Side 3D camera rig. Photo: Mike Riley BOTTOM: Justin McMillan and Dean Cropp track Tom Carroll as he flies down the face of a giant wave at a previously un-ridden break. Photo: Jamie Scott 24 jul/aug 20<strong>12</strong>
We had a camera department that was completely devoted to not being beaten by the elements. I get a sense of gratification from the narrative of the story but also a sense of achievement from what went down. I am proud of what we achieved as a team technically to allow the audience to go to these environments. It would have been really easy to throw a project like this into the ‘too hard basket’. I think in four or five years time there will be better technology out there where you will be able to shoot a film such as this a lot more easily, but we just weren’t prepared to wait that long. DAVE: So how long did the project take? JUSTIN: From start to finish from the first day of shooting to the last day of edit was a year and a half. The filming took around four to five months. In terms of developing the gear, shooting the film and the editing suite, not one of those stages was easy. The editing, if anything, was harder than the shooting. So many shots to sift through, fix up… So many different camera formats. We had 1500 hours of footage. No one had done it before so there wasn’t anyone you could call for advice. We couldn’t bring in an expert. We had to figure it out for ourselves. We were just so lucky we had some intelligent people working on the project and such good post-production partners. DAVE: I gather filming a movie of this nature presents a number of challenges particularly when your studio is a heaving ocean? JUSTIN: It is a logistical challenge. I mean, some of the locations we are filming in are quite remote and we essentially have a four-hour window where the conditions are just right to get twenty-five crew, five jetskis, helicopters, light aircraft and all the gear – camera rigs, some twenty-six 3D cameras - and other various bits of equipment out to the break. In Western Australia we travelled six hours in a cray-fishing boat just to get out there. Once out there, there’s no, “Take two.” People are putting their lives on the line and you pray we have captured it. DAVE: You are also keen on surfing big waves. Does this help with positioning the cameramen to get the right camera angle? JUSTIN: I like surfing biggish waves, but about a third of the size that Ross Clarke-Jones likes them. I’ve never considered myself to be a big wave surfer in any shape or form. I have spent a lot of time in the ocean when it has been massive. The more time you put yourself on the coalface, the more comfortable you become. You gain a better understanding of the ocean. Ever since I was young, that type of ocean has made me feel alive. So I can see how guys like Tom and Ross get addicted to riding those waves. I get addicted to trying to capture it on film. When I talk with the likes of Jack McCoy and Tim Bonython - those legends of the industry - they have the same addiction. I think it is pretty common for anyone who does this kind of stuff. DAVE: An in-depth understanding of the ocean helps, but there is obviously a lot of danger involved in putting together a film of this nature? JUSTIN: Anyone that goes on these things is definitely putting themselves at risk. I’m on a ski the whole time, running things from the water. Chris is either on a fishing trawler nearby or a helicopter with Ben Matson. You want to be in the trenches with the guys to show them you are just as committed as they are, despite a huge gap between filming in the water to catching these waves. But I think everyone in these circumstances has their sleeves rolled up and their hands dirty. I think that’s really important if you are going to lead a team of close to thirty people. We have had situations where Chris is in the helicopter and has lost altitude due to an exploding wave and the rear rotor has almost clipped the lip of a wave. I’ve had numerous instances where the jetski has stalled with a 20ft wave coming towards me. If you are going to go out there, then you‘re in the firing line. It’s not as dangerous as the surfing, but the stakes are high nonetheless. Everyone is putting their lives at risk and because we are working in the ocean. That tired, old cliché rings true: ‘Expect the unexpected.’ If a wave has never broken in that particular part of the channel, don’t think it can’t. You get freak occurrences and when you combine that with people who are caught up in the action filming something, you find boats drifting too close to the break and inevitably yourself or your crew in precarious situations. We are all spotting for one another but the call may come for the cameraman to get closer… Then a wide one comes and you are in a situation. With that said, if you kept thinking about something that nearly happened and that could have happened, you probably wouldn’t end up doing anything. DAVE: Was there ever a point where it was just too big or where you said, “Did you just see the size of that thing that just swam past?” JUSTIN: There was a situation in Western Australia where Tom went over the falls on a jetski and we were towing the ski back in. A pod of forty dolphins went past and then a giant Southern Right Whale that was as big as a bus came right up alongside us. It’s at times like that you feel so insignificant in the ocean - in a place where, I guess, humans aren’t really supposed to be. You are a part of something a lot bigger. If anything was going to happen, there were so many opportunities for it to happen this year whilst filming the movie. Dangling in deep water, 75km off shore waiting for sets to come… In Western Australia where I think there has been six fatalities in the last <strong>12</strong> months. There are things you have to do that are unavoidable. You have to be in the water to rig up skis. We will spend up to twenty minutes in the water swimming around getting these skis on and off the trawler. You have deckhands on these trawlers looking over the side keeping an eye on things, shaking their heads because they know what they have seen off the back of their boats in these environments. “ IF YOU KEPT THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT NEARLY HAPPENED AND THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED, YOU PROBABLY WOULDN’T END UP DOING ANYTHING.” Photo: Rodd Owen Photo: Rodd Owen Photo: Dean Dampney MEET THE (HELL)MEN TOM CARROLL Regarded as one of the world’s best surfers. He won two world surfing championship crowns in 1984 and 1985 and won the Pipeline Masters in Hawaii three times etching his name in the record books as one of the greatest surfers of his era. ROSS CLARKE-JONES The first non-Hawaiian to win the prestigious Eddie Aikau Memorial at Waimea Bay on Hawaii’s north shore. The competition is only held when the waves break consistently at twenty feet. He is one of the all time great big wave surfers and a pioneer of tow-surfing. BEN MATSON A world leading meteorologist and surf forecaster and the man who developed www. swellnet.com.au, one of Australia’s most popular surf forecasting sites. It all started for Ben when he was studying meteorology and posted his surf forecasts on the noticeboard of his local surf store in Adelaide. JUSTIN MCMILLAN & CHRIS NELIUS It would be impossible to produce a film of this nature without the pairing of these two co-directors working in unison. The director/ writer/ producer partnership began six years ago with the making of Ross Clarke-Jones’ biopic The Sixth Element. They teamed up again with Ross to surf the Cape of Good Hope resulting in a half-hour documentary Cape of Storms and then again with Ross, Tom and a number of other big wave surfers in Red Bull: Tai Fu. From there, with the help of Firelight Productions, the Storm Surfers series began: Storm Surfers – Dangerous Banks 2008, Storm Surfers – New Zealand 2010 and now Storm Surfers 3D. jul/aug 20<strong>12</strong> 25
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