Smorgasboarder_12_July-2012

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 12 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 2012
25