I have loved surf films since I was a kid in the 80’s. And I mean LOVED surf films. I couldn’t get enough. It was nothing like today where you have access to epic surf content in every flavor, whenever you want, at any time. The Inertia didn’t exist, no Youtube the SurfNetwork, Vaporvue, Instagram, or free streaming, downloadable content of any kind. You had to hunt for it. You had to wait for it. You had to go on a quest to find it. If you were lucky your local video store would have BigWednesday, or if you had cool parents they might even buy one from your local surf shop. I had one friend with a surf flick in junior high and we would go to his house and watch the same VHS tape over and over again day after day. Even though for the life of me I can’t recall the title, I can still see all the rides in my head. Set to a sound track of Talking Heads, Martin Potter at Off The Wall would pop the first little airs I’d ever seen and we would all mind surf our brains out until we were convinced we could do what they were doing. It was our education. It was our fuel for stoke. It was our exotic surf trip. It would keep us going until we could get the real fix we wanted.
As I grew up the world changed. Tayler Steele got big and the Woodshed crew blossomed. I had my own money and I could buy my own films and so I collected their films. I remember watching Loose Change, Thicker than Water, Shelter, September Session, Believe, then Sprout and my life changed. I remember watching Sprout for the tenth time and being fixated on watching the Malloys ride a fish at a right hand point, Tom Wegener with his Paulonia boards and Mark Cunnigham’s prone magic. I decided right there that the future me would ride a wooden fish and body surf more. I would never be the same. I went from being a grom wanting to fit in riding everything my friends did, to wanting to be unique and wanting to ride boards that inspired me. I wanted to explore new materials and new ways to ride waves.
Fast forward a few years as I look back to my education through these films, realizing they had a huge influence on me. My education through the lens of these movies was vast. I wanted the freedom to ride a board I made, in waves that were empty on a beach that didn’t have trash. I wanted the perfection of the environment I surfed in and a little farm house I could call my own with a shaping shack in the back that my friends and I could use to build boards. The beauty and life style these filmmakers captured inspired me to want a world just as beautiful and pristine and I found in myself a desire to obtain what I wanted. That is basically how Enjoy Handplanes came into existence. It was a culmination of the films I saw and a way for me to actualize my dreams of trashless beaches and perfect waves. As Enjoy came into existence and we grew, it became a vehicle for me to not only live out the lifestyle of my dreams but to help make the world the place films are made of. I started to use business to spark change. I donated time, money and product to organizations that did the environment good. I started cleaning up trash from the beach and kept old boards and wetsuits from landfills. And I started to see the value in others who did the same. As my desire to live in a world of beauty increased I found my way to organizations like Patagonia and Save The Waves who were actively fighting for what it was I believed in: beauty, our environment, waves and the conservation of it.
“Punta De Lobos” handplane for a cause by Enjoy Handplanes. Inspired by the film “The Fisherman’s Son” by Chris Malloy, $20 a handplane is donated to help Save The Waves conserve Punta De Lobos, Chile thanks to the Change for a Twenty program in partnership with Entropy Resins.
Fast forward one more time and I’m sitting in the historic La Paloma Theater in Encinitas waiting for a film to start. It’s the premier of The Fisherman’s Son by Chris Malloy. Through the magic of story telling and surfing, the beauty of Roman Navarro struggle, his family and countryman to save a pristine wave from over development, is displayed before me. All I can think about is how I can help? How can I be a part of the change? It was a powerful moment and an example of yet again the power of surf films and how they can change you and the world we live in.
Editor’s Note: The author looks forward to finding that same inspiration when he attends the The 2015 Save The Waves Film Festival presented by Pacifico, in San Diego at Bird’s Surf Shed on Thursday 11/5/15.
The Save The Waves Film Festival is a fundraiser for the Save The Waves Coalition and World Surfing Reserves – all proceeds raised will support their international coastal conservation programs – and is proudly supported by Patagonia, Clif Bar, The Inertia, and Volcom. For more information visit savethewaves.org/filmfest2015
