“It’s been gnarly.” Those are the first three words Logan Dulien uses to explain the road he’s taken to bring Snapt5 this close to the finish line. In a little over a week, the film will premiere in Southern California, but he admits there was a time in the process of making this installment — one he declared would close the books on his legendary, two-decade-old series — when he nearly canceled it altogether.
“I didn’t announce it, but I talked to the guys (in the film),” he told me. And then he had a change of heart. “I’m like, ‘Dude, I can’t just sit here and dwell and have nothing to channel my energy into.’ So it’s been a wild f***ing ride. This made COVID (when Snapt4 was made) a walk in the park.”
Wild rides are kind of par for the course when it comes to the Snapt story though. So his concise summary, “It’s been gnarly,” is a fitting way to wrap it all up. There’s a list of things Dulien says made getting Snapt5 across the finish line a struggle, personal and professional, but most of all, he seems ready to refocus on his own love for surfing again and soak up time with family.
“I want to simplify my life to the point where I’m just able to focus on going on trips and surfing, enjoying surfing for surfing, not because it’s my identity,” adding that he expects taking a step back to be liberating.
And then there’s “the content game,” as we call it in our conversation. If anybody knows how much the game has changed, it’s Logan “Chucky” Dulien, whose first film came out in 2002 headlined by a yet-to-be-crowned Andy Irons. AI won his first world title that year and Snapt and Snapt2 rose with him. Making a feature-length film with A-list talent wasn’t the same task it is today, partly because you didn’t have to ask a surfer to hold their best clips under lock and key. The demands sponsors put on their athletes now complicates that, from hitting a quota of posts on Instagram to pumping out click-grabbing vlogs nonstop.
“Everybody wants content right now more than ever, especially the brands,” he says, adding that those brands will ocassionally come asking to buy footage before he can add it to his own films. The conflict is pretty clear: if a film’s best clips are already making the internet rounds, why would any of us still show up to see it? Those demands cost Baron Mamiya $50K back in 2021 when he won the prize purse Dulien put up for the film’s best section but wasn’t eligible because some of his surfing had already been posted online. It was the film’s “golden rule.”
So, in a little more than a week (August 2), Logan Dulien will premiere what should be the final Snapt film. What’s next for the brand isn’t clear. Dulien says he didn’t build the whole thing up over 23 years to completely walk off into the sunset now. There will be a pivot and there will be other projects. As he puts it, there have to be ways to keep evolving. For now, though, he’s putting the finishing touches on a film that features 20 surfers and more than 20 groms. Mason Ho is back. So is Clay Marzo. Yago Dora and Jack Robinson. Taro Watanabe is a guy Logan’s been psyching on since he first told us this film was coming. Jackson Dorian. Tosh Tudor. It’s an impressive list of talent. So it was a “really gnarly” task getting it all together.
It’ll be the end of an era.
“I started making the Snapt movies when I got off opiates,” he says. “This thing’s been such a huge part of my my recovery and my comeback. I’m just so grateful I was able to channel my energy into positive outlets like surfing and making these films.”
Editor’s Note: Tickets for the August 2 premiere of Snapt5 in Huntington Beach can be found here.
Snapt5
