Old Surf Footage Makes New Documentary
Nov 13 2006 / Los Angeles, CAZen and the Art of Surf Discovery
Forget for a moment that the stereotype in your mind – wide-eyed surfers spouting Zen philosophy as they travel the globe in search of the perfect wave – has become something of a cliché: Greg Weaver and Spyder Wills just might be the archetype.
“I think that right now is a really good time to start looking back at some of the earlier decades, look at how surfing has changed, and look at how it keeps coming back to its roots,” says director Greg Schell, who got exclusive access to a treasure trove of old Super 8 film reels shot by Weaver and Wills during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s for his new documentary Chasing the Lotus: The Lost Reels of Weaver and Wills.
“Greg Weaver and Spyder Wills were among the first real pioneers of surf discovery, and they filmed everything,” says Schell. “As a surfer, coming across these films is like uncovering the most incredible historic artifact you can imagine.”
Starting in the 1960s, Weaver and Wills set forth on a voyage that would span four decades and take them to previously undocumented spots around the world. Along the way, they shot iconic images for Surfer Magazine and other publications that helped define surf culture and inspired generations of surf nomads.
Some of the duo’s film footage was made famous in movies like Pacific Vibrations (1970), Forgotten Island of Santosha (1974), and Big Wednesday (1978), but their true contribution to surf culture was as underground filmmakers. As Weaver and Wills traveled the world on magazine assignments and as film crew members to document the top surfers of each era, they never abandoned their hobby of shooting Super 8 films to privately document secret spots, obscure waves, unknown local riders, and the fascinating foreign cultures that contributed to their love of surfing.
 Upcoming Chasing the Lotus screenings:
November 10, Cucalorus Film Festival, NC
December 14, Pierside Theater, Huntington Beach, CA
December 21, Village Theater, Manhattan Beach, CA
December 28, La Paloma Theater, Encinitas, CA January 11-14, Red Vic Movie House, San Francisco, CA |
These films were shared only with an insider crew of friends, family, and a select handful of surf pros and fellow travelers, and were treated like pirate treasure maps. In a way, that’s exactly what they were: Even as Weaver and Wills were actively involved in promoting their sport and providing mainstream exposure for some of the best spots in the world, the filmmakers knew when to keep a secret.
“There’s a very thin line between total exposure and keeping something secret,” says Schell. “Anyone who goes out and films surfing runs the risk of exposing a spot, and then all of a sudden the next year it’s so crowded that the experience is ruined. Weaver and Wills were very conscious of that line, and that’s part of the reason they didn’t make these films public before now. Another reason is that the reels were buried deep in Greg Weaver’s garage for more than 25 years!”
Schell cut together the best footage from Weaver and Wills’ archive, then made it his mission to track down and interview as many of the featured surfers as possible, including Gerry Lopez, Sunny Garcia, Corky Carroll, Rory Russell, Peter King, Buttons, Randy Rarick, and skateboarder Stacey Peralta. Peralta, director of Dogtown and Z Boys, probably wishes he’d gotten Schell’s call a few years sooner: Among the buried treasure in Weaver’s garage, Schell unearthed several reels of never-before-seen footage – now featured in Chasing the Lotus – documenting the Dogtown skate scene.
So why did the old pirates finally decide to give up their secret stash?
“It was very important to Greg and Spyder at the time to keep these films private and to protect their scene, but they felt like now was the right time,” says Schell. “I got lucky in that sense because I was the guy who came along right at that moment asking to see their film archive, but even I deal with the issue: Just last week, after screening my movie, I had a guy paddle up to me at this spot, sort of a localized, secretive spot that I won’t name, and he said, ‘Hey aren’t you the guy who made the movie I saw last night?’ He thanked me and said it was a great movie, but then he said, ‘Just don’t make a movie about this place!’ I had to laugh. I’m not in the business of exposing secret spots: I’m only interested in telling a story.”
– Colin Bane
- Read the Chasing the Lotus Interview
