Balaram Stack, Lungi Slabb, And A Swath Of South Australian Locals Feature In ‘Three Of Three’

Surf films burn cash.

Nozvid, Motel Hell, Repeater, and countless other preeminent surf releases cost well into the six-figure range, according to their respective creators.

On top of sponsorship dollars, Nathan Florence spent his own salary to fund the Slab Tour.

“The reality is things get buried pretty quick whether you’re proud of them or not,” Noa Deane told us. “Nozvid was pretty serious and took a couple of years to make, and I fucking burnt through so much cash doing that and it got ripped from the internet.”

Khyl McIntosh — creator of the above film — has been torching his own cash for the past few years, while documenting some of South Australia’s most compelling bathymetric sorcery.

“The funding for these films is fully out of pocket from myself and those involved in it,” he tells me. “The surfers are tapping their cards just as much as I am — even though a lot of the surfers have stickers, there’s no sponsors involved in the production of the film. It’s just us putting our money and time into it ourselves.”

“The challenges are definitely time and effort, especially being based in the Yorke Peninsula. There’s a lot of driving, which takes a toll on your wallet for sure. Also, I would say the lack of good surfers in South Australia can make it difficult. Plus ,everyone has their own lives. Most everyone in this clip is going to work, not just surfing.”

Named because it’s probably the last of the self-funded films Khyl will be creating, ‘Three of Three’ features South Australian locals Luke Sykora, Josh Lindsay, and Matt Lindsay, as well as Balaram Stack, Lungi Slabb, and Conner Coffin.

Though he’s proud of the release, Khyl can’t help but acknowledge the cloud of gloom that has been hanging over his local community after the recent string of shark attacks — the latest of which occurred at one of the lefts in the film, and took the life of a 15-year old boy.

“That rattled a lot of the community down here, a lot of people back in Adelaide too,” he says. “I guess as well with this film, I feel like it could brighten the community up a bit as well. Get the groms happy and in the water again. There’s definitely been a weight hanging over the surf community, over everyone down here in general.”

Click above for 27-minutes of shallow South Australian siren-song.