Boys Surfing Men’s Waves

This film never happened. Thousands of dollars, many hours of orchestration, the slow, careful process of prying junior professionals from the protective arms of their families and sponsors, the hiring of a charter-boat and the gamble that comes with pouring said money and effort into a boat trip, especially with inexperienced groms. That all happened. But the film didn’t. Photos from Jimmy Wilson filled the Stab inbox, Jed Smith profiled the trip’s commodities, the magazine went to print with the story, Burning In Water, taking pages 38 to 55. But the film never happened.

Filling a magazine with a select handful of action photographs and portraits is far easier than slicing together a (proposed) half-hour movie. Especially from a trip marred by misfortune in every way, including and most of all, lack of film-able waves. According to Riley Blakeway and Jed Smith, the photographs from the trip tell a lie. The images make the trip seem like a fruitful venture, every day a new lineup of blank-canvases for the boat occupants to throw heat at. But it wasn’t so – what you see in print is a deceiving depiction, albeit an aesthetically-pleasing one.

So what does that leave us with? It leaves us with the very talented Riley Blakeway locked in his editing cave, cutting together every useable piece of footage he can peel from his memory cards. We have Riley finishing an edit and holding onto it for months, torn between trying to fatten it out with b-grade clips to the originally-proposed clip length or rolling it out as is. The cover-mount DVD, as was part of the original plan, was an idea soon discarded. But now, after some time, we bring you edits from the trip. Edits from a film that never was. More to come soon.

WASTED

Starring

Jack Robinson

Ian Gentil

Conner Coffin

Caio Ibelli

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