Coming Soon: Jordy Smith in “Now Now”

Jordy Smith is one of the world tour webcast’s most magnetic figures. Since unapologetically storming onto the dream tour, Jordy’s shown us all how endearing the transition from cocky benchwarmer to graceful batsman can really be. A more relevant South African surfer does not currently exist. Watching all 6’3″ of him hospitalise a beachie end section or man-handle a Cloudbreak freight train with equal panache will steal your breath. But Jordy doesn’t just dance for the judges – 2013’s been a year in which he has shocked with freesurf clips. And it was only a matter of time til we’d be gifted a digital extended play.

Welcome to Now Now, an 18-minute collage of moments tagged and bagged during the first six months of this year (available on iTunes Friday, September 13). Directed by Jacob Wooden and filmed in Mozambique, South Africa and Indo, one simple mantra has kept Jordy’s batteries charged and allowed us the pleasure of Now Now: “I just want to go surf. That’s what I want to do.”

What follows is a discussion with Jordy about elements of the film, and about life as a professional surfer in 2013.

Action photo by Nate Lawrence

Stab: First, what does the title mean?
Jordy Smith: Now Now is just kind of a South-African thing, we always say it. Like, “I’m coming now now.” Like, see you soon.

You got the extended profile film outta the way, now you’re punching out a shorter venture. What made you wanna do it? I didn’t have plans to do any movies. Then I just got this gnarly bug to put out content. I want to put out short movies that are really action-packed, but tell a small story. Now Now doesn’t have much of a story behind it, but that’s where I wanna head in the next five years. Just make a bunch of short films about where I’m going and what I’m experiencing. I think what inspired that was Bending Colours – I felt like it was a sick movie, but it didn’t have much of my character in it. I didn’t have much creative control over it. Sometimes when I see clips of me out there, it’s like, dang, the surfing wasn’t that good and I wish someone didn’t make that edit of me. Now I get to have that creative control, as well as quality control. Quality over quantity.

Gone are the days when you had to either do tour or video. Now you’ve gotta be able to do both. Definitely. It’s not like I’m putting massive pressure on myself to make these massive movies. I’m just going out surfing, doing my thing. Filming gets me super amped and obviously improves your surfing. And that only helps from contests.

How does filming improve your surfing? When you’re filming you’re continually trying to push your own limits, for one, and then whoever’s in the water, whatever they’re doing is inspiring you and making you try harder. And that’s the only way you’re gonna get better. I find that filming does that because you’re always trying to push your own boundaries. Once you’re familiar with that, it definitely helps when you translate it into a heat.

Just one reason why you want to watch this film. Yo-Yos, Indo. Photo by Nate Lawrence

Where’s the film shot? We shot in Bali, then obviously there’s the Mozambique stuff, which I shot earlier in the year. But not much of it has been seen, and I want people to see how incredible this wave, and this place is. And the last place we shot was Durban, which was a little throw-together section when I was there for the Mr Price Pro. My main focus at the time was hanging out with my friends and family, and surfing the contest, but then there were some fun waves around, so we thought we’d see what we could get. My mindset was, I’m here for the contest, but once I started bagging clips, I thought, hang on, I could make a little section. Then it kinda became more about the section than the contest. But I ended up getting second, and I had a cool video part, so it all worked out.

We saw some of the Mozambique stuff in your X-Games section. How much was left over?  Well, when I first went in the X-Games I didn’t really read the rules too much. But it said we were only allowed 90 seconds. And to be honest, one of the waves from mozambique was close to 90 seconds. So I was like, well, that’s going to be my whole section.

You should’ve entered it! Just one wave! (Laughs). Yeah! But we had to cut it up and make it shorter, then put in the one-hit wonders, where you go one turn, one turn, one turn. It’s the only way to get some variety in a short section. So the new movie is a good way to show off more of that spot. I love the place. It’s somewhere I want to go back… pretty much, I want to go back there right now. I can’t get enough of it.

And it’s not just the wave itself you’re particularly fond of, right? Well for one, I was surfing it with just one of my best friends and I in the water. And secondly, it was perfect, uncrowded waves. It was a newly-discovered spot for me, really close to home and the water’s really warm. But the main thing was that it turned everything around for me last year, and pulled me out of the slump I was in. That meant the most, it was like oh my god, I’m finally over this hump. I think I just fell in love with surfing again.

Where’d you scoop the most clips? Probably in Bali. We went to Yo-Yos and got good waves down there. Not high-performance surfing or anything, but more big carves and barrels. I love carves. I want more hacks in my next film.

Tell me about the flips. It’s something that a few guys have done already, but I don’t feel like anyone’s really put a stamp on them. They’ve always been a one-hit wonder. They’ve always been into the wind at Rocky Lefts. I felt like that’s the way people were used to seeing them, and no one got massive amounts of credit for them. But I’m really psyched on one of them. It’s the last clip in my movie.

How many did you do? I did three backflips, they’re all in the movie, all done at Ballito. One session’s not windy, the other session’s offshore and the third one’s howling onshore. So, three different variables. I think they’re all equally as high, but the last one that I did was shot from the high angle, so it doesn’t look as big, but I landed it way smoother.

I love that you stomped a couple after what you said in the Fly Me To The Moon episode. Yeah I couldn’t believe it, I thought that was super sick. I was out in the surf with Clowse (trainer Jarrad Howse), and I was like, “You know what? I haven’t even tried a backflip yet.” I’ve seen Medina doing them, and John John doing them in his movie, so I thought, lemme try one. And seriously next wave, it happened. When you see the clip, if you look in the background, you’ll see Clowse just clapping. – Elliot Struck

Now Now will be available on iTunes Friday, September 13.