Watch: Kai Hing In “Still Splashing”
One surfer, one camera, one week in Indo—it's a sizzler.
The recipe's simple, really: take one of surfing's most talented young adolescents, Kai Hing, to Indo, shoot, edit to taste, desaturate, let sit, and serve.
The pair were in the Telo Islands earlier this year, where they'd scored a free roof over their head. But there was a catch – they were a little early and their accommodation wasn't ready to take bookings. They were boarded in a construction site, no windows, no air conditioning (oh the first world problems!), and a very limited menu. Pinnacles On Telo, is now finished and open for biz however!
Much like their first episode, Splashing, Kai and vid man, Shane Fletcher's sophomore release is tight, exclusively Indo, and all balls-to-the-wall. A few minutes featuring Kai doing fantastic things in dreamy conditions, wrapped in Shane's monochromatic film aesthetic.
Blue hues, tropical backdrops and our protagonist.
Recently we bumped tins with Kai at one of his local haunts on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. You couldn't miss the brace he had wrapped around his hinge. He sipped his beer, grinned and said it was a torn MCL, the result of a botched landing in Mex weeks earlier. The price? Two months out of the water. We discussed the Still Splashing project...
"It was mysto," Kai told Stab. "We were staying at this resort that wasn’t even built yet, but we got real fun waves. There was only this one guy out who owned the resort, just him and his buddy. All the other boats would come by and we'd take three hour shifts, so the most I surfed with was two other guys the whole time."
No windows, no aircon, but that view!
And the story behind the series?
"Splashing [their first instalment] was a gathering of footage that didn’t get run on the original trip edit. So I just found all this footage and Shane put it together, that’s kind of how Splashing came about. Then we thought, ‘why don’t just me and you, no other filmers, go and work on a Still Splashing and run it out?' So we went off the grid and yeah, that’s what we were working towards.”
Mr Hing flashing the undercarriage.
"I’ve known Kai for ages now," Shane explains. "I’ve seen many sides to him over the years (laughs) and he's become a good mate, but I was super impressed with what he got done over those few days surfing around the Telos. Some of those chandelier foam ball tubes he was making were crazy – that reef is so shallow! He wasn't surfing with any peers either, so to do that stuff without being pushed by mates or older guys was impressive. I'm pumped to see him shred when he’s back in the brine - he’ll be pushing it!"
