This Is What A Year Of Not Posting Your Best Clips On Instagram Looks Like

There’s nothing wrong with a slow burn. In fact, when it comes to the creative process and surfing, a little extra time to marinate is a good thing. The end result of forsaking the 24/7 social media cycle results in better clips, more thoughtful edits and an overall better experience for everyone from the surfer to the filmmaker to the audience. That’s what Perry Gershkow is trying to prove, anyway, with his new film Elude.

Growing up in San Francisco, the son of a documentary film editor, Perry learned from day one to respect and enjoy the process. He bought his first camera when he was 19. Made his first film at 23. Today he has his own production company, specializing in filmmaking and directing, from commercial work to surf film to micro-documentaries. He also has a production house with his pal and Stab contributor Kyle Buthman called TreeHouseVisual.

In Elude, Perry teams up with Noah Wegrich and friends, chases waves around the world and reads poetry. He just dropped the trailer, the full-length film comes out in January.

Stab: What do we need to know about “Elude”?
Perry Gershkow: I’ve been filming over the course of the last two years in five different countries, including California, Canada, Indonesia, Ireland and Scotland.

Who’s in it?
The film follows Noah Wegrich, but also features sections from Nat Young, Nate Tyler, Jake Kelly, Gearoid Mcdaid, Colin Moran and Conor Maguire.  

Is it a straight surf flick or is there more to it?
The premise of the film, along with a handful of my other films, is to show off the beauty of these amazing places along with soundtracks and sound design in a way that everyone can connect with. Music and sound is something I take a lot of time on—it’s the backbone of most of my surf films.  With the right sounds, a surf flick stand out amongst the rest.  We also wanted to show the extremes between warm water and cold water places, for instance Indonesia and Scotland.  

I also wrote a 50 line poem that is voiced over throughout the film, that dives into moods and feelings and colors and so forth. I’m most excited to show you don’t need to come out with a clip every other week to stay relevant whether it be a surfer or filmmaker. I think rushing the process has become a norm in the surf world, where 10 years ago that wasn’t an issue. It’s important to not only put time into your work, but also to figure out ways to make your work original and different than the last person. In this case, I wrote out a poem these last few months and I think it’s helped me in the creative process and also try something new and different that I’ve never done before, challenging myself to something unknown is always exciting.

Ok, but what about the performance level? Is there something in this for the surf porn addict too? 
Yeah, I’m super excited to show everyone why Noah hasn’t come out with many edits this past year. We’ve been saving up some pretty mental clips and I’m stoked to show everyone how talented of a surfer he really is, along with the rest of the cast of surfers in the film.

Premiere dates/locations:

1/10 Rio Theater, Santa Cruz 

1/17 Sunset Reservoir Brewing Company, San Francisco 

1/21 Proof Lab, Mill Valley 

2/1 Vancouver