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Tracks discusses film maker Taylor Steele’s latest creation post premier. |
My first memories of Taylor Steele are of meeting a shy and unassuming 20 something year old cruiser in Hawaii in 1995. He laid pretty low and had a video camera (complete with tripod) slung over his shoulder in preparation to shoot Rob Machado and Shane Dorian surf out Pipeline. Following the session I sat in on a playback viewing at Benji Weatherly’s house right on the beachfront. The humble abode was far from a palace and it was sit where ever. Watching the playbacks with these Seppo’s was as relaxed and funny as doing it with your closest friends. Bad waves were laughed at and good waves rewarded with understated props. The thing this Momentum generation (a moniker they carried once Taylor’s first film of the same name was released in 1992) had on their side was despite all their success they didn’t have any bullshit rivalry on land. In the water it was ‘game on’ all the way – but that’s where it ended. Despite being an Australian and having grown up with the “Us versus them” mentality constantly hammered into me, it wasn’t hard to realize these cats were all right. Whether that can be said for them all now is another question? Amazingly though, the fairly reserved bloke with the video camera I meet back then has gone onto to become one of the most successful surf filmmakers of all time. Not only has he released some of the most loved high-octane styled films on the planet (like Stranger Than Fiction and Campaign 1 & 2), he’s also delivered one of the most beautifully textured films in ‘Sipping Jetstreams’. As Tracks editor Luke Kennedy points out, “In ‘Sipping…’ Taylor, understands that on film surfing looks better when juxtaposed to different subjects – particularly when they are shots of compelling landscapes and infrequently seen far away lands.” Anyone who’s seen ‘Sipping Jet Streams’ would agree with this simple analysis. But what of his second effort in this more open genre of surf film, ‘Castles In The Sky’. The film premiered last night at Sydney’s Fox studios and this morning I asked Luke and Tracks staffer Fletch what they thought of the film…
Fletch Van Geldermalsen: Editorial co-ordinator (and shinning white unicorn)
“I’m sure ‘Castles in the Sky’ is a beautiful surf film – unfortunately I just couldn’t see it. And not in a long-nosed art critic, ‘I just don’t see it?’ Kinda way, I just actually couldn’t see the movie clearly. I don’t know if it was where I was sitting or the free warm Coronas but to me it looked like they’d lost the original, and had a 10 Meg replacement emailed over from Bali and then hit the ‘full screen’ button on their lappy just before we walked into the cinema. Which was sad,
because the blurry landscapes and pixel-ated lifestyle footage looked like it would’ve been really beautiful. Apart from Sipping’s bookends the quality of surf and level of surfing in ‘Castles…’ was better. Highlights to me including; Dane Reynolds and Dan Malloy cutting their way through thousand knot winds in Iceland, Jordy Smith and Craig Anderson flying through the motherland, and Rasta shooting the pier in India. I don’t know whether it’s as a result of having more quality aquatic material or simply a response to feedback on ‘Sipping…’ but Taylor has tipped the lifestyle/surfing balance further toward the latter in ‘Castles…’ and nearly everyone I spoke to afterwards appreciated the spectrum shift. After the film Taylor described the film as, ‘a collection of his ‘home movies’. But sitting in the crowd it felt to me more like a good in-joke. An in-joke that elicited from the audience the two typical responses to a secret half-shared with outsiders – some of them just didn’t get it, and so responded against it, while the rest (myself included) could see that it was a good joke, and wanted in, and will probably watch this film over and over again trying to find a way to get there.
Luke Kennedy: Tracks editor (and shaggy headed frother)
“Not sure how many Coronas Fletch had? But it looked fine from where I was sitting. ‘Castles…’ featured incredible cinematography, a delicate choice of locations and an eclectic cast of surfers. The South American section with Rob Machado certainly made me want to travel to Peru – strange that my favourite section stars two goofy-footers surfing lefts. [Luke’s a natural footer]. For pure perfection you just couldn’t go past the long perfect lefts. Clay Marzo comes of looking like a modern day genius while Rob does a hell of a lot more than just drift. My only criticism is that Taylor knows how to make the camera talk, but not the people in his film. I enjoyed the rawness of the out takes way more than the overly controlled pseudo poetic script. That said it’s a beautifully shot film that every surfer should see. Perhaps his next challenge will be to combine his gift for capturing the perfect image with a more documentary style, humanistic approach. That I’d like to see.”
Photos: India air / Rob Machado and locals / Taylor (L) discusses the film with Dan Malloy (r) / Dane Reynolds ripping in Iceland
CASTLES IN THE SKY from Sipping Jetstreams on Vimeo.
