Project Overview
Red Bull approached us with this amazing project focused on rising surf phenom, Jarvis Earle. Although he is only eighteen years old, he is quickly rising up the ranks of professional surfing. Having won the world juniors, earned a spot on the WSL Challenger Series and called up to surf on the Championship Tour, Jarvis represents the future of Australian surfing and has become an integral part of the Red Bull Surfing team. One of those projects that comes right at a pivotal moment in the athletes career.
We were hired to create a number of different videos, starting with the mini documentary above, three different 1 - 2 minute social clips and a folder of beautiful stills. The first social clip we needed to introduce Jarvis to the Taiwan audience, so we had him have mandarin lesson with two local Taiwanese surfers. The second clip was a pure action clip, packing in as many turns as we could within a minute. The third social clip was focused on Jarvis’ path to victory at the Taiwan Open.
We had a three week window to shoot, edit and deliver the entire project. This took a strong team to make it all come together. For this project we had a director, two cameramen, an FPV pilot and a still photographer. We shot with a mix of black magic, RED Monstro and gopros.
Services:
Creative concept
Cinematography
Editing (Color and animation
Audio Capture & Sound Design
Equipment
Black Magic 6k
RED Monstro
DJ1 Mavic 2 pro
GoPro Hero 11
Timeline
4 weeks pre production
18 days - Filming + Editing
Team
Director
Camera operator x2
Drone operator
Still Photographer
We packed a whole bunch gear and clothes and got on the road. We had the whole Bei City Crew, and our FPV Pilot Xiao Lu in the van, and we met up with Luke Cameron from Stone Soup
We met up with two local surfers, Devlyn & Noa. Devlyn provided all the laughs and Noa had the local knowledge of the breaks.
We also spoke with Bei Bei, the WSL Commentator, to learn about the waves at the Competition site for the Taiwan Open of Surfing.
The idea for the mini documentary was to introduce Jarvis to a few of the staples of the local surf community and through this, help introduce the Taiwanese surf community to the audience.
We spent an afternoon with Apoo, the owner of Buoyancy Board shop, and a few of his friends, Gabe and Pudat. They talked to us about the slow pace of life on the south east coast, and Pudat sang us the song that we ended up using for the intro of the clip. She is from local indigenous tribe and during our conversations, she told us the that way to say “Wave” in their dialect is “Tablik” which we used as our title for the video.
One part of their discussion that was particularly interesting was Noa and Devlyn talking about what its like to be the first generation of surfers in Taiwan that started when they were actually kids, not later in life.
There is a very committed local team of under 16 kids that are coached by a local legeng named Gugu. We were able to talk to him about his team, YAGEO, and how they are building the infrastructure for youth surfing in Taiwan.
Shooting surfing is like nothing else!
In order to capture all the footage and complete the edits in time we had to relocate our whole team to the remote South Eastern Taiwanese town of Dong He for eighteen days. One of the challenges of capturing surfing is the unpredictability of a bunch of uncontrollable factors.
Will there be waves?
Will it be windy, and where can you shoot based off the direction of the sun?
Which direction will he most likely go on the wave?
Where should you position your camera?
