SURFER Interview: Stacy Peralta

Kimo Hollinger © Kemp

SURFER: What was that idea, in a sentence?

STACY PERALTA: I wanted to capture the essence of surfing’s appeal, as told through the story of big-wave surfing. Well, I pitched that idea to Sam George and he didn’t like it at first. “How are you going to do that?” he said. “As the only really quantifiable aspect of surfing in some respects it’s not that interesting.”

At the time I went away thinking: “God, what is it that Sam knows that I don’t know?” I went home thinking either Sam knows something I don’t and I’m doomed, or I have the right idea and I have to keep plugging.

SURFER: How did you pitch it and to whom did you pitch it?

STACY PERALTA: I’m not a good pitching artist, but I can sell something once I understand it because I have a lot of enthusiasm. I have a philosophy that ideas are just like viruses. They travel through the atmosphere looking to fall onto able hosts that will give them life. The problem is ideas do not land fully formed. They land as an impression, as a dream, as a thought and you have to spend time being tormented by this ephemeral message, and you have to sit as it gestates and develops slowly.

SURFER: So did the original idea reveal itself as a three-act structure: California to Makaha to Waimea for Act One, Maverick’s for Act Two and tow-in surfing and Jaws for Act Three?

Surfing over skating. © Stecyk

STACY PERALTA: No. I knew it was going to be tow-in surfing and I knew it was going to be Maverick’s and I knew it was going to be the whole history of the first big-wave riders, from California to Hawaii to Makaha to Waimea. I knew I wanted Greg Noll to anchor the First Act. No doubt about it. And it was my intention that Laird would anchor the Third Act. I knew that Clark had a good story, but I didn’t know if I could get it out of him. I never looked at him to carry the Second Act. But it worked out that way and I’m really glad about it for multiple reasons. I really like Jeff and I think that he has never been given his due. He’s a real lone wolf. I shared a room with him at Sundance and I can tell you Jeff Clark is the real thing. He doesn’t pretend. He is one of John Milius’ Mountain Men. They weren’t trying to do heroic acts and they didn’t think much of their heroic acts.

SURFER: In that sense the film is as much about people as it is about surfing.

STACY PERALTA: Exactly. When we started the film there was a couple of mandates that my editor Paul Crowder and producer Agi Orsi and I talked about. And the Number One mandate was no interviewee will ever say the words: “Surfing is just so bitchin’ but I can’t tell you how bitchin’ surfing is unless you do it.” No one would ever be allowed to say that on camera. If we had to cop out by just telling people they couldn’t understand surfing unless they did it, then we would have failed as filmmakers. We refused to do what has been done in too many surfing films. It’s a cop out.

SURFER: And yet trying to define the indefinable is still a tall order. The line to the cineplex is littered with shattered egos and broken dreams—at least for surfers. You were still taking a risk.

STACY PERALTA: After the success of Dogtown I really wanted to make a film about surfing. It’s like I had it in my system and I wanted to get it out of my system. For a while I thought about a documentary on Miki Dora, but the project fell apart after Miki passed away. It was the wrong time to get involved in that because of the probate and all the issues of disentangling who owns the rights to his life. And to be honest with you I wanted Miki on camera and when he died I thought, “I don’t know if I can make this film. I don’t know if I’m the right person to do it anymore.” But I still wanted to make a documentary about surfing, and I wanted to make a movie I wanted to see. You know the comments Greg makes in the film when he is watching those old surf movies of the ‘60s?

SURFER: When he talks about Ride the Wild Surf and Gidget and how they were so stupid and the actors were dorks, and the audience cracks up.

STACY PERALTA: I had envisioned that years ago, hearing a guy of his stature talking about the stupidity of those actors paddling around in a fish bowl and then cutting to 25-foot Waimea. Well, I feel the same way about most of the surfing movies and videos that are done these days. I shouldn’t say this but I will. There is so much surf pornography out there—watching guys slash and burn on waves over and over and over. To me that is not filmmaking. That is just putting together trick catalogues. Surfing is such a cherished piece of American culture and I wanted to get that across in a movie. I wanted to not just show surfing but to have surfers talking eloquently about it. What’s it like to get caught inside a 25-foot wave? What’s it like to wipe out and get rescued? Surfing is really misunderstood out there in what Sam George likes to call “the civilian world,” and I felt it was my responsibility to get it right. It was a responsibility and an opportunity. I looked at some of Greg Noll’s footage and I said, “Man, I am a lucky guy. I am the guy who gets to do this. This is a treasure trove.” I felt lucky that I saw it before someone else got to do it, but I also knew if I screwed up I would have had Noll and Laird book-ending my ass.

SURFER: What’s next for Stacy Peralta? We hear you’ve got a screenplay in production.

STACY PERALTA: Lords of Dogtown, the feature adaptation of Dogtown and Z-Boys. They start shooting in a week.

© Friedkin

Brock Little, surfing stuntman, is down in Imperial Beach, crashing into a fake P.O.P Pier as we speak.

And beyond that, two projects. Radar Pictures is talking to me about adapting Captain Zero. And Art Linson and Stu Linson who are producing Lords of Dogtown, have asked me to write a coming of age ‘50s surf film. Kind of like a Greg Noll crew, California to Hawaii experience. So we are talking about that.

SURFER: All that, and you’re still depressed.

STACY PERALTA: I need to go surfing.

SURFER: What about going right now? It’s a lovely spring day and Bay Street must be going off.

STACY PERALTA: I can’t right now. Things to do. We are midwifing this movie to market. I have to drive into Hollywood to oversee the cutting of the trailer, and I have to help with the poster and then all that endless PR is coming up.

SURFER: A cowboy’s work is never done.

STACY PERALTA: Yippie ki yay.