Protect Our Waves
We’ve been working on our new campaign film, ‘Protect Our Waves’, for over a year now, and it has been an experience that has taken our cast and crew to the geographic extremities of the UK, and challenged us to present our current coastal protection campaigns in a whole new way.
We’ve been working with the acclaimed director of photography Richard Stewart, know particularly in surf-circles for his involvement in ‘Powers Of Three’, and have been filming up and down the country to capture spectacular footage of beaches, coastlines and waves with some of the UK’s best surfers in tow.
We wanted to create an inspirational vision of some of the best waves and most beautiful coastlines in the country, and contrast them with the environmental threats facing our beaches and surf spots today. With footage from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and surf action that includes shortboarding, longboarding and bodyboarding, it’s a real rarity in the surf genre and one that evokes the current surf scene in the UK.
The film features some beautiful and impressive surfing from Candice O’Donnell, Gabe Davies, Sam Bleakley, Nathan Phillips, Toby Donachie, Jacks Johns, Trev Garland, Jayce Robinson, Richie Sills and a number of other home-grown talents who donated their time to be part of the production.
These beautiful surfing and scenic images are juxtaposed with innovative animations focusing on our current campaign issues, from combined sewer overflows and marine litter, to coastal development threats and protecting the increasingly pressurised surfing resource that is waves. The characters in the animations, surfers Candice O’Donnell, Toby Donachie and Jack Johns, react to the environmental problems they come across, resolving them by taking the issues to those in power. The film also ends with the next steps you can take as a fledgling campaigner, from reporting pollution incidents to the Environment Agency to exposing a problem with the help of the local press to renewing your membership with Surfers Against Sewage.
With the increasing environmental pressures on coastlines around the world, including the wave resources itself, there has never been a more important time for surfers to campaign to protect the environments and waves that make our sport such a unique pleasure. The ‘Protect Our Waves’ film is meant to not only remind you of the beauty of this wonderful sport we share, but importantly to inspire you to use your voice, use your skills, use your network to help preserve this amazing gift for future generations.
We are hugely grateful to Radiohead, Ben Howard, Jackson C Frank and Martha & the Arthurs for donating the music for the film – an amazing soundtrack from some inspirational musicians.
We are currently organising a mini tour of the film with our partners The Surf Screen, and will be showing the film in the coming weeks with the help of some of our regional reps. Dates will be posted here on Drift, as well as the SAS website, or you can join our Facebook group and keep up-to-date with the latest announcements.
Confirmed screenings
26 February – World Premiere, Miners and Mechanics Institute, St Agnes Cornwall, from 7pm
28 February – Solva Memorial Hall, Solva, Pembrokeshire, Wales, from 7pm
3 March – The Roxy Bar and Screen, Borough High St, London, from 7pm
7 March– Tynemouth Life Brigade Watch House, Tynemouth, from 7pm
We would particularly like to thank Richard Stewart for all his hard work and energy on the project. We would also like to thank the Quiksilver Foundation, the EoG Association for Conservation and The Surfer’s Path for their support.
