Boardroom Interview - Harold Walker Part 1
Harold Walker of Walker foam was an important and insightful interview for our film. Everyone in the Surf Industry chose a side. Clark Foam or Walker Foam. It was interesting to hear Harold's take on the past. Harold Walker was a legend in the industry and for a time he was one of two men who's blanks supported the rise of the surf industry.
RIP Harold Walker.
You can see the entire documentary on iTunes or you can get a copy on Amazon or www.boardroomfilms.com
https://vimeo.com/200403953
BoardRoom Interview - Greg Noll Interview Part 1
Greg Noll is one of the most iconic big wave surfers of all time. He was also one of the pioneering surfboard shapers that our Southern California video production team interviewed for our surf documentary, BoardRoom – Legends of Surfboard Shaping
Greg Noll started building custom surfboards out of Balsa wood in his parent’s garage in Manhattan Beach California in 1951. Greg is known for his outrageous stories and he didn’t disappoint. Below is part one of our full interview with Greg Noll. You can learn more about Greg at Noll Surfboards.
BoardRoom Interview - Mike Hynson Part 1
Our interview with Mike Hynson is the latest release of our full interviews for Boardroom.
Matt Warshaw from Surfer.com recently wrote "Mike Hynson was the second-most polarizing 1960s surfer, behind Mickey Dora. Those who would kneel before Hynson and kiss the ring on his well-manicured hand were roughly equal in number to those who would've liked to see his privileged little ass get kicked from Windansea to Big Rock and back."
We kind of got that sense when our Orange County video production team showed up to interview Hynson, he was not one to mince words.
You can get your copy of Boardroom here and learn what these legends had to say: www.boardroomfilms.com
BoardRoom Interview - Mickey Munoz Part 1
This was a great interview for us.
Mickey Munoz is a Legend and we were fortunate to interview him for our film. Munoz, a historical figure in the surfing world, has been featured in many popular surfing documentaries such as the 2004 film Riding Giants. He currently resides in Capistrano Beach, California and designs boards for Surftech, a manufacturer of epoxy boards.
Get your copy of Boardroom - Legends of surfboard shaping here.
BoardRoom Interview - Dick Metz Part 4
Here is the final segment from our interview with Dick Metz.
Purchase your copy of the film at www.boardroomfilms.com
For those unfamiliar with Dick, here is his write up from the Encyclopedia of Surfing
Well-traveled surfer, retail magnate, and surf culture preservationist from Laguna Beach, California; cofounder of the Surfing Heritage Foundation. Metz was born (1929) and raised in Laguna Beach, to restaurant-owning parents, and started riding San Onofre with local surf kingpins Peanuts Larson and Hevs McClelland at age seven. The easy-going and aimless Metz earned a bachelor's degree from Santa Barbara State College in 1953, was drafted for a seven-month stint in the army, briefly enrolled in graduate school in Hawaii, then returned to Laguna Beach in 1954 where he tended bar, ran his father’s liquor store, and repaired surfboards.
In 1958, restless and unencumbered, Metz set off on a three-year around-the-world journey with stops in Tahiti, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, and South Africa. In Cape Town, he befriended a young John Whitmore—later called the father of South African surfing—and connected him with California surfboard builder Hobie Alter, helping to seed Cape Town’s nascent surf scene with high quality equipment. Upon returning to California, Metz captivated longtime friend and filmmaker Bruce Brown with stories from his travels. A few years later, while in South Africa shooting The Endless Summer, Brown looked up some of the contacts Metz had made on his globetrotting voyage.
In 1962, Alter tapped Metz to run his new surf shop in Honolulu; the store was an immediate success, and Metz found a career in retail. Over the next few years, he co-founded the successful beachwear shop Surfline Hawaii with Dave Rochlen, opened Hobie retail outlets on both the West and East coasts of the mainland, and started ice cream parlors and liquor stores with McClelland.
Along the way, Metz collected hundreds of vintage surfboards, many of which had been owned by big-name Hobie team riders in the ‘60s. In the early 2000s, in part to preserve his board collection, Metz teamed with Newport Beach’s Spencer Croul to found the Surfing Heritage Foundation, a San Clemente, California-based nonprofit museum and surf history research center.
BoardRoom Interview - Dick Metz Part 3
Here is a nice write up on Dick Metz from the Encyclopedia of Surfing.
Well-traveled surfer, retail magnate, and surf culture preservationist from Laguna Beach, California; cofounder of the Surfing Heritage Foundation. Metz was born (1929) and raised in Laguna Beach, to restaurant-owning parents, and started riding San Onofre with local surf kingpins Peanuts Larson and Hevs McClelland at age seven. The easy-going and aimless Metz earned a bachelor's degree from Santa Barbara State College in 1953, was drafted for a seven-month stint in the army, briefly enrolled in graduate school in Hawaii, then returned to Laguna Beach in 1954 where he tended bar, ran his father’s liquor store, and repaired surfboards.
In 1958, restless and unencumbered, Metz set off on a three-year around-the-world journey with stops in Tahiti, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, and South Africa. In Cape Town, he befriended a young John Whitmore—later called the father of South African surfing—and connected him with California surfboard builder Hobie Alter, helping to seed Cape Town’s nascent surf scene with high quality equipment. Upon returning to California, Metz captivated longtime friend and filmmaker Bruce Brown with stories from his travels. A few years later, while in South Africa shooting The Endless Summer, Brown looked up some of the contacts Metz had made on his globetrotting voyage.
In 1962, Alter tapped Metz to run his new surf shop in Honolulu; the store was an immediate success, and Metz found a career in retail. Over the next few years, he cofounded the successful beachwear shop Surfline Hawaii with Dave Rochlen, opened Hobie retail outlets on both the West and East coasts of the mainland, and started ice cream parlors and liquor stores with McClelland.
Along the way, Metz collected hundreds of vintage surfboards, many of which had been owned by big-name Hobie team riders in the ‘60s. In the early 2000s, in part to preserve his board collection, Metz teamed with Newport Beach’s Spencer Croul to found the Surfing Heritage Foundation, a San Clemente, California-based nonprofit museum and surf history research center.
Visit www.boardroomfilms.com for the complete movie.
BoardRoom Interview - Dick Metz Part 2
Surfing Heritage Founder, Dick Metz has lived an amazing, exciting, and charmed life! Aside from establishing one of the greatest historical surfing institutions in the world, Metz had a hand in numerous surf-related ventures in his storied past. From early travels to Africa, Polynesia, and beyond, watch as Metz relates his tale that went on to inspire Bruce Brown to create the greatest surf film of all time, The Endless Summer. Learn about the early days of Hobie, Clark Foam, Surfline Hawaii and Jams, and more. Like a real-life Forrest Gump, Dick Metz has had a hand in creating some of surfing's most iconic brands, topping it off with the creation of Surfing Heritage!
We recorded this interview for our film BoardRoom at the SHACC in which Metz gave his firsthand account of his world travels and more.
BoardRoom was filmed by FiveSix Productions, a Las Vegas video production company.
Interview conducted by Robert Bell.
Directed by Markus Davids
Executive Producer : Robert Jax
BoardRoom Interview - Dick Metz Part 1
Dick Metz, Board Member and Founder of Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center, has supplied the vision for the SHACC and the initial funding. Central to the mission, Dick is donating his extensive surfboard collection, and bequeathed his estate to the Foundation. Dick, who grew up in Laguna Beach as a buddy of such notables as Hobie Alter, Reynolds Yater, and Hevs McClelland, is himself a pioneering figure in our sport and industry. As the driving force behind Surfline Hawaii and the Hobie Sports retail chain, and as the traveling surfer who cross-pollinated a fledgling South African surf scene with Hobie and Gordon Clark in California, and suggested to Bruce Brown that he film for The Endless Summer in South Africa, Metz has changed the course of surf history. Now, his goal is to preserve it.
Produced by FiveSix Productions a Las Vegas video production Company
Interview conducted by Robert Bell.
BoardRoom Interview - Robert August Part 4
Best said on the Encyclopedia of surfing:
"Agreeable, clean-cut goofyfooter from Orange County, California; costar of Bruce Brown's 1966 crossover hit surf movie The Endless Summer, and longtime surfboard shaper/manufacturer. August was born (1948) in Hermosa Beach, California, and raised in Seal Beach, just north of Huntington. He began surfing at age six, under the guidance of his father, Blackie August, a one-time Redondo Beach lifeguard who surfed with Duke Kahanamoku during the famous Hawaiian's frequent visits to California.
August developed a smooth and relaxed wave-riding style, and later became a dependable if not spectacular competitive surfer, placing fourth in the men's division of the 1963 West Coast Championships, third in the 1964 United States Invitational, and third in the 1965 United States Surfing Championships. He was also invited to the 1965 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational.
In his early teens, August was featured in two of Bruce Brown's surf movies, and a few months after high school graduation (he was senior class president), the 18-year-old flew with Brown and San Diego surfer Mike Hynson to Senegal to begin filming Endless Summer. Over the next few months they traveled through Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti. A live-narration version of The Endless Summer debuted on the beach-city surf circuit in 1964; the slightly modified final edition came out in 1966 to glowing reviews in Time, Newsweek, and the New Yorker. August and Hynson had no speaking lines (Brown's narration is heard throughout), but both became minor pop culture stars.
August worked in 1965 as a salesman at Jacobs Surfboards in Hermosa. He began shaping boards in 1966, first for Jacobs, then as a Huntington-area freelancer. August opened the Endless Summer restaurant in Huntington in 1971, a venture, he later told Longboard magazine, that "set a world record for losing money." In 1974 he opened Robert August Surf Shop in Fullerton, and two years later relocated to Huntington. The longboard renaissance, beginning in the early '80s, was a boon to August's business; he closed the retail store in 1998, but by 2000 his boardmaking factory was producing about 4,000 boards a year—almost exclusively longboards and longboard hybrids—and distributing them to dozens of outlets worldwide.
August had a cameo in 1994's Endless Summer II, Bruce Brown's long-awaited sequel, and he was inducted that year into the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame. In 2001, he was featured in Biographies, an Outdoor Life Network documentary series. He also appeared in 2003's Step Into Liquid."
Here is Part 4 of our interview with Robert from your favorite Las Vegas video production team, FiveSix.
BoardRoom Interview – Robert August Part 2
Just a few of months after graduating from Huntington Beach High School--where he was senior class president--Robert was presented with an opportunity that would change his life forever. Along with 21 year-old Mike Hynson, filmmaker Bruce Brown chose 19 year-old Robert August to travel the world in search of the perfect wave while making the famed movie The Endless Summer. August was selected over better-known surfers because to Bruce Brown, Robert represented surfing in the positive way he perceived the sport. Not a stranger to Brown's camera, Robert had appeared in three of his movies prior to Endless Summer, including Slippery When Wet (1957), Barefoot Adventure (1960) and Surfing Hollow Days (1961).
Filmed in 1963 and debuted in '64, The Endless Summer played throughout America, with Brown originally providing masterful live narrations. In 1966, Newsweek Magazine named the film one of the 10 best movies of the year, and it gave August the recognition that would serve him extremely well in his future business ventures. This once-in-a-lifetime experience, coupled with a lifelong friendship with Brown, made a lasting impression on Robert's life, the effects of which are still evident today.
Here is Part 2 of our interview with Robert.