Who isn't influenced by the great surf filmmaker Blake Keuny and the just-as-great surfer John John Florence?
Remember when Blake Vincent Keuny and John John Florence gifted us the wonderful film Done? Of course you do because it came out very recently, pairing the most progressive surfing with a clear direction not often seen in surf cinema. So simple yet so stylish yet so not redundant, which is a very very tall order in surf film making. It is difficult to capture the act of surfing differently. It is also difficult to make a surf film that doesn’t feel like every other one out there. Done was a success.
It was so successful, in fact, that Surfing Magazine, following in dear older brother Surfer’s footsteps (click here to see Surfer “Caught With Their Pants Down”), borrowed the title and overall aesthetic for their latest cover, giving truth to the old adage “One done is never enough.”
I had the pleasure of catching up Blake on Christmas Eve. He was back from the islands for one day, maybe two, and getting some much needed rest and relaxation. He is directing the next John John masterpiece, an epic, and promises to be wonderful.
Blake lives in John John’s house while filming and editing. I did not ask him the name of this new film but I’m sure that it will also be the cover title of Surfing’s issue two years after it comes out. The John John Florence creative family has long, long coattails.
Successful generally refers to its response rather than the cash it generated. Money? There ain’t none!
I often wonder what a “successful” surf movie grosses these days. Just enough to make the next one?