Blue Yonder is a new book and short film independently produced by James McMillan.
It started in 2001, standing on an empty beach in Sydney with Derek Hynd. He shared a story that led me to someone else and they in turn introduced me to others. From there it was all follow your heart stuff.
Along the way I revisited Derek and other faces from my past like Ozzie Wright and Tom Carroll. Through these surfing friends and at other times purely by chance or destiny I spent time surfing and talking with surfers like Andrew Kidman, George Greenough, Jack Johnson and Dan Malloy. And emerging surf artists like California’s Chris Del Moro and Andy Davis.
Blue Yonder offers insightful exploration into these legends, heroes and creative characters of surfing and all the while weaving one surfers path from futility to freedom.
Excerpt from 'Surfers Night'
…especially Dan. He doesn’t miss a beat coming from big brothers mouth and sporadically glances to Chris for recognition of what he’s said. …a knock at the studio door breaks the moment. It’s Kelly. He takes seat on the floor just by the door.
Directly, Kelly reaches for one of the many instruments close at hand and begins lightly strumming his own mindful melody, head down, toes up.
Andrew Kidman
“People respect you in Ireland if you’re an artist. If you told someone in Australia, ‘I’m a poet’, they’d say, ‘nah mate you’re a wanker!"
Mark Occhilupo
“We were out there surfing in the final and I didn’t know what was going on, it was really bizarre. All I could hear from the water was just a whole lot of shouting and then an explosion. It was just really weird…I’d just beaten Curren in the semi-final and so…”
Ozzie Wright
“I like to enjoy my paintings. I don’t like selling them.”
Rob Machado
“You encounter a fresh change everyday. I mean you could live at one beach your whole life and still wake up everyday and want to go and surf that same beach because you know that it’s gonna be different everyday.”
Chris Malloy
“I couldn’t really sleep at night, I just couldn’t. I felt like there was something that I really needed to say and I didn’t know how to say it. I was just sitting there in freezing cold Ireland thinking about all this stuff. Then one day I just stripped down to my boxers and jumped of the rocks into some big lefthand barrels at ‘Joel’s left’.”
Shannon McIntyre
“I firmly believe in God, ‘my rock’, and the events of Sept 11 symbolised that you can not have faith in your country/money/financial towers of status, and that in the midst of chaos and turbulence all that we really have is our faith and security in God.
The huge flag backdrop and the fact that the water is turbulent represents chaos. I painted it on sept19.”
Nathan Fletcher
“Just as I paddled back to the takeoff spot another wave came through and it was an even bigger and crazier one than the first. No one wanted it and the only reason I was able to get it was because I was on a bigger board. I was thinking about the situation that had happened on the wave prior and then all of a sudden I found myself stuck in the lip of this pretty big wave...”
George Greenough
“One simple answer…SURF! I just came to surf.”
Jack Johnson
“One of the best things that can happen is when you just cruise up the coast somewhere with a few friends and find some secret spot and just surf all day. And you know with music it can kind of be the same in a way, like staying up all night and jammin’ in a garage..."
Tom Carroll
“I remember catching a pretty big swell and just standing on top of this mountain wave and it felt like I was higher than the escarpment that overlooks the North Shore... ”
Derek Hynd
“Alpha Level is when the brain gets so expanded under a sensitive situation that it can seem to subconsciously tap the future and react accordingly. Example; moving away from a killer wave before it is seen...”
Kassia Meador
“ I totally think of surfing as an art form…”
Edit;
Warm Jet
"Anyone that thinks of surfing as sport should be flogged."
Via 70%.Org/ Online "Surfer's Path"
