Note:
R. Paul Allen recounts difficulties of movie making in the 1960s and recalls Bruce Brown (creator of "Endless Summer") getting his start in film making through surfboard manufacturer Dale Velzy's early encouragement and financial backing.

Recorded for OC Surf Stories, Oceanside, California.

Transcript:
If it hadn't been for Dale Velzy recognizing Bruce's talent, and also Dale Velzy knowing that promotion was really a big deal with surfing movies, I don't know if Bruce would have ever made them , a full 90-minute movie. Because he was making 8-millimeter movies and showing them at the surf shop and maybe making a little change here and there to buy beers and stuff like that. But Dale Velzy, one of the classic surfboard makers at that time, recognized Bruce's talent, and he asked Bruce if he would do a movie, and Dale said, I will pay for all your equipment, film, and send the guys to Hawaii that you choose and I just need to have my name on the titleDale Velzy presents whatever movie you want to call it. Well Bruce was ecstatic, but he didn't know how to make a movie either. It was sort of like, all he did was put 8-millimeter movies together to show to his friends at the surfboard shop. So Bruce essentially did the same thing I did. At that time, he went to the library and got a book on how to make movies, and that's a true story. And on his flight over to , I don't think he ever returned the book, either; there might be a fine there. Anyway, when on his way to Hawaii, he was reading about how to shoot movies. And , (laughter) , you know this is a professional movie. Now, backtrack a little bit , when Dale offered to finance this movie and say, Hey, Bruce will you do this? Bruce said Sure, but he didn't know even what equipment to buy, what stuff he needed. But he did know a person who DID know. That was Robert Bagley. Bob Bagley, who was his high school chum, who worked at Belmont Shores at a camera store and was really into film. And Bruce took Velzy to Bob Bagley's store where he was working and Bagley picked out all the stuff , the telephoto lenses , there was no waterproof housings or anything like that , the telephoto lenses, the film he needed, the cameras, the Bolex , 16 millimeter Bolexes , and the Kodak , all the movies, all the film equipment that Bruce needed. Bagley guided Bruce into buying it and Dale Velzy , Dale Velzy was in the camera store with a wad of cash, cause that's how we did things. And he paid all this, right then on the counter for all the equipment. And it was quite a big sum of money, and bought all this equipment. And that was Bruce's start into making films. And the greatest part about that is that an opportunity like that , we all have opportunities in life. And Bruce , that was the open door to him starting onto his career making surf movies and the ultimate one, of course, in surfing, was The Endless Summer. Making Movies in the 1960s , 3:18 Nobody realizes how difficult filming a movie is at the time. It's not like video today. You have these rolls of film , 100-foot rolls of films , that he's in Africa, West Africa, South Africa, filming, not knowing if even the footage he's filming is gonna be okay. And you have a lot of things to deal with. A lot of humidity and actions. Stuff that can really impede having a good movie. Whereas if you shoot it in like today, you can shoot a video ,ah, let's do it again. That wasn't the case. There was no retakes. And then he'd send the footage back to our lab in Hollywood and then we would take a look at the rushes or the and telling in a letter. Cause phone calls were almost impossible or really expensive so everything was in communication via letter. So it wasn't like happening instantly. You'd get back and how does that footage show up? How'd it look? and oh, it looks good, and great. But there was no retakes. If you see the movie, you realize that when they, hey, went to West Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, that was it. They weren't going to go back to shoot anything. And when they got to South Africa, that was it. I mean the film came back and on they went to New Zealand, Tahiti and then to Hawaii and that's the way we shot movies. That's how movies were shot at the time. It was really a shot in the dark, if you will. Not knowing if your footage was gonna be okay. And it showed the talent that Bruce had. And doing things right because most of his footage , I mean, he shot over 50-thousand feet of film. Just imagine, you know, and then out of that, editing it down to just 90 minutes was quite a task.


For additional information see California Revealed.

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews