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Interference a Surf Kayak film was 2 years in the making by Joey Hall of North Carolina. The film is divided into four parts based on two years of surf kayak trips. Joey and the rotating cast of characters including Surf Kayaking Champ Nathan Eades make their way across Spain, Portugal, Morocco, North Carolina, and then Ecuador.

First off, I loved the Moleskin Notebook title sequence. It was an inventive way to start the film and it had a very Wes Anderson/Jean-Pierre Jeunet feel to it.

Overall, the film is a treat to watch. The film features great scenery, great surf, and good footage of a variety of conditions and dynamic surf moves. There were lots of nice airs, bottom turns, top turns, and energetic cutbacks. For those that haven’t seen surf kayaking in any length other than short segments on YouTube, or Vimeo, this film is a must have. The kayak surfing is top notch and gives a great introduction to the sport from some top paddlers.

The film segments in-between surf locations were fun to watch. The scenery, local culture, and interpersonal relationships between Nathan, Joey, and Spence were rising, but in some ways left as unfinished sketches. Perhaps this was intentional. Maybe Joey wanted to veer away from doing a Long Way Round type of buddy road movie. However, I felt teased by that aspect of the film and definitely wanted to have more of that developed. There was a palpable sense of fun watching the young crew struggling to get their rickety van round corners, arguing over sleeping conditions, or cooking on their bar-b-que.

The surfing footage is top notch, each of the locales was set-up adequately to give you a feel of the country and then the break. There were so many great shots of long clean rides along fairly large steep waves that I developed a bit of hatred in my belly for not being able to go surfing immediately afterwards.

A helmet or boat mounted cam was introduced as additional flavor about halfway through the film. I found that footage to be a great addition to the static beach tri-pod shots. I wish there had been more of this type of shot interspersed throughout the film to give point of view shots to the surf footage. It was also great to see some new blood introduced into the film towards the end where a few of the Jersey surf kayak team showed up in ecuador. Their snappy cutbacks and aggressive turns were immediately and stylistically different from Joey, Nathan and Spencer’s more fluid surfing style.

There is no question that this is a great surf kayak film. For those in the sea kayaking crowd who may have seen lots of footage of sea kayaks surfing in tidal races and rapids, you need to see what a surf kayak can really do in steep ocean waves, but watch out you might become as hooked as I have.

The music from the soundtrack is available off of the Interference surf kayak site.

Interference: a Kayak Surf Film – Trailer #2 from joseph hall on Vimeo.

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Spencer and Joey have been making good progress on Interference the Surf Kayaking film! According to Effort.tv’s blog post DVDs ship this month. I pre-ordered mine, how about you!! Seeing some of this film is getting me very excited for the film.

Spencer also has some great footage of kayak fishing and the new word of the day, standup paddlefishing!