Watch: Paul Witzig // The Lost Reels
Over the last month, Jolyon Hoff took time out from scanning and restoring other people's film to take his own effort on the road.
'You Should Have Been Here Yesterday' is a curious creation; comprised of rescued and restored film, it's edited by Jolyon and crew into a narrative, and paired with an original soundtrack from Headland.
A postmodern mashup of unseen retro footage, with the audiences responding warmly.
As the word of his project spreads more old footage keeps surfacing. Says Jolyon:
"I went down to Paul Witzig's house looking for any 16mm he might have left over. Unfortunately, all his offcuts had long gone, but he had this box of 100ft reels sitting in the corner - I don't think he'd even ever looked at them.
"Anyway, he said, 'Here, scan these if you want.' So we took them and scanned them and they're amazing. Amateurish, lots of mistakes with focus, and they were in pretty bad conditions, but there's something about them; some kind of beautiful naive magic. When we paired them with music by Headland they became mesmerising.
"It's mostly Hawaii. We think Honolua Bay and Pipeline [Ed's note: correct]. We just love the alchemy between these random shots, straight off the camera reels, and Headland's music."
If you haven't had a chance to see You Should Have Been Here Yesterday' then keep in mind it goes into cinemas Thursday the 21st. Around forty cinemas will run it but only for a short season - so be quick.
Comments
Great surf film about our early days . The wayne lynch and maurice Cole section was extra special if your a 70's vic west coaster .
Thanks Brevil! Glad you could make it. Maurice and Wayne are such great characters!
Great stuff. Just subsrcribed.
Kudos to these blokes preserving our wonderful pastime in perpetuity.
Thanks Zenagain, We have so many juicy nuggets of early Aussie surf goodness to share. Stay tuned! https://www.thesurffilmarchive.com.au
Agree and the Headland track suits the dream like vibe.
Like strawberries and cream! :)
Love the style back in days.. great footage..imagine 40 years from now when they watch media jjf slater fanning and co .. what else can they possibly do a wave..( more airs ) ??
It's hard to imagine. Maybe whatever the kids are noodling on their school lunchboxes today! Is that still a thing, school lunchboxes?? Anyway...
Well done to the Surf Archive team in tracking down that footage - older than most Swellnet crew I guess. And shows how much surfing has changed on one hand (board design and 'performance'), and remained the same (ocean vibe), on the other. Maybe that 1st left was Tamarin Bay?
Lindo > with you there on the possibility of Tamarin Bay - the distinctive Le Morne headland set-up shot was the clue for me. > RR
Sure looks like Mauritius.
I'm thinking those sillhouette shots look like the mountains that tower over Port Louis.
The other landscape shot looks familiar as well.
Although I didn't see any shots of La Morne Brabant RR.
Thanks Lindo, We are super excited about it all and have lots on ideas on how to keep sharing it. Maybe another live show with the Headland crew in the works!
That was beautiful.
So many themes emerging - nostalgia, grief for things never to ever be again, fascination with where surfing has come to.
On a more functional level - try and remember the last time you had a session where you didnt fall off once. They must have spent half their time swimming in then paddling all the way back out again.
Some wouldn't have even made it out. I tried surfing an old 1970s twin at 4-6ft Bells a while back and the buoyancy meant that first duck dive it just got ripped from my hands!
Amazing how easy we have stuff now days....
Thanks Bungan33, They must have been so fit! I think that's why some grumble about legropes, the sense of jeopardy isn't there. I'm hanging onto mine tho! I need it :)
Agree re how easy we have it, having learned pre-legropes, and having just had to swim (mostly got tumble washed / rinse cycled) in after my leggie broke after board got ripped away under an 8' set on a reef about 300m offshore. Then had to paddle another couple hundred m against the current to get back to shore. Knackered hardly does it justice ... and trying not to look like a wounded seal!
Not just the legropes either. Many of the boards in that clip just don't work very well.
For sure, early '70s board design had a lot to be desired compared with the present. But still a lot better than the preceding years. It was a rapid period of evolution a few years post-mals and a decade pre-thrusters. Maybe the most radical period of design change, with cross-pollination between Aus and Hawaii / US mainland.
I bet Witzig has some SA desert stuff stashed away.
His film Rolling Home featured Reno Abellira in South Oz desert delights. Hard to find that?
Last I heard Rolling Home was stored in the national film archive in Canberra and couldn’t be accessed.
I was hanging around over there at the time it was filmed, I remember someone telling me that when Reno was first shown Blacks from up on the cliff, he said you’d have to be crazy to paddle out there. But of course he did. Bit of shark phobia I think.
I have a big old soft spot for both the Witzigs.