Jack McCoy will be sharing his life's work in a one night only special event at Perth's UWA Octagon Theatre, this Saturday April 7, 2018 at 8pm. 

Jack will be joined onstage by Wayne Lynch. Every guest will receive a DVD of one of Jack's films.

The genial Hawaiian-born filmmaker has made 25 iconic and award-winning films that have entertained surfers with beautiful images, exotic locations (many of his films shot and made in WA) and cutting edge performance surfing. His interactive lecture/conversation events around the world have held audiences captive with a mix of story-telling, film clips (some never before seen publically) and photographs from his illustrious career. 

Here's a small selection...

In 1975, Dick Hoole and I were making our first surfing film Tubular Swells. We’d spent the Australian winter in Bali and Java and when November rolled around we went to Hawaii.  Back then we had to smuggle half of our camera gear on the plane as carry on as we could not afford the overweight charges. One of the items I hand carried was our Plexiglass waterhousing for the Bolex camera we used also on land. It was pretty basic and extremely cumbersome, on the edge of downright dangerous in Hawaii, but boy oh boy did I love being out in the water shooting film.

It had rained the whole night in Bali. When we arrived at Ulu Watu the ravine into the cave was a river of water that made getting down the bamboo ladder almost a death wish. Of course Gerry Lopez wanted to go out because the surf was perfect. We got out there and I only snapped one shot. It’s shot with a Nikonus one click camera and to this day it’s one of my all time favorite stills of Gerry.

While making Storm Riders I got a new high-speed film camera.  This unique camera, a WW2 military camera shot 200 frames per second (8 x slower than normal speed) enabled me to make a career out of bringing back to land what I got to see in the water, and in super slow motion. At the start of using this camera I worked on Olivia Newton John’s album 'Physical' with dolphins that I believe gave me an edge over other filmmakers shooting from the water.

A dream come true. While making my film A Deeper Shade Of Blue I was able to create images that I’d wanted to make for over 30 years.  Finally we had the technology and I was able to afford an underwater jet ski to film be the first ever tracking shots behind the wave. It was not easy, but then nothing new and unique ever is. The whole story on creating for the first ever underwater tracking shots behind waves will all be revealed at the one night only special event.

I was filming Andy one afternoon before the Billabong Pro at Teahupoo. The surf had been flat and by late afternoon it had come up to about 4–5ft. After shooting one of his waves I got slammed head first onto the reef and was fortunate to still be here to share the story.

When you think about it, after all the effort we go to riding waves, the act, the actual ride, pales in relation to the anticipation. First of all we have to organise our equipment and our surfing gear, wetty, wax, legrope, car, petrol, etc and then get to the beach, check it out, paddle out, sit there, catch a wave. The ride lasts for seconds then we repeat. We’d be lucky to get ten minutes in a decent session of actually riding a wave. However every surfer loves to share the story of a good ride he’s had, and that can take minutes reliving those few seconds.

I was fortunate to be one of 26 people who watched Laird Hamilton ride ‘that wave’, the wave that broke the big wave sound barrier and the whole thing took 10 seconds. Yet it takes me about 10 minutes to tell others what I experienced in real time. And to have captured it on film in slow motion was not only a great honour, it was an important souvenir in my life of things I’ve been able to see.

Buy tickets to Jack McCoy's 'Talk Story' here.