Diploma of Digital Film

One of the assignments for the Diploma of Digital Film at the Southern Institute of Technology. I had to plan, film and edit together a chase scene. Filmed using a Canon 7D and Rode Videomic. Music by Head Like a Hole - Hot Sexy Lusty

Last year I took a few papers studying towards a Diploma of Digital Film with The Southern Institute of Technology. I ended up dropping the screenwriting paper as it was a bit too much of a workload with also working, and struggling with being sick too. It was a real tough squeeze to get the 101 paper finished, but I got there, and managed to get top of my class with an A pass. This year I am taking two more papers, and started last week. The video above is one of my last assignments - Starring Andy Sutherland and Chris Lamb.

:: VID :: Cold Water Classic 2008

2008 Oneill Cold Water Classic Kaikoura from Nic Reeves on Vimeo.

(original upload to the blog of this video yesterday was not in sync with the music and the stills streamed instead of displaying for 2 seconds, this is the fixed version)
A crew from Dunedin travel up for the 3 day surfing event, the 2008 Oneill cold water classic held near Kaikoura New Zealand. Music: Mungo by The Dark Beaks

This is the Surf Video that I was going to enter in the Surf Film Festival last year, but just never got around to making it short enough.

:: VID :: Earth Hour - Night Surf

Earth Hour Night Surf from Nic Reeves on Vimeo.

Earth Hour is a global WWF climate change initiative where everyone is invited to switch off their lights for one hour on March 27 at 8.30 p.m to show their support for action on climate change. People across the world from all walks of life will turn off their lights and join together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet.

Big Rock Boardriders decided to host a night surf between those hours to show their support.
Music by Dunedin musicians Junk Shop Star
www.earthhour.org

:: VID :: Meyerhoffer in the Dirty South

Meyerhoffer in the Dirty South from Nic Reeves on Vimeo.

The meyerhoffer was released at the Noosa festival of Surfing in March 2009. From there a 9'1" board made its way to Dunedin, New Zealand and was first surfed by Rod Rust and Homa.
Rod was filmed in this clip in April 2009 at a Dunedin beach break.
Homa competed in the longboard event of the Oneill Cold Water Classic, Kaikoura May-June 2009 and was placed 4th in the Finals. The footage here was Homa free surfing between heats.
Tash's film sequence was filmed at Event 3 of the Hyundai Longboard Pro in March 2010, having only surfed a longboard for less than a year.

Music courtesy of Dunedin musicians The Puddle performing Don't kill the Golden Goose (abridged)

:: VID :: Tsunami Warning

On the 28th of February 2010 an 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit Chile. This generated a tsunami wave that raced across the Pacific Ocean at 700 miles and hour. Here in Dunedin, New Zealand J and I set off for an early 7am surf and photo session. The sunrise was gorgeous and the surf was clean and peeling with only J and two others out. Perched on the edge of the rocks at 8am I was told by a local clubbie that a Tsunami was on its way over from Chile, and to vacate the water immediately. We did. From a vantage point on the hill above the break we watched and waited, listening to the radio and watched others hovering close to the beach along with police patrolling the beach. After 90 minutes realising that there would be negligible effect on our part of the country the surfers went back in the water. No tsunami event was experienced by any of the surfers in the water, and no tide events of any significance were recorded on film.

Music: Echophonics Workshop by Dunedin Musicians -Junk Shop Star With recordings from NZ radio stations as I filmed.

See previous blog post with images and other coverage of the event at the link below:

Otago Tsunami Warning

:: VID :: Seven Sessions

The Story behind this Video
A debate on a New Zealand surf forum late 2007 led to the creation of the 'Olo Hikoi'. At the centre of the Hikoi (Journey) was a 13foot hollow core wooden surfboard shaped by Roy Stewart. The forum debate was over previous claims in another surf forum by the board's shaper that it would outperform other longboards at Pipeline.

The nine month Hikoi covered the length and breadth of New Zealand and was shared, surfed and delivered between members of the surf forum.

This video covers the 5 week Dunedin leg of the NZ Hikoi. Although there were 14 sessions in total, only seven were visually documented. Dunedin surfers were Jay, Beano, Shayne, Caity, Nic, Homa, Jono, Jimi & Hayley. Images and editing by Nic Reeves of phoam.blogspot.com - Thanks to Junk Shop Star for the use of their track Aria for Aria. myspace.com/junkshopstar

All of the NZ Hikoi sessions and most of the Hawaii sessions were blogged at 13footofwood.blogspot.com - Each surfer sent in words, photographs and videos sharing the stoke with their travels, experiences surfing the board and board reviews.

The board is now (Jan 2010) in Hawaii in the possession of Garrett Mcnamara and has indeed been surfed at 2nd reef pipeline.
Thank you to Roy Stewart for making this Hikoi possible by allowing your board to tour.
Unfortunately due to communication issues, the UK tour has been canceled.

:: VID :: PUUK

A lucky bird on the path signals offshores and endless tubes in a remote spot on the south coast of Kiwiland

:: VID :: 350 Dunedin

24th October 2009 World climate change awareness day. 64 surfers paddle out at St Clair Dunedin, New Zealand to raise awareness for 350.org. Music 'Wave Decay' by Dunedin Musicians- Junk Shop Star

Music by Dunedin Musicians - Junk Shop Star

DVD Update

::VID :: SISA tagteam Challenge 2009

SISA Tagteam Challenge 2009 from Nic Reeves on Vimeo.

Held on the 27th of June 2009 at North New Brighton.
Filmed on a Canon HV30 with a drink bottle as a tripod, sorry about the shakes.

From the SISA website:
article by Haydo.

Northside Boardriders have won the South Island Tag team event for the second year in a row.

Northside showed too much class with South Island open champ Hayden Brain, Leilani Brain, Mike Oakley, groms Taylor Oneill and Sam Courtney all catching there 2-3 waves in the allocated time.
In small 2ft close outs Northside finished with 30 seconds to go to get the 5 point bonus and edge out the combined Dunedin team into 2nd. North Wai 3rd just beating the tubular belles team in 4th- just.
Northside took the $250 cash for a new ping-pong table, bragging rights and may of impressed there soon-to-be major sponsor (?) with another top result.

2085ks to the beach

The winner of name the DVD comp is Hayley Coakes.

2085ks to the beach.

Which is quite fitting because we travelled together and attended all the events on the DVD.
2085ks.. because on google maps, thats how far the round trip to all the comps took us.

The next issue is I'm having issue with exporting the files to all fit on the DVD! fingers crossed I can get over this technical hitch!

:: VID :: SI Longboard Heats

Longboard Heats South Island Champs 09 from Nic Reeves on Vimeo.

Day two of the three day 'South Island Champs', these are the longboard heats held at blackhead beach in Autumn on a cold grey Dunedin day, Easter weekend 2009.
Music: Slapper, by Dunedin Musicians: The Dark Beaks

Still having problems with the computers capturing HD video from my new DV cam, so had to upload this footage at 720x576. Was a quick edit, but great to get back into it again.
I still have about 6 one hour tapes worth of footage from the last ten months to capture and edit up. Vids hopefully upcoming soon:
Cold Water Classic 2008
Roxy Canty Champs $20 challenge
Greymouth Go4 Gold 2009

2009 Go 4 Gold Comp

Go4Gold surf comp 2009 from Nic Reeves on Vimeo.

Above a montage of the pics from the comp.

Been away for 5 days at Greymouth, Just got back late last night, flying off to work now, but quickly a pic of:
the Dunedin Team, representing South Coast and Big Rock.
Left to right, Hayley Coakes ( 2nd Open Women), Andy Sutherland, Tom Bracegirdle ( Winner Cadets), Jono Pascoe, MB, Jimi Crooks (Winner Juniors), Jae Kilgour. Not pictured: Geordi Dearns (2nd Juniors) who didn't want to be seen in the photo.
More photos and results later.

:: VID :: The Lost Tapes

Dug out some more footage that got lost for a bit and put it together this weekend between doing the concrete mosaic-ing on the new patio and eating.

From when the 13foot hollow core board was staying in Dunedin courtesy of Roy Stewart and the Olo Hikoi.
Also featuring some other locals on the day..
may also contain nuts

:: VID :: Retro into Spring

New Otago boardriders club 'Big Rock' held their celebration of spring surf with an op-shop retro surf on Sunday. Thankfully the weather held out for a great afternoon. Congrats to Rob (below) who caught the best wave, and kept his red polka-dot dress on the longest.

Too many photos.. video to come once it finishes loading to youtube

:: VID :: Offshore ~

A morning sesh on the 13ft of wood with Jay and his mate beano.

The music is by a Dunedin band:
Junk Shop Star
from their album 'Music for Headfilms.

I love their sound, and with song titles such as stringer, twinfin, mindsurfing, railgrab layback gives it away that they are passionate surfers too.
Check out their myspace or download their music here

:: VID :: ROXY Roady 2008

Final Edit of the Roxy Roadie stills video to the music of Shakes and the Swell Guys, 'Tonys Dream'.



Some of the photos from the finals and the prizegiving

Junior Women


Longboard Women

Open Women

:: VID :: 6 weeks out of Middles

:: VID :: Hillbillies

A joint production by phoam arts and 'a man named sue' - skating vid set on a local hill not far from the sea.

:: VID :: South Islands 07

managed to get it done within a week.. some edited footage from two days of filming at St Clair beach of the South Island Surf Champs..
- footage shot on one camera by a handful of whomever felt like it: Me, Hayley Coakes, Tash Civil, Luke Grubb, Jay Tzu . . who else had a go? sorry if I missed you out.



I also want to say a few words about the promotion and coverage of the South Island Surf Champs this year .. I know there was a great deal of time and energy behind the scenes along with tremendous corporate and private sponsorship for the event.. congrats to the committee of the South Coast Boardriders for a sucessfully handled event... and to all those who competed regardless of their placings.

The disappointing thing to note was the lack of recognition from the NZ surf media and local media for the big event of the year for South Island Surfing.. in the ODT an article about an australian competitor with just minimal on the comp itsself. The 'big' surfing websites surf.co.nz and surf2surf.com had nothing at all leading up to the event and nothing the week since... but overseas big dollar/big name events get coverage?? I thought kiwi talent and local events would be more than worthy of a mention, or is the corporate surfing world in NZ turning into an americanised sponsorship & brand-driven elitist marketing game?