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Posted on Tuesday December 22nd 2009 at 11:03 a.m.
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"I understand that people are going to watch it and be like, ‘This is bullshit. He's not out there alone. There's a camerman and a crew,'... It's not a documentary. It's just a surf story and I hope people watch it with that in mind."
Interview by Vaughan Blakey | Surfing World Issue 299
Well congrats Rob, it's been over a year in the making but The Drifter is finally finished and getting out there. How are you feeling about it all?
I'm stoked man. It was definitely a long road. Six months filming was the fun part. The difficult part has been the editing and that whole process. Getting it to where we felt like it's right. We took multiple passes at it. Taylor (Steele) and I definitely didn't want to settle on anything less feeling really good about it. So we put in the effort and now we're psyched.
The central story of film revolves around you being overwhelmed by all the hype and hooplah that surrounds a successful career in pro surfing and basically going "Into the Wild". How close to the truth was that concept when you first sat down with Taylor to get this project happening?
It was a true representation of how I was feeling. Definitely. This film is basically inspired by my wanderings. I left the tour in 2001 and I surfed in a few more events here and there but I was basically on my own program a lot of the time. I guess in some ways I was inspired by the whole Tom Curren Search thing. I'd watch those movies and be like "Oh my Gosh!" It's like the ultimate scenario to have your sponsors take you to all these crazy waves. There was definitely some mystique about those films because he wasn't competing. He'd just disappear for months and then footage would emerge of him surfing these insane waves. I guess after you've been doing the comps for so long you get to a point where you think, "I want to check that out."
During the Q&A session that followed the film at the Sydney Premiere, a grommet asked ‘How can you be alone when you've got so many cameras filming everything you do?" It was pretty good point.
Yeah, I understand that people are going to watch it and be like, "This is bullshit. He's not out there alone. There's a camerman and a crew," and I've said the same thing when I've seen those reality shows where people are supposed to be stranded. I'm like "Dude there's a full on crew there. Sound guys and lighting and make-up." But the point is that we're not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. We're telling a story. We created it and it's inspired by what I was there to do and how I was feeling about surfing for a long time. We're not trying to fake it. We recreated stuff that happened and we captured stuff that was in the moment. There are a few scenes that are obviously set-up and there were times during the filming when I was completely alone. If you go with it, if you let yourself be part of the storyline I think you'll be able to relate to it and enjoy it. It's six months of time squeezed into an hour. It's not a documentary. It's just a surf story so I hope people watch it with that in mind.
And you certainly can't argue with the surfing. Some of those waves you scored are biggest longest barrels ever caught on film? When I got home after watching it I walked over the dunes to be met by the grubbiest onshore summer dribble ever? Mate, I was heartbroken. I wanted to cry.
(Laughs) Dude, the waves in Indonesia blows away anywhere on the planet, I'm callin'. You can be in Bali and there can be no swell and you can still find super fun waves. Then when there's swell the place comes alive and that's a whole other deal. There's just so much happening. So for six months all we did was make decisions based on wind and swell. We got to places by pretty conventional means but we got some incredible waves. There's so much footage left over that Taylor and I have been talking about putting together a whole other movie. I surfed a lot by myself but we also had a really diverse crew of everyone from Dane, Kelly, Kalani, Mikala, Rizal and a bunch of the Balinese guys and so many sick crew. That footage is just sitting around.
The climax of the film features a couple of sessions in double overhead barrels that look nothing short of life changing. How do you take in a days surfing like that?
Those sessions were pretty crazy. It was really strange. I was really mellowed out even though it was super sketchy. I think the second wave of the end section I get a long one and then doggy door and straighten out into really shallow, shallow water. I mean, if I didn't straighten out I'd have gone straight into a doubling up closeout into one foot of water. So it was sketchy and you had to pick the right ones and when you did they were sooooooooo freakin' magical. It was difficult to pick the right ones because there were a lot of closeouts and I'd sometimes wait out there for an hour between waves. But the payoff was so worth it.
Mate, you had nothing to do but wait?
Exactly man. The luxury of time is a rare thing. I definitely made the most of it.
In the summer of 2008, iconic surfer and former Pipe Master Rob Machado flew to Indonesia to experience a different kind of surf trip. A journey that would take him way beyond his comfort zone, to the point where he could finally be alone with his thoughts, his desires and the empty perfection of an unnamed Indian Ocean reef. What did he discover? You never stop dreaming. Even when they come true.
Surfing World Issue 299 out in New Zealand very soon.
www.surfingworld.com.au