DO SOMETHING
MAKE YOUR OWN SURF FILMS WITH Thomas Campbell
“Get out there and make some shit.”
That about sums up Thomas Campbell’s advice for would-be surf filmmakers. Or artists. Or musicians. Or anyone who wants to get creative, really. Known for his soulful, quirkily fun take on the alternative surfcraft scene, Campbell’s made some of the best surf films of the past couple decades: “The Seedling,” “Sprout” and “The Present.” He’s also a well-respected visual artist with gallery showings in posh art districts in the world’s coolest cities. According to Campbell, none of that would have happened had he sat around and wondered, “Is my art any good?”
Campbell got his start in surf filmmaking 20 years ago. “I was filming a movie with my friends back in 1996 called ‘Blue Fucking Corduroy, Man!’” Campbell says. “We were riding old logs from the ’60s and I thought that filming old longboarding would be fun because it wasn’t really a thing people were doing back in the 1980s and 1990s. But a year later I met Joel Tudor and he asked me if I wanted to make a surf film. That became ‘The Seedling,’ so I ditched the ‘Blue Fucking Corduroy, Man!’ idea.”
“IDLE HANDS ARE UNABLE TO
