Jeff Neu:  

My Bio Before I made surfing films, I worked for 13 years, as a Safeway grocery clerk. It was my first job and I kept it from ages 16 to 29, because I could work all night and surf all day! Not only that, it paid really well. I was able to buy my house in Capistrano Beach and finance my first surf movie which got the ball rolling. I have worked for ESPN, Surfer Magazine TV, LongBoard Magazine, MTV Sports, Billabong, Gotcha, G&S, Flojos, Quicksilver, Surfrider Foundation, Raisins/Radio Fiji, Bear, Ford¿etc. I also worked on ¿Titanic¿ (by James Cameron), ¿Ocean Tribe¿ (by Will Geiger), A few Disney movies, Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles to name a few Hollywood gigs. I was a surfer way before I ever thought about making a surfing film. I started surfing around 1969, while in Junior High School near Los Angeles, but I started riding waves as a small child on an inner tube at Huntington Beach. My parents (both German immigrants) would take us to either, Tin Can Beach (which had surf and is now known as Bolsa Chica State Beach) or Belmont Shores, Long Beach (no surf). I wanted to go where the waves were. I still remember the first time I made my way to the ¿outside¿ on a surf raft and caught a set wave that was maybe a three footer. I was stoked and instantly infected with surf fever! From that point on, everything in my life was about riding waves. I was probably nine or ten. I would sometimes ride my bike down the LA river bed with my surfboard in tow on a make-shift trailer with skateboard wheels. That was a 17 mile trip to the Seal Beach Jetty. By age 15, I was old enough to find my own rides to the beaches that I wanted to surf. My older sister¿s boyfriend would sometimes let me take his car, just to get rid of me for a while. A couple of my high school buddies had cars too and we would dawn patrol every chance we got. We would all pitch in One Dollar for gas (gasoline was about .39 cents a gallon) and load up four to seven of us. The driver would usually come out ahead. It was about 15 miles to El Segundo or 22 miles to Huntington but those were not our only options. Back then we didn¿t have surf reports or forecasts, so we would search for surf. Sometimes we would spend the entire day driving from Malibu to El Segundo to Palos Verdes to Seal, HB, Newport, etc. Photo courtesy of Jeff Neu The first time I shot any surfing footage was around 1972, at a spot called Haggerty¿s in the Palos Verdes Estates area. I snuck my Dad¿s 8mm movie camera and traded off shooting with my friend, James. We filmed each other surfing three foot glassy lefts peeling down the point. We were total amateurs and were more interested in surfing than filming. I think I still have that footage in a box somewhere. I found my dream wave around 1973 directly under President Nixon¿s ¿western white house¿. It was a foggy summer morning and a new friend of mine had stories of perfect point waves. We did a pre-dawn patrol and drove south to San Clemente. It was still dark when we parked the car at State Park, north of the fabled break and began the mile long hike southward toward Cottons. As we got within a half mile or so, the fog lifted slightly and it was getting light. I couldn¿t believe my eyes as I strained to see four waves stacked up and peeling left. The waves stayed good all day and pulsed in size between three to six feet. I thought I had reached Nirvana. From that day forward I surfed Cottons regularly. I became a world traveler when my sister landed a job as a stewardess for Pan Am Airlines. I remember reading about a young Gerry Lopez, visiting exotic locations in Indo. So when my sister offered me nearly free travel (pay only tax) as a stand-by passenger on Pan Am/United, I was all over it! From 1975 to 2001, I made approximately 47 trips to Hawaii alone. I did a lot of travel to other global destinations, much of which was paid for by Surfer Magazine for their TV show. I moved to San Clemente and surfed Cottons every day. I made friends with some of the guys I surfed with there, and a couple of them lived in Cypress Shores, a gate guarded community with beach access to Cottons. I no longer had to make the mile long walk. They are still close friends to this day. Making films then, was a lot more work than today¿s desktop video production. ¿ - I love the look of film, but using film instead of video has many disadvantages. A. You only get three minutes of filming per roll. B. The equipment is much heavier than the new video cameras. C. Try swimming at Pipe with a 20 pound anchor attached to your wrist. D. You can miss some of the action if you run out of film during a shot. E. One roll of film (3 minutes) ends up costing $100. Film, Processing, Transfer to Tape. F. You can¿t look at your footage until you have done step E. I began filming my first theatrical release in 1983. When I told people my goal of making a film about surfing, I was usually met with words of discouragement. After I began shooting seriously, I realized I didn¿t know what I was doing, so I enrolled at Saddleback College and began taking film and TV courses. There I learned about filming technique, the type of equipment I needed, editing etc. One of our film class assignments was to create a short film. I used this short film as the opener to my first theatrical release. My original working title was called ¿The Impact Zone¿. It was inspired by the TV series ¿The Twilight Zone¿. Unfortunately, that title had been trademarked by a wind surfer in San Francisco. He threatened me with a lawsuit so I changed the name to ¿Journey to the Impact Zone¿. When I look back on this short film, I feel bad for its content and substance, because I am now a family man and the opener is a reflection of how I saw family and marriage as a threat to my freedom and surfing. Anyway, the opener is a little harsh, but I pulled off the Twilight Zone parody and got an ¿A¿ on the project. I finished ¿Journey to the Impact Zone¿ in 1987. That¿s when the real work started. Video was still in its early stages so I planned to do a limited theatrical tour. I personally showed the film 155 times during 1988 (there are a lot of stories in that alone). I opened the film at the historic Miramar Theatre in San Clemente to sold out crowds. After a spectacular premiere, I began a west coast tour and drove the film from San Diego to Mendocino in my VW bus. Then I flew to the East Coast, starting in New York and worked my way down through Jersey. Next was the Texas/Gulf coast tour which I also did out of my VW bus. Then it was on to Hawaii. After the tours were done I released ¿JTTIZ¿ on video and had continued success. ¿San Clemente Locals¿ was my second film and I had no plans for a video release. It was 1989 and I had already shot footage of most of the surfers from around town, so I thought I would do something for the community and let them see themselves on the ¿Big Screen¿. Well, I accidentally created a monster! I again opened at the Miramar Theater in San Clemente and showed the film seven (7) straight nights with local bands performing as a prelude to the film. I thought it would do pretty good but it was a complete hit. With 2 showings per night and sold out crowds, I practically...Expand for more