Jeremy Gosch interview
Back in the 1970s, a group of antipodean surfers descended on Hawaii with an aggressive new attitude that helped take surfing from a counter-culture hobby to a lucrative career. HUCK talks to Jeremy Gosch, director of Bustin' Down the Door - a film that documents this pivotal time in surfing.
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HUCK: Are you happy with how Bustin’ Down the Door turned out?
Jeremy Gosch: Yeah, I’m definitely happy with the film. For the time period we had to make it and with the budget we had, I think it came out really well. I wouldn’t say it was a teeny tiny budget but we definitely had time constraints. You know when we actually shot the interviews and stuff, we only had two weeks to shoot all our interviews. It was definitely tight getting all that stuff done.
What was your motivation to get involved?
Well I’d known Shaun Thomson for a long time and I just really thought that his story and the story of Rabbit Bartholomew and Mark Richards really needed to be told to the surfing public. Even when I would talk to Kelly Slater and others, no one really knew the trouble and hardship that these guys had to go through to get the sport of surfing off the ground.
One very noticeable thing about the film is how good the archive footage is. Was it difficult to get these shots?
We were lucky because a lot of people did shoot film during that period. I ended up going through probably about 30 surf films at a couple of hours a piece. Shaun Thomson had a bunch of 8mm archive footage as well and also Bill Delaney, who shot the movie Freeride, had a bunch of short-ends and outtakes that had never been seen. So it was just sifting through about sixty hours of footage to find the shots that were of that time period as well as looking through footage from television shows that the guys had appeared in.
Was it difficult getting a balance between allowing the characters to reminisce and still trying to keep a lively pace?
I wasn’t really worried about that when we were doing interviews; I kind of just let people talk. I made sure that I had everything covered in the interviews, knowing that I could piece it together in post-production. But that was definitely the biggest challenge, cutting it down as much as possible to get the story across as well as keeping it interesting for the audience. The key was to leave out people and stories that didn’t quite move the story along. There are so many people who are involved in the story but you have to keep the facts consistent and small to really tell the story.
The scene where Rabbit Bartholomew is talking about his childhood in Australia and breaks down into tears becomes quite an awkward moment. What was your motivation for keeping it in?
It was such an honest moment. I just felt that it shows what Rabbit’s motivation was, to pursue this dream of trying to become a pro surfer from the hardship that he came from. I hoped that, even though it was awkward and maybe a little uncomfortable, the audience would be able to connect to him on a personal level. Just knowing that he did come from this background and that it’s still affecting him 40 years later. To know that he had this dream and he was able to come through all his hardships and become a world champion. That’s why I didn’t cut away.
The characters are very engaging and entertaining but nowadays such top athletes can be rather dull. Do you think these guys were a lucky find?
Definitely. That was another thing going into this project; I knew that the guys I was going to interview were some of the best storytellers in the surfing world, let alone just great people to hang around with. They always kept me fascinated so I thought if I could just set up a camera to capture them with that honesty, it would translate to the audience well.
Did you come across any difficulties speaking to some of the Hawaiian locals who really had serious problems with these guys?
Well, it had been about 30 years so I think a lot of people were open to talk about it. But no one’s going to name names of anyone who did anything you know. It’s implied who did what but no one’s going to say ‘this guy beat Rabbit in the head’ or something. When I brought up the question ‘Who are the Black Shorts?’ or ‘what happened to Rabbit?’ it would elicit a kind of funny response from the Hawaiians. Even some of the pro surfers couldn’t believe that I was bringing it up because it had always been shovelled under the rug a little bit. I think everyone did open up eventually. I think that time heals most things.
Bustin' Down the Door will open at the BFI Imax on September 4.
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