Mickey Smith interview
HUCK talks to the surf photographer about his new film that forms part of Relentless Energy's Short Stories competition.
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Surf photographer Mickey Smith personifies passion. Based in the wilderness of the west coast of Ireland, his chosen aquatic office is dark, oppressive and bitterly cold, erupting with heavy waves which churn with a power that can smash bones.
Yet the Penzance native is infatuated with his alien home despite its life-threatening overtones. Humble, inspiring and beaming with perma-positivity, Mickey sees the immense beauty of this place, even though it is where Mother Nature is at her most monstrous. It’s a magical wilderness he’s dedicated his life to capturing in stills and video.
Following on from his appearances in Powers Of Three and Lives Of The Artists, both by Relentless Energy, Mickey has flipped the camera on himself and his adopted home to create the deeply personal, stunning short film, Dark Side Of The Lens.
Set to a soundtrack of his own music and poems, and dedicated to the memory of his late sister Cherry, Dark Side of the Lens is the first film from Relentless Energy’s Short Stories competition. This unique contest saw four of the UK’s best young action sports filmmakers being given a £4000 budget to create a short five minute movie starring one of the brand’s athletes and to evoke their slogan of ‘No Half Measures’. The winner of this contest is being decided in December and will win a further £4000.
Directed by Mickey, filmed by close friend Willie and with music produced by Nat Wason of rock band Strays, it’s the perfect inspiration for when the Short Stories contest opens to the public in 2011.
Progressive, pioneering and beyond passionate, HUCK gets Mickey Smith’s thoughts behind the project.
The Film
“We stumbled upon the idea to look at things from my perspective. No one knows about surf photography - the other side in the water. It’s a weird, specific genre and thought that would be interesting. At first I found it hard: I wanted to do something more general, but we decided to go autobiographical. I found it difficult to feel comfortable with, but it worked out well [...] When I was writing, it was hard to combine a personal angle and the genre of surf photography as a whole. My life is so different: I don’t go anywhere warm. I’ve done a lot of Hawaiian seasons, but it’s just not my cup of tea – fighting with loads of people for shots. I don’t like that. I’d rather do things on my own terms: solitary.”
Inspiration
"Everything in front of the lens is bright and what people see, you know what’s there. But you don’t think about the person behind those images, hence I named it The Dark Side of The Lens. That’s why I’m a photographer rather than a surfer: I naturally observe and document in my head. If I’m out with a group, I find it uncomfortable to sit there talking to loads of people. I’d rather remove myself and watch."
The Editing
"It’s a hard process. You have to be brutal with everything. We had enough to make a rad half hour film easy. But we’re going to revisit and cut as much of the words as we can, leave little bits, create some breathing space. Push it too far and then back again. We’re both perfectionist and end up looking at ridiculous details for the whole night which are about one second of the film."
The Soundtrack
"I’m always writing music. But a song I wrote around the time my sister died kept coming up in my head and it fit. I played each instrument myself, building the tracks up layer by layer. The drums were the hardest. Normally I’m with my band, but Nat said to play on my own. So we played all night, from the afternoon to 6am recording and Will would give me the nod or the cringe, while he was working on the edit the whole time. We tried to create music that builds up to a big climax in the mix, not just a narrative telling the story. I didn’t want the instrumental dipping in and out of the vocal like a documentary. I wanted a song where the vocals were part of the music, building underneath the images, the instruments fighting with the words. I wanted it to be a song, not a poem."
Dark Side Of The Lens and more of Relentless Energy's Short Stories competition entries will be released very soon.
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Mickey Smith interview (text) by Gemma Freeman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (5)
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Well done to Mickey Smith and his mates who risk life and limb every day to bring us this unique insight to the beauty of the west of Ireland
An awe inspiring piece of Video !
A Big Thank You !!