The air hung thick with a lazy summer haze as a deep swell met with the North shore. From the shade of the Jubel Landrover, we looked over the beach. White sea spray slowly drifted up a shoreline filled with surfers and holidaymakers all keen to get out after two weeks of rain. It was lucky too as we only had two days for this shoot to be wrapped up and sent to the client… one more day of delay would have lost us the job.
The location was a place like no other in Cornwall, its dunes are seemingly endless, their peaks like viewpoints across a lunar landscape filled with forests, old military pillboxes and craters. The dunes abruptly stop where land meets sea, here a cliff runs for almost two miles, its paths zig-zagging as close to the edge as visitors brave.
Where the cliffs succumb to the sea you meet a long arching beach of gold and black sand that stretches the entire parameter of St Ives bay. Waves that reach here have often travelled for thousands of miles and once hitting the North Coast have had to bend around St Ives headland before finally meeting their end on the golden sands below.
We’d spent the last two days exploring these dunes all in search of perfect shots. Was it to be this dune peak, or that, through this wooded area or across this ridge, possibly a follow shot or something with compression or possibly all of the above. We did all of this in near-horizontal rain, with no way of writing down the shots we’d chosen. But at least we had an idea... When it came to the day we would have no time wasted or let's do this tomorrows.
The day of the shoot had come. We were to meet Tassy Swallow, Jubel Beer ambassador and formidable surfer that dominated the British surf scene, at her house just outside of St Ives. We arrived at a large beautiful sandstone home hidden amongst leaning Monterey Pines. There parked in front of the house was classic, 110 Landrover Defender in grey with Jubel emblazoned on its side. Tassy was there waiting for us, keys in hand and a smile on her face.
She was exactly what you can imagine a surf pro to be, long curly blond hair with a softly tanned face, she was relaxed, friendly and up for helping us with whatever we needed. The meeting was short and sweet, they were to be meeting us at the beach in one hours time. All they needed was themselves, their wetsuits and their surfboards. We would sort out the rest. Leaving the van behind we loaded up the Landrover and away we went.
Arriving at the car park we found Tassy and her friends sitting on the edge of the cliffs beneath a deep red evening sun. The car park was full other than one space, reserved by a well-placed crate of Jubel. The day was still hot and we had about five hours of sunlight before the light faded to dusk and then on to night.
We carried all we could between us, Tassy and her crew with surfboards, wetsuits and crates of Jubel, our crew with the lenses, tripods, batteries and firewood. We left together, a group of nomad film making surfers, as we ventured across the dunes. In a single file we moved between head high pampas grass, through deep thickets of woods and overarching dune peaks. These sorts of shoots are a dream for a filmmaker, everywhere you look there’s a shot worth getting.
The beach itself was empty, other than a few adventurous holidaymakers who’d found the goat path away from the main beach. Here each person sat in their own triumphant freedom… no windbreaks, no ice cream vans and certainly not many people.
The team came to a halt about 200m across the beach, here tucked underneath the dunes we set up camp for the evening. Tassy and her friends were immediately in their suits, boards underarm, running towards the sea. We filmed from the beach as they bobbed up and down catching the sets that rolled across the bay. By the time they got in, we had the fire started, its embers rising up into the gradually darkening sky.
We sat around the fire chatting and laughing deep into the evening, all the while getting gradually more tipsy on crates of peach Jubel. Ed, the producer, had pulled the short straw as designated driver, but I guess somebody had to keep their wits about them. As the fire drew its final breaths we packed up all we came with and left Tassy and her friends on the beach with the final crate of Jubel and headed for the Landy. Looking back we would remember this as another brilliant day to be artists in Cornwall.
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