Jamie Budge

Jamie Budge is a Cal­i­for­nia film­maker who cre­ated The Liv­ing Curl. Vir­tu­ally ignored because of its small 8mm frame size when it first released, the film has become a sur­prise hit to a new gen­er­a­tion of surf­ing fans – 45 years later. Dora, Fain, Weber, Mar­tin­son, Peck, and Car­son were amongst the film’s many stars.

What was it like grow­ing up in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia?
Life at that time had a Tom Sawyer / Huck­le­berry Finn feel to it. Boys were expected to be boys. I’d take off in the morn­ing with a friend or two and not come back till dark. Go hik­ing. Climb down the cliffs to the beach. Jump in the ocean. We made soap-box skate scoot­ers, flew kites, climbed trees. Climbed on the school roof. Got into the class­rooms.  We didn’t take any­thing – it was just for the free spir­ited mis­chief of it all. Rode bikes. And later on: go carts and motor bikes. Totally unsu­per­vised. It felt free. I miss that.

When did you get your first surf­board?
It was sort of prophetic really. I didn’t go, to go surf­ing. I went down to try a pad­dle board because I wanted to put a sail on it like the one I had seen in Pop­u­lar Sci­ence or Mechanix Illus­trated. On the way in I caught a wave and stood up. My friend was yelling “Great Left!” “Shoot the Curl!”  The next day I got my first surf­board. It was my 16th birth­day. 1960.

What was the feel­ing you had when you you first stood on a surf­board?
Up until that wave on the pad­dle­board, all my surf­ing expe­ri­ence had been on inflat­able mats. I’d pad­dle with the swell until it pitched me over the falls and ride straight off in the white water on my knees until I hit the beach. At that time, a wave to me was some­thing that was mostly white­wa­ter. So that “shoot­ing the curl” thing had me a lit­tle baffled.

But I remem­ber shoot­ing it at Mal­ibu and look­ing down at all the rocks under the water and think­ing, “This is like fly­ing!  I’m fly­ing over the sur­face of the water and all the rocks and other obsta­cles are far beneath me.”  Sort of like an anal­ogy for life, I guess. I was stoked. Because after that, all I can remem­ber about my life is that I went surfing,

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
When it came to surf­ing – it was Miki. Because by the time I got there, he was already, “Mr. Mal­ibu”. A big­ger than life fig­ure. There he was, right there on the beach.  Where you could walk up and talk to him.  But I never played the Miki “game”… dou­ble speak, tongue-in-cheek, innu­endo. I just never knew him like every­body else did.  I just admired his surfing.

Dave Sweet was like a father fig­ure. Every­body called him “Uncle Dave.” He was doing his own thing and got a ton of crap from the “estab­lished” surf­ing com­mu­nity for mak­ing “pop outs.”   Later, it was ver­i­fied that it was Dave (not Hobie) that was the orig­i­na­tor of the com­mer­cial foam surf­board. Now, every­thing from surf­boards to boo­gie boards, kite boards, wind­surf­ing to wake boards are “pop outs”. Dave had that qual­ity of inde­pen­dent inno­va­tion that I admired.  Like I said in “The Liv­ing Curl” nar­ra­tion, I always liked him ‘cause he was a rebel who didn’t do what every­body else did.

And any­body who made surf films:  Grant Rol­hoff, John Sev­er­son, Bruce Brown.

What gave you the idea to film Cal­i­for­nia surf­ing?
It seems like every­thing that every­body did in the ‘60’s… didn’t come from an idea.  There was no, “Aha!  What a great idea I have.” We just did it. Sort of like one of those beach movies of the time, where a party would just break out. At some point, the cam­era came out and we were film­ing. I remem­ber shoot­ing 8mm films of my friends and them shoot­ing me so we could see how we looked surf­ing. If I wanted to see how we looked com­pared to Miki Dora or Johnny Fain, then I would shoot films of Miki Dora and Johnny Fain. And any­body else we aspired to surf like.

What chal­lenges did you encounter when film­ing?
Well, the obvi­ously biggest chal­lenge was that I was film­ing in 8mm. Unheard of for surf­ing at the time; only used for home movies of the fam­ily. So I did a lot of con­coct­ing to get 16mm tele­photo lens to fit on my 8mm cam­era. Screwed a gun sight to the side of the cam­era to “tar­get in” (with cross hairs) on what I was shoot­ing because there was no thru-the-lens viewfinder for my 8mm camera.

Show­ing it in “audi­to­ri­ums” was an even big­ger chal­lenge. There just wasn’t enough light com­ing thru those tiny frames to make it all the way to the screen with the pro­jec­tors avail­able at the time. So I mounted a huge blower on the side of my 8mm pro­jec­tor to cool the over­sized 16mm bulb I installed. And I could still only show it in Women’s Clubs and VFW Halls to a hun­dred or so peo­ple at a time.

So, “The Liv­ing Curl” has always been sort of the runt of the lit­ter. I mean, who’d go see a surf movie at a Woman’s Club, when all the great films were show­ing at the Santa Mon­ica Civic?

But I had sort of a cult fol­low­ing. John Mil­ius (who later pro­duced the Hol­ly­wood surf clas­sic, “Big Wednes­day”), was a fan of “The Liv­ing Curl.” He said I was the first kid on the block to really be in the motion pic­ture busi­ness. And Craig Ste­cyk (before he was Miki Dora’s groupie and biog­ra­pher), was my groupie. He’d come into Dave Sweet’s surf shop where I worked in the show­room, and hang and talk surf. His mom would call me to see if I could steer Craig in the right direc­tion. I guess I did a good job.

What was surf­ing like back in the six­ties?
I guess that’s the whole point of “The Liv­ing Curl”. And it’s re-release. It’s surf­ing in the six­ties and how it really was. Like a typ­i­cal road trip up and down PCH. How it looked, how we surfed, the music that was “surf” music to us – before there was surf music.

What’s uncanny, is that it feels like surf­ing in the six­ties. It took me months to edit it on the com­puter, and to put all the parts together dig­i­tally. That whole process was like a time tun­nel for me. The surfers I played with, the music we lis­tened to, all right there in front of me on the com­puter. It sort of gave me the creeps… to be so caught up in 45 years ago. But at the same time, it made me real­ize how dif­fer­ent, and the same, every­thing is from today.

How so?
Crowds I guess are the big dif­fer­ence. Mal­ibu was always ridicu­lously crowded. But hey, (in the ‘60’s) let’s drive an hour up the high­way where we can get every wave all to our­selves. Not any more. If you want waves to your­self, you have to take planes and boats to a dif­fer­ent coun­try or continent.

Like it says in the film, “In the early six­ties, surf­ing was all brand new.” South­ern Cal­i­for­nia was like one big Mardi Gras or Brazil­ian Carnival-type beach party. The atti­tude was, “Hey, come join the fun!”  There was alive­ness and dis­cov­ery in the air. Every new maneu­ver or surf­board design was fresh off somebody’s imag­i­na­tion and being put to the test.

And there was an inno­cence. If you came up with some­thing really off the wall (a 7ft “thumb” board, for instance) it wasn’t really a tar­get of ridicule (most of the time).  Because it was all so new, nobody knew what would work or what wouldn’t. Or what place a new board or weird look­ing maneu­ver would find in the his­tory of it all. There was an open­ness to it all. If you were walk­ing any­where with a surf­board, cars would stop and ask you if you wanted a ride. Join the party.

By the late six­ties, early sev­en­ties, there was a mood shift to it all. Surf­ing was turn­ing into a hard core sub-culture of drugs, local­ism and tire slash­ings. A harder feel that matched the polit­i­cal and eco­nomic mood of the times. Like in the film Big Wednes­day. There was a pre-occupation with war in Viet­nam, hard finan­cial times and all around social disorientation.

Now that it is re-released, what has been the reac­tion to a younger gen­er­a­tion?
When my part­ner in this project (surf and skate his­to­rian) Scott Starr first approached me about turn­ing “The Liv­ing Curl” into a DVD, I thought nobody’s going to want to see this old slop. It was only 8mm (I used to have to talk the audi­ence into not leav­ing once they saw the pro­jec­tor), it was only 16 frames per sec­ond, which would look like ridicu­lously sped up when turned to video. It would be a lot of work.  And out­ra­geously expen­sive. I’d done some research over the decades, and it would always cost too much and not look very good.

But Scott did a good job of cat­alyz­ing me to res­ur­rect it. When I saw it on the mon­i­tors dur­ing the trans­fer, I was amazed at how good it looked. Tech­nol­ogy had done the impos­si­ble. And later on, on the full size the­ater screen at La Paloma, I was daz­zled almost beyond belief. My lit­tle “home” movie gleam­ing out on the full size sil­ver screen, look­ing as good as “End­less Sum­mer” or “Gone with the Wind.” Where was this tech­nol­ogy in the six­ties when I needed it?

So it’s bet­ter the sec­ond time around. I was totally sur­prised. I thought I’d show it once or twice as a good goof for old surfers. But when every­body applauded their way through the re-release “Pre­miere” at Duke’s Mal­ibu and then lined up for auto­graphed copies of the DVD after­wards. It was like shock and awe for me.

And then the emails and phone calls just started com­ing in. And just kept com­ing. It was every­thing I always wanted for it – 45 years later.

Most of the shops that have been buy­ing the DVD’s, have been the younger gen­er­a­tion of surfers. It amazes me when they actu­ally gasp at the (some­times stan­dard) maneu­vers we did on long­boards back then. In the ‘60’s, the long­board was the only game in town. And the surfers of the day put every­thing they had into those planks we rode. Some shops con­sider it an instruc­tion video for long­board surfing.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
It seems like surf­ing never changed any­thing in my life.  It just seems like I’ve always surfed. It was the norm. It’s not what mean­ing surf­ing holds for me, it’s just how lit­tle mean­ing life seems to hold with­out surf­ing or sim­i­lar exag­ger­ated expe­ri­ences of life (adren­a­line junkie?) that I get (got) from surf­ing and other pursuits.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
If I get in the “zone” from what­ever I’m doing: surf­ing, film­ing, skat­ing, ski­ing, board­ing, danc­ing, what­ever – and then I’m done doing it and I real­ize I’ve been hav­ing sort of an “out of body” expe­ri­ence in the process – becom­ing one with what I was doing. Sounds corny, but that’s IT! Hours have just evap­o­rated. The exhil­a­ra­tion of doing what­ever and the feel­ing of hav­ing done it – is the most hap­pi­ness I’ve ever had on this plane of existence.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Miki Dora, Lance Car­son, Jim Foley… just kid­ding! But they are the ones who shaped the path of surf­ing for me. Today… Kelly Slater? Tony Hawk? I dunno. Some­thing about most of the surfers today – they all look the same to me. Surfers like skaters, skaters like surfers. Same maneu­vers, same styles. X Games. Maybe that’s just me, observ­ing con­tem­po­rary surf­ing from the outside.

It used to be if you were dri­ving up PCH by Mal­ibu and Miki Dora was tak­ing of at 3rd point, you could tell from hun­dreds of yards away that it was Miki. Sort of like when I saw Mick Jag­ger take the stage at the Rose Bowl from a hun­dred yards away. I just knew the instant he hit the stage: That was him. No doubt. His style. His body lan­guage.    In the ‘60’s, in the day of “The Liv­ing Curl”, surfers were known up and down the coast by their indi­vid­ual styles and body language.

I don’t know if that exists quite the same today. Surfers are per­form­ing almost lev­i­tat­ing type maneu­vers on waves today. Defy­ing grav­ity and com­mon sense. Incred­i­ble to see.   But the forms their bod­ies take in the process is almost irrel­e­vant. You don’t notice it in all the may­hem they are mak­ing of the wave.

Maybe that’s part of the appeal of “The Liv­ing Curl”: the styles the surfers of the ‘60’s had. Every­thing that the surfers of today do, is a spin-off from the gen­er­a­tion before. In the ‘60’s, there was not really any­thing before it to spin off of. So it all had more unique, indi­vid­u­al­is­tic looks to it.

I saw some footage of Kelly at Jeffery’s and Tom Cur­ren (I seem to remem­ber) at Sand Spit. It was Magic. They had the style and grace of the ‘60’s with the unbe­liev­able maneu­vers of today. Best of both worlds. But I don’t see it that often – the maneu­vers with the grace and finesse.  Agile, yes. But not the style. Arms and elbows and knees stick­ing out in all direc­tions. We would have con­sid­ered that out of bounds.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board? Your favorite surfspot?
I made a 7 foot “thumb” board in the very early ‘60’s (after see­ing Jim Foley at Steamer Lane in Bruce Brown’s “Bare­foot Adven­ture.” My surf bud­dies of the time put it in a burn­ing trash can. So I went back to a stan­dard long­board to “fit in.” Prob­a­bly the last time I did any­thing any­where to fit in.

So I’ve always bounced back and forth between the long and short of it. But I’ve always tried to retain my old school roots: whip turns, drop knee cut­backs, nose rides, side slips. But with the loose­ness to shred up and down in the curl sim­i­lar to con­tem­po­rary short boards (which I’ve never rid­den. They always seemed too much work to pad­dle out to the line-up, duck div­ing and all that.) My favorite boards are a 7’5” and an 8’6”.  Both shaped by Rob­bie Dick with sort of a ‘60’s Pen­e­tra­tor or Per­former shape. I’d ride the 7’5” if I could. But I get run over by too many long­board­ers and SUP’s that are already in the wave by the time I can drop in. So I’ve set­tled for the 8’6.” I can almost be as loose as rid­ing the 7’5” and still get into long­board waves early enough to take possession.

I was born and bred in right point break waves.  And not always per­fect.  And I like it that way.  More vari­ety to keep me on my toes. I like Topanga as well as Mal­ibu, Sta­bles as well as Rin­con. Swamis as much as Tres­tles. For the flat spots, sec­tions, bowls, and time to set up as the next sec­tion approaches. Mod­er­ately steep as opposed to drain­ing hol­low (except for the bowls). Mixed up, long­board stuff.

What’s next for Jamie Budge?
Some­times I think I’m through doing every­thing I’ve ever wanted to do. All I did from 16 to 24 was every­thing surf. I felt I was old at surf­ing by 24. By the late six­ties, it all seemed to be turn­ing to tire-slashing locals and hard drugs. I kept surf­ing, but dropped out of the scene. Now, between my Wind­Skate toys and my photo career, I’ve hit all the tar­gets I wanted.

Usu­ally, some unex­pected tan­gent grabs me and I’m off and run­ning in a new direc­tion.  Like with Wind­Skate. Or even “The Liv­ing Curl.” I never expected to be doing that. All over again.

I’ve got a sec­ond film: “The Cal­i­for­ni­ans.” The most advanced long­board surf­ing ever (in 1967) that was almost obso­lete (with the short board tran­si­tion) by the time it came out. Then I picked it up “Four Years After” with many of the same long­board surfers after they had made the tran­si­tion to short­boards: David on a Fish. Dewey on a Strato. Corky on his shorter sig­na­ture model. Mini guns. Cut­ting edge, tran­si­tional short board rid­ing. Up and com­ers like Jay Rid­dle and Clyde Beatty Jr. It will be a com­par­i­son of long­board — short­board surf­ing. I want to put that all together for dig­i­tal release.

I’m enjoy­ing my new­found niche as his­to­rian of Cal­i­for­nia surf­ing in the ‘60’s. I was never that social with it back in the ‘60’s. I was too busy try­ing to do all of every­thing all at once that I didn’t have time to enjoy any of it.

Now it’s all for fun.

More infor­ma­tion about Jamie Budge and The Liv­ing Curl can be found here.