Jason Baffa

Jason Baffa is an inspired California-based film­maker and the cre­ator of the pop­u­lar 16 mm films Sin­glefin: Yel­low and One Cal­i­for­nia Day. We were for­tu­nate enough to the chance to inter­rupt Jason’s busy film­mak­ing sched­ule to ask him a few ques­tions.

Where did you grow up?
Well, I’ve lived in Los Ange­les my entire life but most of my early beach days were spent in New­port and San Clemente. My good friend had a house down there and we’d trek south on week­ends. I didn’t sit­u­ate myself into the South Bay until col­lege. I attended Loy­ola Mary­mount Uni­ver­sity which is just north of LAX.

What was your first expe­ri­ence in the South Bay like?
I remem­ber my first time to the beach, I body­surfed near a storm drain by Marina del Rey – mid­way through my ses­sion, a used con­dom floated up next to me! I was so freaked out – so, need­less to say, life in the South Bay was a bit of a tran­si­tion. The LAX noise, the Chevron plant, Hype­r­ion sewage treat­ment, the storm drains – it’s not your typ­i­cal beach scene. But then those solid north­west swells start fill­ing in through Octo­ber and the winds would turn off­shore. We had about 6 years where it sorta got shitty but the last few sea­sons have been fun – so I guess you take the good with the bad. I find it hard to believe I’ve been liv­ing and surf­ing the area for about 18 years — it def­i­nitely feels like home. Luck­ily, I have fam­ily in Santa Bar­bara – so I’m on the road a lot to surf the points up north… and that’s prob­a­bly what I like best.

When did you get your first surf­board?
My cousin Andrew Gable gave me a beater when I was a teenager but I wasn’t really into it – I was super into body­surf­ing and would head down to New­port a lot – I guess it was late high school that my brother-in-law, Rich Cof­fin (now father to super groms, Con­ner and Parker Cof­fin – then dat­ing my sis­ter at the time), took me up Topanga Canyon and we bought this Greg Lid­dle from a really weird guy named Glenn. I’ll never for­get it, he had a pen­cil thin WT mus­tache and he was wear­ing a red silk robe with a dragon on it – I actu­ally recre­ated that char­ac­ter in a stu­dent film dur­ing col­lege. Totally clas­sic. A few years later, I bought my first legit stick, a 6’6” Bul­lit – from a small win­dow shop in Her­mosa Beach. The shop is gone now, but it was right next to the old North End Tav­ern. I got my ass kicked on that board dur­ing the El Niño win­ter of ‘91. Pure masochism.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
Rich and I were at Mal­ibu on an old Velzy and it was amaz­ing – when you spend all your time body­surf­ing, you fall in love with the ocean – the rhythms, the expe­ri­ence. But there is a cer­tain exhil­a­ra­tion to slid­ing on a board. I was hooked. It’s funny, lately I’m so burnt out on crowds, I’ve gone back to body­surf­ing close­outs. Even the bad days are fun – I guess you get a bit jaded when you spend all your time trav­el­ing and search­ing for per­fect waves. It’s good to remem­ber what made you happy as a kid.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
My dad’s been a huge influ­ence. He’s a stand up guy and really ded­i­cated him­self to our fam­ily. He taught me to body­surf and play other sports. Not known to many but before being seri­ous about surf­ing, I was an all city and all val­ley CIF run­ning back – my class almost took State but lost to Napoleon Kauf­man, who ended up on the Raiders. I also, played base­ball, soc­cer, beach vol­ley­ball and ran track – so, my dad was really sup­port­ive of my sports. But every sum­mer I was super bummed to leave the beach and go to foot­ball prac­tice. I think that is maybe what gave me a unique per­spec­tive on surf­ing and travel. My love affair really began a bit later in life.

My cousin Andrew was also a huge influ­ence and as I men­tioned ear­lier, my now brother-in-law, Rich Coffin.

Out­side of fam­ily, I looked up to the film­mak­ers of my gen­er­a­tion: Lucas, Spiel­berg, Cop­pola. And I was a Larry Czonka fan, too. Czonka was full­back for the Miami Dol­phins, his team fin­ished an unde­feated 17–0 sea­son, win­ning the Super­bowl – I was born dur­ing that game and I played full­back. Czonka kicked ass.

Iron­i­cally, I used to watch the early Steve Sabol NFL films. I think those actu­ally really influ­enced my surf films. He used a lot of slow motion pho­tog­ra­phy, a lot of tight shots on the details of the game and he always por­trayed the ath­letes as glad­i­a­tors – heros. I always really liked that – let­ting things be larger than life. Ha! So I guess Larry Czonka really did influ­ence my film­mak­ing career. Who knew?

Where were you edu­cated in film­mak­ing?
I was weird, I decided I wanted to make movies at a very early age. Much of that credit goes to my other cousin, Christo­pher Baffa, ASC. He is now the direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy for shows like Glee, Nip/Tuck and films like Run­ning with Scis­sors and Sui­cide Kings. He intro­duced me to film when I was really young. I later pur­sued it at the Art Cen­ter in Pasadena and then I got my BFA in film pro­duc­tion from Loy­ola Mary­mount University.

Explain how the idea for Sin­glefin: Yel­low came about?
Sin­glefin: Yel­low came out of me dri­ving from Man­hat­tan Beach to Irvine every day to work on a show called Blue­torch TV. I was a TV pro­ducer there and got to do a lot of the surf­ing seg­ments. I also got to do a lot of the long­board­ing seg­ments because at that time, I was pretty focused on rid­ing tra­di­tional equipment.

Through my trav­els for the show, I met Devon Howard, Beau Young, Daize Shayne, David Kinoshita and Bonga Perkins. Mak­ing a TV show is a total grind and as much as I loved the cre­ative part, i really hated the quick turn­around and inabil­ity to really let things play out in a cin­e­matic way. I real­ized then that I really wanted to get into doing feature-length films and I thought, if I’m going to make my own movie, why not com­bine two things I really love, long­board­ing & film­mak­ing. My com­mute was about 2 hours round trip, so I would just play good music, drink a lot of cof­fee and let my mind wan­der about movie ideas and inspiration.

At the time, there were not many decent films about long­board­ing. The Seedling was the most notable and I always thought, wow – this genre really needs a defin­i­tive film that tells a story. Some­thing that I can show to peo­ple who don’t surf and help them under­stand what it is we do.

Jason Baffa mak­ing cin­ema on canvas

I had toyed with doing a film that fol­lowed one object as the cen­tral thread for a while – all my early ideas were geared towards a nar­ra­tive fea­ture and not surf­ing. There were a few of them I devel­oped for film school but never actu­al­ized. There’s a pretty cool 1964 movie called The Yel­low Rolls Royce that fol­lows a car as the cen­tral theme and I thought it worked great. At some point, I saw Thicker than Water and the light bulb went off. Chris did the really cool scene with the green board and I loved see­ing those guys share one board – I actu­ally met Chris on a shoot where he, Keith and Dan got to field ground balls at Angel Sta­dium. We chat­ted and I men­tioned the idea. To this day he’s embar­rassed for not remem­ber­ing – we’ve since become good friends.

Any­ways, after too much dri­ving and too much cof­fee, I remem­ber putting it all together – Tyler mak­ing the board, the places I wanted to visit. I remem­ber walk­ing into my edit bay and telling my good friend Carl Cramer (edi­tor of both my films) about my idea. I saved up my cash – left Blue­torch TV and started shoot­ing the first sequence with Beau Young about a year later.

What has been the reac­tion to Sin­glefin: Yel­low and One Cal­i­for­nia Day?
It’s been amaz­ing. Both have gone on to inter­na­tional acclaim and peo­ple con­sis­tently reach out to say how much the films mean to them – it’s a very reward­ing expe­ri­ence. These films are truly labors of love, the mar­ket place for surf films is pretty tricky and by shoot­ing film and spend­ing 3–4 years to make these projects, you sorta lose any poten­tial in mak­ing good money – so the pos­i­tive feed­back makes them worth the effort.

Who was your favorite per­son you’ve got­ten to work with over the years?
Every­one has been so cool. I’ve truly made some great friends. Locally, I see Tyler Hatzikian almost every day – I ride his boards and do some cre­ative work for him and the shop – so he’s a good friend. I also really had fun work­ing with Chris Mal­loy. We have so many shared expe­ri­ences in mak­ing these films that we really hit it off – I see him a fair amount when I’m surf­ing in the SB area too. So, it’s just been cool to con­nect on a dif­fer­ent level. We can joke about our var­i­ous projects, the love of shoot­ing film, shared inter­est in music – and we both drink a decent amount of beer.

Who/what inspires you?
Man, good film­mak­ing – that always inspires me. It is a chal­leng­ing craft and I love see­ing work that is well thought out and exe­cuted. Any­time I walk into Tyler’s fac­tory I’m inspired and pissed that I can’t buy every board on the rack. And my wife is con­stant inspi­ra­tion – she teaches yoga and is really a great pos­i­tive influ­ence. Phys­i­cally, men­tally, it’s good to stay pos­i­tive – even when the world around us seems to be crum­bling, we still have it pretty good.

What is the great­est thing you have learned so far in your life?
I think to fol­low my dreams – I con­tinue to push every­day to keep doing the things I love. It’s a con­stant strug­gle. This world isn’t really set up for free trav­el­ing artists. But I can’t imag­ine doing much else – I learn so much every time I go down the cre­ative path.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
Well, watch­ing my nephews Con­ner & Parker Cof­fin turn into teenage tour­ing pros, I guess I wish I started surf­ing when I was 2 years old like them! But more specif­i­cally, I had a chance to really pur­sue Hol­ly­wood and film­mak­ing at a young age and my love for surf­ing sorta side­tracked me. So, every now and then I wish I stayed focused just on mak­ing films – but my pur­suit of all things surf led to Sin­glefin: Yel­low and One Cal­i­for­nia Day – so, it’s slid­ing doors. I don’t think I’d want to give up either of those projects and the jour­ney I went down to cre­ate them for a career in Hol­ly­wood– which may or may not still happen.

What are you most proud of?
I’m really proud of the work. We really worked our asses off to pull both Sin­glefin: Yel­low and One Cal­i­for­nia Day off – I learned play­ing sports that you “leave it all on the field.” Give it 110% and you can go home happy – win or lose. I def­i­nitely feel like I did every­thing in my power to make those films as strong as I could – and that feels good, no one can take that away from me.

There are other film­mak­ers, who hire a bunch of peo­ple to travel around and gather footage and then they take all the credit for mak­ing the movie. I’m proud to say I made Sin­glefin: Yel­low with one cam­era and the help of Scott Kassenoff shoot­ing water & One Cal­i­for­nia Day with Mark Jere­mias and Scott Kassenoff. It’s a huge under tak­ing but we metered, lit, framed and exposed every shot in those movies. Carl Cramer cut them and that’s it. It’s a huge amount of work but super rewarding.

Tyler Hatzikian get­ting well-heeled

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Well, its changed every­thing – my focus is prob­a­bly 80% surf based day in and day out. Ha! I’d prob­a­bly be a lot more suc­cess­ful if I didn’t surf – I’d def­i­nitely be more focused on other things! But at the end of the day, it’s just really, really fun. A good day of surf­ing with friends is about as much fun as you can have.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
A good day of surf­ing. Happy hour with good friends. Cook­ing with fam­ily. Those all rate high on the list. See­ing a good movie is up there and clos­ing financ­ing on one of my own movies may take the cake!

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board?
I’m pretty old school. I have a 9’ 6” Tyler Point Model (off of Sin­glefin: Yel­low), a ‘62 Hansen, a ‘59 Jacobs, a 9’ big wave long­board shaped by Matt Cal­vani from a Joel Tudor board I broke a few years back, a 9’2” Takayama Model-T, and a 11’ and 9’ Skip Frye (on loan from Brad Ger­lach). I also have a 9’0″ Cal­vani nose rider & a 10’2″ Tyler Nose rider. Oh, and I won a 6’ 0” cus­tom Jack John­son signed board last night at his con­cert movie pre­miere! But my favorite board is a 9’ 4” Tyler Wing Nose I snake from my buddy when the waves get good – one of the most pro­gres­sive long­boards i’ve ever ridden.

One of my biggest regrets is that I’ve met some of the great­est shapers of the world while mak­ing my films but all my money went into mak­ing the films, so I can’t hire them all to shape me boards. That would be an epic quiver! It would also be about a $20K investment!

What’s your favorite meal?
I make my dad’s spaghetti sauce that he learned from my Ital­ian grandma. It is true com­fort food, and my friends often request a night to come over to enjoy it.

What are you lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Ha! Jack John­son, how cliché! We saw Emmett Malloy’s doc­u­men­tary last night, Jack John­son En Con­cert – so, I guess I was inspired to get groovy.

The One Cal­i­for­nia Day team, Mexico

What project(s) are you work­ing on?
Well, I’ve been devel­op­ing a documentary-based real­ity TV show about Brad Ger­lach and Mike Par­sons scour­ing the globe for uncharted big waves surf spots. Those guys are com­plete char­ac­ters and far more enter­tain­ing than half the bull­shit on TV – the tough part is con­vinc­ing a net­work that surf­ing can attract view­ers. So many peo­ple have com­pletely screwed it up in the com­mer­cial space that it makes it hard for guys like us – who actu­ally know what we are doing to pro­duce it. We are wait­ing to hear back from a big inter­na­tional dis­trib­u­tor any day now – hop­ing it goes, this win­ter could be sick.

I also have a film that was about ready to shoot, star­ring Dan Mal­loy and fol­low­ing him on a pil­grim­age of sorts, track­ing down some icons of surf­ing. Patag­o­nia is super into it but we haven’t been able to close the pri­vate equity financ­ing. So, if any­one is read­ing this and wants to help make a cool surf film – we are always look­ing for investors. You’d be amazed how much work beyond actu­ally mak­ing the film, goes into mak­ing one of these films. It’s gnarly – kinda like tak­ing a pad­dle out beat­ing at El Porto or Ocean Beach on a big day. You just keep tak­ing it on the head, hop­ing for a chance to make some­thing spe­cial happen.

Either way, I’d like to push my work into a more com­mer­cial space – where it can live as a solid rep­re­sen­ta­tion of our surf­ing sub­cul­ture but also, can empower, enter­tain and inspire the non-surfer. It’s a tall order but I feel like that is the direc­tion I need to evolve to stay rel­e­vant as a filmmaker.

On a lighter note, I’ve been work­ing with Chris Mal­loy & Brad Ger­lach, help­ing our Hawai­ian friends rein­tro­duce Primo Beer back to the main­land. Primo is Hawaii’s beer. It went away in the ‘80s and they just brought it back. I put together some mini-docs on our Cal­i­for­nia road trips. The beer is avail­able in bars through­out Hawaii and now Cal­i­for­nia – I just saw it this morn­ing at BevMo!

What’s next for Jason Baffa?
I really hope another film. I truly love mak­ing these films – with­out sound­ing like I’m on my soap box, I guess I just can’t stress enough to peo­ple how tricky it is to make these inde­pen­dent surf films hap­pen. With­out the audi­ence sup­port and peo­ple buy­ing the DVDs, and telling their friends to buy the DVDs – we just won’t be able to keep mak­ing these films. Skate­board films sell about 100,000 units on a hot title – surf movies are lucky to do 30,000 units. Hard to believe when you think there are mil­lions of surfers out there. Fac­tor in dis­trib­u­tor fees, shop markup, investors – there’s not a lot of finan­cial wig­gle room. I speak to guys like Mark Jere­mias, and Chris Mal­loy about this often and we all sorta scratch our heads.

And with YouTube, and piracy and peo­ple shar­ing DVDs – it just makes it a tricky busi­ness. So keep sup­port­ing the titles you enjoy and tell your friends to do the same – inde­pen­dent film in gen­eral is really suf­fer­ing. That trick­les down to niche mar­kets like surf films – so we all need to make the effort to go to movies and spread the word – and per­haps the film­mak­ers need to adjust as well. Shoot­ing film is an expen­sive process and there are now new options. But in the end, I just want to offer my audi­ence a really high qual­ity expe­ri­ence, with a lot of pro­duc­tion value. I think they deserve that.

More infor­ma­tion about Jason Baffa films and art, check out www.jasonbaffafilms.com. Infor­ma­tion about Primo Beer can be found here: www.primobeer.com. The film One Cal­i­for­nia Day is avail­able at your local surf shop or avail­able here.