WindsurfingUK Issue 3 May 2017 | Page 58

58 FEATURE CHOOK JOURNAL The trip started a few weeks before we left the UK when we travelled down to South Wales and collected some brand new kit from Jim at Puravida. He hooked us up with 2017 Simmer gear and O’Shea wetsuits. Steve from K4 also sent us some fins so we were all set. Travelling to Oz always feels like going home for us as our parents still own the house we grew up in as kids. We were lucky enough to be out there from mid-December until mid-January at which point we sadly had to return for school/uni. Whilst we were in Margies we wanted to make a little video about the trip and ‘WA6285: Home of the Chook’ is the finished result! The logo and name of The Chook Journal, which is what we call ourselves, was inspired by the ‘chook’ (Australian slang for chicken) that is silhouetted in the sand dune opposite Rivermouth Beach, inside the main break, Margaret River. Rivermouth is the beach that we basically grew up on learning to take a pounding from the waves and is where we really first learned to surf as kids. Our Dad meanwhile would be sailing the main break and as we have gotten older naturally we progressed into sailing it with him! This trip was Ollie’s first time out there and it’s fair to say he was nervous while rigging up and navigating the keyhole. But he enjoyed it once he had a few waves under his belt. We both learned to wave sail on the south coast of the UK when we moved there six years ago. I guess it’s fair to say we sail with a slightly strange style. It is a little more old school with drawn out, wide arc bottom turns with flowing top turns. As a result our videos are never the typical montage of epic moves. We try to capture the true essence of our trips. Not just the windsurfing either, the travel and time spent doing non-windsurf related activities finds its way into our edits because this is the full the story, which we want to represent. Meaningful We believe strongly in filming only what is really happening, we don’t enjoy fabricating clips to make our trips or windsurfing look more impressive. We like to try and find different camera angles, film from different spots and then bring the footage home and turn it into a meaningful video. Each edit we try to up the level and with this latest one we felt we managed it. Neither of us have any cinematography nor editing qualifications. Everything we have learned is self-taught through trial and error. We are already looking forward to the next trip and trying to up the quality again. When filming we don’t exactly have the latest and greatest equipment. Instead we use budget video gear that we have purchased second hand over the last few uk WIND SURFING