KIRIN BEER I was recently given the opportunity to work with one of Japans finest commercial production companies TYO Productions.

Under the direction of Yasushi Kurihara the commercial was outlined to me in Japan where I attended a meeting for a briefing for the TVC. The idea was to have one of Japans famous Sumo wrestlers promote the new Kirin Light Beer. This was to be the second in a series where the commercial before used a rap dancer to double for the wrestler and thru computer graphic's, they replaced the doubles head with the wrestlers, to make it appear that he was able to go off after drinking the beer.

My assignment was to go to Hawaii and get some specific surfing shots of a couple of surfers who would eventually have their heads replaced via computer with the famous Sumo. The two surfers chosen were Kaipo Jaquis and Kawika Foster, two great surfers who would prove to be hard working and great to work with

The Japanese were only interested in the finest quality pictures and I chose the High Speed PhotoSonics 35mm camera's to use. I used two of their finest camera's ... one a reflex (a camera with an eye piece you can look thru to see what you are shooting) and secondly a non reflex that I use to take into the tube. Being early November on the North Shore, there was plenty of swell coming and going during the 3 1/2 week shoot. Mostly big stormy North-North West swells. It was important for the commercial to shoot in sunshine, so there was a lot of time spent at the beach waiting for the weather to break.

The locations we shot were Sunset, Haliewa, Revelations, Off The Wall, Back Door, Pipeline and V-Land. We spent a lot of time at V-Land because there was a specific tube shot they were after and V-Land allowed me to line up the waves and surfers. As anyone will tell you there are a lot of surfers in Hawaii at that time of the year and it really was difficult for my talent to just get a decent wave, much less me trying to set up a great shot. A couple of times there were over 50 guys surfing one peak and I would only get 3 shots in a couple of hours swimming with the 15 Kilo beast.

To get Kaipo and Kawika looking the part we added bubble pack wrapped around their stomachs, which made for tricky surfing. They also had a 30 minute daily make up of gluing a pony tail sumo hair wig to their melons. A few times we lost the wigs and in bigger surf they would come off and wrap around the face of the unlucky one.

Often it seemed like we would never get the shots that TYO was after. The good tube shot really was hard to get in the can. About 3 days before we were to end there was a small swell running. Every now and then a 4 ft wave would come thru at Back Door. It looked like the same sort of day I'd shot some good tubes of Sunny Garcia for the Green Iguana. I called the boys, who had to come out to the country from town. When they looked at it they were not keen at all. Admittedly from the beach it looked very average. "Common you guys, lets give it a try.

We are running out of time and we really need a good stick the camera in your face in the tube shot" I begged them. Out we went. I was in 3 ft of water when the first little bowl popped up. Kaipo gave me a little hoot and I quickly swam to the spot I thought it was going to bowl up. Sure enough Kaipo pulled in and just before he got to me the wave threw out and we were eyeball to eyeball in the barrel together. I hooted my head off after the ride. It had been a difficult 3 week shoot and to get that shot in the can was a relief. For you Japanese surfers, watch out for the big Sumo going off in the Hawaiian surf. You'll know who the real surfers were.

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