The September leg of our short film competition Zag Shorts presented by GoPro has come to an end, and once again we were impressed by the quality of entries we received. There were a few outstanding videos entered into Leg 4, which made finding a winner difficult. And as much as judging the strength of one film over another can often be about as subjective as a surf contest, once all the votes had been tallied, Grant Beck’s Discarded came out on top and is this month’s winner.
Grant Beck’s Discarded beat some stiff competition to take the win for Leg 4.
Along with the monthly prize of a GoPro Hero and handler for his efforts, Grant also claims a spot in the finals, where his short film – along with eight other monthly winners – will be in with a shot at the grand prize of R20 000 in cash plus the opportunity to document an exclusive Zag surf trip.
In particular, three entries into Leg 4 gave the judges a tough time trying to decide why exactly one should win and not the other. Chris Rogers’ The Never Ending Wave, which received the second highest amount of public votes, made excellent use of their GoPro, which is the only camera that was used to capture the action. The film also showcases some impressive editing and features Mikey February alongside Dylan Lightfoot (with some good-looking friends thrown into the mix for good measure), surfing behind the never ending wave caused by the wake of their boat – hence the name. Check out the video below to see for yourself why the judges thought it was a standout.
‘The Never Ending Wave’, featuring Mikey February and Dylan Lightfoot.
The next film that really caught the attention of the judges was Richard Hambloch’s Southern Cross, which featured Davey Van Zyl scoring some clean winter swell along KZN. Watching Davey’s powerful rail surfing in clean right-hand point breaks was enough to keep the action side of things entertaining. The film also includes a story line, as Davey wakes up at home on his couch to a blaring television, realising that the whole trip was just a dream. Although it’s an angle that is often played out, it’s still great to mix in some creativity alongside the surf action. Give it a watch and see why it was neck-and-neck with the winner this month.
Richard Hambloch’s Southern Cross, featuring Davey Van Zyl on some beautiful KZN winter swells.
Finally, let’s talk about the winning film, Grant Beck’s Discarded.
Synopsis:
A combination of surf footage gathered during various travels around SA, that had long since been forgotten.
Why we digged it:
As any surf videographer knows, working on various projects often results in left over, unused footage that collects dust on our hard drives, never seeing the light of an upload. This footage can gather at a rapid pace when moving on from project to project, and is kind of like the digital equivalent to taking a bite of an apple and chucking the rest… it’s just wasteful. In light of this, Grant Beck valiantly swept through his hard drives, collecting clips that had long since been discarded and combined these forgotten moments into one diverse edit.
The film features some good high performance surf action, juxtaposed with cutaways of South Africa’s diverse and beautiful landscape. One of the film’s strongest attractions is the multiple choices of music, which changes the rhythm and pace keeping it fresh and different. And in a world bombarded by high performance web shorts, creating something unique is becoming increasingly more difficult. But Discarded manages to do just that, especially evident in the section featuring the dancer and the cigar-puffing audience, which was the cherry on the top according to some of the judges. Apparently that’s what it takes to stand out these days.
Overall, it kept us entertained and was narrowly chosen as the top contender this month. Along with Leg 1 winner Josh Rowe, Leg 2 winner Grant Hewitt, and Leg 3 winner Tao Farren-Hefer, Grant Beck is now a contender for the grand prize to be decided at the end of January 2016. Go to zagshorts.co.za to view all the entries and to vote for your favourites for the October leg, which has just kicked-off.
* HOW THE VOTING WORKS:
Zigzag, GoPro and the public all have an equal say in determining the winner, with each contributing 33.3% of the final decision. For the fourth leg, the voting was split between Zigzag and GoPro, making Grant Beck’s 126 public votes the deciding factor.
