Just a few days ago, we were all treated to Kai Neville and Epokhe’s latest film, ‘Vacuum’

Kai Neville, hello. Where are we talking to you from?

Byron Bay, a little beach town with yoga. It’s getting a lot of hype (laughs).

So I’ve heard!

But yeah we’re just in Byron Industrial here. We've been there for, Jesus, coming ten years now? Which is crazy to think about, but, man. I just live like 15 minutes inland, it’s a good spot. We’re spoiled here. Good waves, good weather, and, yeah, it’s good! I’ve been working out of the Epokhe office and it’s been busy. It's actually been hectic. It's gone back to normal now that I’ve hit eject on the film. But, yeah, busy, busy, busy summer time of the year. It’s summer, people need shades.

And it’s what buys you the time to make good things like Vacuum! How have you been digging the reception on everything so far? I mean, as of right now it’s only been out for, what? Exactly 23 hours? I know I really dug it, though.

It’s so funny, so many people have asked me that and I actually try not to pay attention. I think it's been good. It's been positive. It's hard to get honest feedback, but I guess people can rip it apart online if they want but I don’t check anyway. Usually when I dive into a longer-form project, which has been few and far between over the last few years, it takes such a toll with the editing process. You put so much into it. I kind of like to just hit eject, send it, and let it be what it's going to be. I try not to check or get too involved. I usually don't even watch it again. I’ll be on to the next project, especially when I get so immersed.

But it is what it is. People are going to love it or they’re not going to like it or they might like different parts. I guess as, whatever, a creator, you can't really get too caught up in what people think or the expectation of the audience. I mean, I hope they enjoy it. I know I'm stoked on it. 

So from ideation to creation how long has Vacuum been in the works then?

This has been far from set. It's probably been one of the most sporadic, longer-form film projects that I've worked on. Mainly just because of the nature of where I'm at and Epokhe and our resources and what we can actually do. There’s a bit of pressure on me as a filmmaker, and also the expectations I have with creating a film. I didn't personally set out to make one, but we did a trip, I reckon it was a year and a half ago, down on the south coast with the team and they got some pretty good stuff and it was just awesome to get together. I think we were going to try and do like a Beauty Pocket sort of style project. I don't know if you've ever saw that, but that was maybe just like one team trip and maybe, you know, eight minutes max or whatever. It was just to get another piece out and make something cool. 

But I didn’t even know if I was going to get around to finding time to edit it but the team was like, “Let's make a movie.” I don't think there were many longer-form projects happening in our world at the time, and they were just generally excited about it. I wasn't that excited about it, but time kind of went on and we did one more trip and then I swear in the office the word was, “We're doing a film,” and it slowly sort of morphed. We did a couple of team trips and then the guys were filming on their own and they were saving footage and then were, like, "I'm working on a part for the film." Then I think, probably about three months ago, the boys in the office called me out, like, “What the fuck is going on?” Like, you're sitting on footage, we know that. We don't know what you're sitting on but we need to make a decision and get something out of it. Let’s turn those dials up.

But they were really cool and everyone was super supportive in here and they pulled together some resources and carved out a bit more time for me because, you know, I’ve got two kids and taking down time is tricky. I’m not like I was when I was in my mid-to-late 20s and it was like, “Well, I’ll just edit all night and surf all day!" But everyone was super supportive and so I kind of just went, okay, let’s carve a month out and get through this hard drive of about ten terabytes of fucking hours of footage.

Holy shit that thing was probably literally weighing you down.

Yeah, I just sank my teeth into it. It was a very different process to other films like Dear Suburbia where I kind of knew what the film was going to look like and I had the trips planned and knew who was in it. This was a lot of collected stuff, which was fun. It was different. But it was kind of a grueling editing process to get it to have a cohesive feel which, in saying that, I don't think it’s cohesive at all. But that ended up being kind of a theme for the project. And I'm stoked about the way I went about it in the end. But, yeah, it just morphed into its own beast and eventually someone gave me a kick up the bum and I got it out there. Which I'm stoked for because I think the one thing I did pull from it other than, you know, PTSD of deadlines, was how fun it was making bigger surf films again. I was pretty pumped to get back into it. I’m coming off the project not burnt out. It’s given me some energy to do something again.

Yeah, it’s crazy that the wider model is still so clip-heavy and dependent on bite-sized moments still that a long-form or produced film really feels like a rarity. 

I guess that's just the nature of content, and the nature of the industry. Obviously, I’m energized and want to just do trips and really, really work on something. But I'm also, like, fuck, I don't even know how to do that these days and fund trips like what we used to do for a core surf film. So it is really difficult and I feel like the content in Byron isn't helping those sorts of projects at all. But maybe, you know, things can turn. The tide can turn.

People want to work on bigger projects and there’s an appetite for longer-form stuff. I mean, the premiere was fucking crazy. It's hard to get people to come out and do things these days. We were even a little bit hesitant because it was a big space and we didn’t know how many people we’d get in there but it was packed! We had to shut the door.

Well with this and Noa’s film and Harry’s film all dropping back-to-back-to-back there certainly seems to be an appetite for it all. You worked with tons of other filmmakers on all this too, at least according to the end credits, how was the organization and wrangling with all that?

All the boys and the filmers were great. Everyone has their own filmers and I get to work with some epic contributors. A lot of them sent just raw sessions too from trips and I was like, “Fuck! You could’ve cut it down a bit.” But it was hours and hours of footage, which is good to go through because there’s always something you might have missed or they might have missed. We pulled clips from everywhere, though. And like I said, we only took a couple of team trips and I shot a lot of like the 16 montage-y, in-between parts and a few interviews and other snippets and then a lot of it was just the boys’ local guys.

Yeah, right, and where’d you hit on those trips? Were they all a full-team affair?

It wasn't the full team. It was kind of dependent on who was around. It was usually just in Aus because that's where budgets let us be. A majority of the team is based here except for Eithan, who’s in the US. But I think off the back of this everyone's pretty pumped and the team’s growing a little bit and we've got some new faces who I'm really excited to work with. I dare say we’ll probably do a couple of international trips, which I think would be really sick. I love to get out of our backyard, even though we are spoiled with good ways here. As a filmmaker, it’s nice to shoot in new places.

Speaking of guys like Eithan, how do those new guys enter the fold? What’s the selection process for joining the greater Epokhe world look like?

Well guys like Jai, Lungi, and Kanaiya all really jumped into the Epokhe family as I was in the final stages of editing. Which was cool because I got some footage in there and we got them in the mix. And I’m sure they will play a bigger role in the next film. But in regards to the team, it's kind of a collective choice. Like, we'll just sort of have discussions and people will fall in our circles or start hanging out with Creed or Dion. The same names will keep popping up and we’ll hang out with them for maybe a day or do a trip or do a little photoshoot and if they fit the mould then it works.

With Eithan too I’m stoked he’s on the team. We're trying to be more global and get surfers from the U.S., Europe, Brazil, or wherever. You kind of want to get out of your backyard. But, yeah, they’ll just go on a few trips with the boys and we’ll meet up and grab a beer after or cross paths and see if it works. I'm still a bit sensitive to the Creeds and Craigs and the guys we’ve had on since the start, but they're so behind it too and are frothing on having some fresh energy.

The way we go is we’re not looking at how many fucking followers you have. Or at least I’m not. Maybe some other people are. But there’s definitely that surfing factor and personality factor and somewhat of a bit of an X factor. They have that presence and aura or whatever it is about them. Obviously, the other stuff is a bonus. If they have a big following that’s great for us and we can make it work with each other. And if they’re winning contests then, bang, it’s rad to get the brand on a bigger, more global scale. But if they’re not, that’s fine. We go about it pretty organically.

You have to make that cultural fit primary. 

Culture is key. 

Culture is always key! So, silly question, but how’d the name ‘Vacuum’ come about?

Well the way I’ve worked on my films in the past is I try to pair a name with the visuals and those two sort of melt into each other and become the identity of the project. Similar with Cluster, there’s no real reason why but I'll have a short list of names that I like visually and I like the way it sounds and there's something about it that just connects to the project. And I'll be working with this like short list of, you know, five names in the final sort of stages of ideation. Or, earlier. Like, Dear Suburbia I named before we started shooting. Same as Modern Collective. But it was just one that kind of stuck and we started mocking up the artwork and I love it. The film almost becomes it’s own brand, in a way.

And I feel like and I take it away from like a lot of the old school surf films and skate films. I don't know if their names had heaps of meaning in them either. Like, Volcom’s Magna Plasma (CHECK) or whatever, they just become such strong names, if the film backs them up. If visually it works it well and it sounds like the project then it all sort of connects.

Funny you mention old surf films, because I’m dying to know how you got a hold of that archive Jack McCoy footage you used for Occy’s part. That’s such an insane find. 

It's mega. Absolutely mega (laughs). That was a pretty long process of me working and even getting to know Jack, going all the way back to the Lost Atlas premier in Sydney. Jack just came up and introduced himself to me and I was, like, “Holy shit! You came here to watch my movie.” Which is amazing and I was stoked and humbled and it was really cool to see, you know, one of the giants of filmmaking still being super engaged and frothed on surf films. 

But that’s just who Jack is. He’s a surf film frother and he liked my work and he’s been very complimentary of my work and he invited me to talk stories and talk about my films. So, we sort of just started a dialogue and I started hanging in his house and he started plugging in some old hard drives of his footage and we started collaborating. And he was psyched to work on an edit together and gave us the keys. He showed us hours of stuff. It was like a whole night where we had a few beers and it was me, Dion, and Craig and we just went through all this old school Occy footage. It was literally, like, 20 or so hours.

Oh my God, a few beers and hours of Green Iguana B-Sides. That sounds great. That’s the ideal night!

It was. And his place, his little farm tucked away in like the mid coast of Australia, it's so iconic. It's fucking old school. But he said what’s catching your eye? Let's just pick a session and work on it. And we just chipped away at it like that. But I was pretty baffled at the amount of footage he didn't use in the Green Iguana of Occy surfing. I only chose one session and set some parameters because I was so overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start. And now I know looking at The Green Iguana why he used what he used because he went for the really perfect, beautiful best-of-the-best. And some of the stuff we used is a bit trashier. It's a bit more unsure but he's absolutely ripping. Like, I'm sure if Craig or Harry or Chippa bagged clips like that today they'd be absolutely thrilled. But yeah, it just sort of happened. It wasn't like I reached out and said let's do something with Occy here. It's a really fun project and he came to the premier and, yeah, it was just epic.

Watch Vacuum at epokhe.co