Today we went down to Zuma Beach located in Malibu, Ca for a commercial shoot for Activision. The storyboard that ran along with the shoot called for a skater, rollerblader and bmxer to ride a vert ramp and do some tricks. Then later in the commercial Pro Surfer Kelly Slater would come out with a firehouse and blast all the riders off the ramp and then cut to an ocean scene thus promoting his new video game Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer. The skateboarder used in the commercial was Jeff Ferris and we cruised around with him the whole time to document this shoot. The tricks were simple enough for Jeff to land but when it came time for him to get blasted by the water it started to get tricky. Jeff put on a harness and was hooked up to a crane overhead. When the water would hit him, he would be yanked up and over the deck and out of the shot. After trying this a few times it started to look realistic. Another thing that added to the stunt was the fact that there was water on the ramp that needed to by dried up after each take. There were a few people on hand to squeegee the water off the ramp as well as a gas blower. These tools where adequate for drying the ramp in between takes which had to be done about 10 times.

Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer is being designed to work much like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, with intuitive controls, lots of great tricks to pull off, and will set up gamers against a different set of obstacles and challenges than found in skateboarding. The trick with surfing is that it's truly a unique challenge, entirely different than skateboarding. For instance, surfers catch fewer waves than skaters "catch" rails or skate ramps; if they fall, the wave is over; and waves move, they don't stand still. Every wave is different, and the camera angles have got to be different, too.