a longboard surfer Source: Wikipedia, 2012

singlefin: yellow is a movie that tells the charming story of a classic style surfboard, shaped by a modern-day shaper, who sends the board to five of his friends in different parts of the world. The concept is like one of those old-fashioned 'chain-letters,' where a person sends a letter to a friend, who in turn passes it to a series of other friends, until eventually the letter returns to the original sender, as instructed. Only in this case, instead of a letter being passed along, it's a surfboard.

The flick starts off with images of an American flag, and a time-lapse of clouds in the sky. We are introduced to surfer Tyler Hatzikian who is shown surfing barrel waves near Los Angeles, California. He surfs his personal singlefin pintail longboard. Tyler's style often includes surfing near the front of his own board, yet not noseriding. Tyler narrates how he started surfing and eventually became a surfboard shaper too. After this quick intro to Tyler and his surfing/shaping philosophy, the camera is taken inside Tyler's commercial surfboard shaping room where he crafts a surfboard blank. He pencils in outlines on the blank, uses a router, sands, laminates, and polishes a vibrant, yellow-colored surfboard which we'll call Yellow. At 9-feet-6-inches (2.9 meters) in length, Yellow is a heavy pintail design inspired by a 1967 Bing/David Nuuhiwa model. It has no concave, a flat nose rocker, and a glassed on single tail fin. The fin is an old-style fin design too. Modern surfboard fins have a short base and acute rake angle. In contrast, Yellow's fin is rounder, with a longer base, and a more oblique rake angle.


Once he finishes making the board, Tyler packs it inside a sturdy gray container along with an explanatory note. The board is sent by airplane to Australia. Next, we're introduced to Australian surfer Beau Young. He's a regular footer who starts off riding his personal single-fin squash-tail shortboard on waist-high waves. He narrates about why Australia is a special place to live and surf. Then he goes to the Post Office near Byron Bay, Australia to pick up the board that Tyler sent him. Young takes the case home, opens it, and reads the shaper's note inside. He inspects Yellow, then rides it at a surf break called 'The Pass.' He surfs mostly rights in waist-high waves. He cross-steps and hangs five.


Beau then takes Yellow to a few other places along the coast where he rides some head-high waves. He packs the board in the gray case again, and it's shown going through a cargo company's building before an airplane is shown taking off for the new destination — Japan.

David Kinoshita is the next surfer, a Japanese man who stands 6 foot 7 inches and has dyed blond hair. He opens the gray shipping container, removes Yellow, and is shown walking with the board in some picturesque places in heavily populated Japan. He narrates in Japanese while English-language captions show simultaneously on the screen. Kinoshita tells of how surfing started in Japan. When he first started surfing there weren't many longboarders in his country, but he says that's been changing. He surfs with Yellow goofy-foot on a mixture of right and left breaks.

Next, the board is flown back to the United States where female longboarder Daize Shayne receives it. She narrates the story of her growing up on the east side of Oahu, Hawaii. As she narrates, there's footage of her horseriding, riding a bike, and surfing in scenic Hawaii on her own surfboard. Then the visuals show Daize back on the mainland at her current home of Los Angeles, where she talks about surfing at Malibu.


She surfs Yellow goofy-foot, cross-steps, and does hang-fives on a waist-high right-hand break. Then she passes Yellow on to a few of her male surfer friends. One man rides head-high waves regular-foot, doing some cross-stepping and hang-fives. The next surfer cross-steps, hangs-five, and spins while riding on waist-high waves. A third friend rides regular foot on chest-high waves, while another longboarder criss-crosses his path on the same wave. Of all the surfers in the film, this man does the quickest cross-steps on Yellow.

Finally, the next surfer, Devon Howard, takes a turn riding Yellow. He surfs it regular-foot on waist-high waves, until he returns the board back to Daize. By this time, Yellow's deck is getting covered by many layers of grungy surf wax since it's been handled by many surfers around the world. Yellow looks in pretty good shape, but has been through a lot since first leaving the factory in pristine condition. On land, Daize gives Yellow to Devon, who then drives the longboard two hours southward to San Diego, California.


Yellow now has a fresher coat of surf wax. Devon surfs rights, regular foot, on waist-high waves. He has more of a backward-leaning, low-stance than the other surfers who have a more upright style. Devon does back-arches too. Of all the capable surfers in this movie, Devon is perhaps the best match for Yellow. Next, Devon drives with Yellow in his Jeep to Mexico. His first stop is Cabo San Lucas at a right-hand point break. He surfs there, then goes to another surf spot. There are some in-water shots of Devon surfing head-high curvier waves, and some land shots and slow motion views. Devon cross-steps and does hang-fives.

While in Mexico, a Category 5 hurricane makes landfall there. One of the most powerful images in the whole movie was where a giant hurricane-induced wave slams against shore boulders, violently splashing tons of water high into the air above a 3-story luxury seaside home! Escaping the hurricane, Devon jets from Mexico to Oahu, Hawaii, and surfs in Honolulu at Waikiki Beach.

Devon takes Yellow out to the lineup, and personally hands the surfboard off to the next surfer, Bonga Perkins. Perkins is a well-known high-performance longboarder. Shirtless, he surfs regular-foot on some right hand breaks in the tropical warmth of Hawaii. He does a drop-knee turn. There is an underwater shot with a surfer paddling overhead on a sunny blue-sky day. Next, there's a playful scene, away from Honolulu, where he jumps off a seaside cliff into churning surf far below.

Then, Perkins puts Yellow through its toughest trial yet — the 15-foot high waves on the North Shore of Oahu. To establish his surfing mastery for the viewer, Perkins is shown on a variety of different surfboards, both short and long. He goes left or right in big tubes. Next, Perkins takes Yellow on its first ride at Pipeline, a very challenging wave to ride. Because he's new to Yellow, he takes a few falls when he first tries to ride it in the dangerous tube. But then he figures out how to navigate Yellow through the critical takeoffs at Pipeline. He grabs a rail during the drop-in, and ably surfs through some big hollow ones. He rides regular-foot, mostly on rights, but does a few lefts too.


It is common to hit the reef at Pipeline, and indeed, Yellow strikes the reef a few times, getting both its nose and tail split open. Perkins takes the damaged board to his shaper friend Kyle, who repairs it quickly. Then, Bonga rides Yellow to some gentle, wide waves for a few more rides.

The movie nears its end as the sounds of pleasant wind chimes clang, and a jet plane lands back in California with Yellow. The original shaper, Tyler, inspects the board, and takes it for a few more surfs, riding goofy-foot on some lefts. He does a drop-knee turn too. The movie ends with Tyler transporting Yellow to his retail store, where the board is placed alongside a whole bunch of other surfboards for sale. Yellow is now just one of many other surfboards in the shop. Only we, the viewers, know Yellow's true fascinating past. Scotch-taped to Yellow's underside is a humble sheet of torn-off paper with these words scrawled on it:
        "FOR SALE. USED 9'6" singlefin: yellow"
Who will ride Yellow next? What is the next chapter in Yellow's story?

Positives:
The best part of the movie was that it dealt with a single surfboard that was handed off from surfer to surfer. Many surf videos are just compilations of surfers doing different surf tricks shot in different locations on the planet. Or, sometimes the movie follows one surfer on a surfing journey. singlefin: yellow was different because the movie's unifying element was one surfboard tying together many different surfers around the world. We follow the surfboard's journey. As the board gets pressure-dinged, waxed, and scratched by successive surfers, and ridden by surfers with different riding styles, a unique tale about the surfing world evolves. Many used surfboards for sale in shops have been surfed by more than one user, and some are 'hand-me-downs.' Certainly, this film will evoke memories in the minds of many surfers who have sold their own surfboards, and wondered what ever became of their former surfboards. Conversely, someone who's bought a used board must have wondered where that board's been and who's ridden it. The classic surfboard style also brings many modern surfers together in a different way. Instead of using a modern longboard, employing Yellow's 1960's surfboard shape brought the modern-day surfers closer to surfing's roots — even if the surfers weren't born when boards like this were in their heyday.

singlefin: yellow incorporated lots of dissolve video transitions and slow-motion photography, in keeping with the soulful feeling of the film. The music had many guitar songs and was uplifting, overall. The music wasn't 1960's music, even though Yellow was inspired by a 1960's template. Instead, more contemporary songs were chosen, appropriately matching the modern surfer's current-day perspective.

Captions were used only in the Japan segment. Instead of captioning the surfer's names when each surfer was introduced, film director Jason Baffa chose to put the surfer's names only in the end credits. Doing this made Yellow the movie's subject, rather than the surfers.

The DVD's production was high quality. The DVD menu had very relaxing stringed instrument music that looped while the menu text hovered above a well-photographed closeup of Yellow. Even the DVD cover was well designed, with nice colors and fonts, and a close-up of a waxed surfboard with beads of water on it. The DVD has 90 minutes of bonus material, if the director's commentary is included. Here's a list of the bonus features on this DVD:

The quality of all these DVD extras was excellent, especially Tyler's and Devon's sections that showcased more contemporary longboarding styles. These sections are described in more detail later on this page.

Negatives:
Some footage in singlefin: yellow had dirt or smudges on the camera lens. This was distracting at times. Sometimes the camera focus wasn't optimal, though maybe the director did the 'soft focus' thing deliberately for artistic reasons.

Production of "singlefin: yellow" took 24 months, 100,000 miles of travel, and over 16,000 feet of film.

Summary:
singlefin: yellow was an entertaining surf film, suitable for viewing by longboard surfing enthusiasts, and surfers in general. It wasn't just nostalgia about 1960's surfboard shapes, but a story about surfers connected to surfing's roots. Though the surfers were separated by geography, Yellow united them in their love of ocean surfing. Even a non-surfer could enjoy this relaxing and pleasant movie, since it was a story about interesting human beings. Refreshingly, singlefin: yellow wasn't like the many quick-cut aerial shortboard maneuver videos on the market. When I was shopping for this DVD, I sought a movie about modern, yet stylish, longboarding, but was surprised upon viewing the DVD that a 1960's style surfboard was featured so prominently. Despite not being exactly what I expected from its online description, the film was an enjoyable watch, and one of those rare, pleasant surprises. I enjoyed adding singlefin: yellow to my video collection, and recommend viewing this movie.

The director's commentary was interesting to listen to. As the main film singlefin: yellow played underneath with the sound turned low, Baffa recounted his struggles and achievements during the movie's filming. He had some humorous anecdotes about continuity errors, a flawed film lens, and a 16 mm film camera with a winding mechanism that was too fast. There were many times, he said, when a surfer was riding a long wave, and the camera depleted its 'wind,' so he had to stop filming so he could rewind the camera. He talked about filming the movie out-of-sequence to the way it was presented. Baffa described living in friend's homes, and scraping together funds from his own savings so he could continue financing the film. He discussed some of his filmmaking philosophies and why he photographed things the way he did. As director's commentaries go, this was a good one.

storyboards and sketches showed some selected storyboard sketches arranged on a single page for a few seconds, and then quickly showed how the finished footage appeared in the film. During this bonus feature, there was no voice-over, and guitar music was played in the background with no vocals. First, there was the surfboard shaping sequence, followed by Beau's case opening, a Japan case opening scene, Devon's Waikiki arrival, the Waikiki board trade in water, the Waikiki board exchange on land, and the final film sequence where Tyler leaves the board standing in his surf shop with a 'for sale' sign on it. Of these scenes, one of them was not shown in the film at all. It was a scene where the Japanese surfer opens up the gray surfboard container, and looks at an envelope that has details about the board from the prior surfer. So, that Japanese scene could be considered a "deleted scene."

tyler's green board was narrated by surfer/shaper Tyler Hatzikian. He did a voice-over only during the first 40 seconds of the 6-minute feature. After that there was background music playing that had some organ sounds, and a heavy bass line. The narrator described a green surfboard that he enjoyed, saying, "basically the green board was designed as kind of a crazy concept for a nose riding contest." The green longboard was a single fin, flat-nose board with both a squared-off nose and tail, and a 'waist' on its rails. The heavy 30 pound board was designed for glide & momentum. Wearing a full wetsuit, Tyler took the board for a ride at a waist-high left break, and the video showed goofy-foot top turns, drop-knee turns, cross-steps, hang-fives, and noserides. In many cases, Tyler leans forward of the board's nose, while nose-riding, so stable is the platform behind him while riding down the line. The surfing shown in this bonus feature was closer to modern-day longboarding style, even though the 'green board wasn't a so-called 'performance' longboard (since it lacked a thruster fin placement and pronounced rocker). There was a combination of on-land filming and some in-water filming, with what looked like a 2nd surfer/cameraman on a different surfboard tracking behind Tyler as he rode his green board down the line. Tyler also did a tail-first take-off followed by a quick 180° board rotation to nose-forward, and then went down the line. Notably, this 'green board' contrasted in contour and behavior with the yellow singlefin longboard that was the subject of the feature movie. The final 50 seconds of tyler's green board didn't deal with the so-called 'green board' at all, but rather showed footage of a different surfboard — a twin-fin fish shortboard that was light green on bottom and white on top. Tyler quickly did bottom and top-turns on the pastel-colored twin-fin, and looked equally capable on both a shortboard and a longboard. Once the background song ended, the video faded out.

devon and friends featured longboarder Devon Howard and his surfer friends Sean "Sammy" Haggar, Mitch Abshire, and Stephen "Skippy" Slater. Unlike the previous bonus feature, there was no narration here, only silent color movie footage set to music. The music had no singing and alternated between synthesizer and soft-percussion with heavy-bass. The visuals began with Devon and a friend driving in the cab of a pickup truck along a coastal road. Two surfboards were in the back of the pickup. Such establishing shots occupied the first 20 seconds of this featurette. Devon again rode Hatzikian's Yellow classic-style longboard. This footage was deleted from the main movie. Notably, Devon wore a fullsuit in these shots, as did his friends. Offshore winds groomed the lineup waves. Devon rode his surfboard regular-foot going down-the-line right. Next, his friend went regular-foot on a head-high right while riding an orange-white longboard. Another surfer did a 4-second hang-ten. A playful scene was where Devon and his friend, on different surfboards, criss-crossed each other's paths while simultaneously riding the same wave to the right. They did this criss-crossing routine for about 15 seconds and almost collided, but just barely avoided a crash each time they neared each other. The quick bonus video ended right when the background music finished.

about yellow was a brief DVD bonus feature with surfer/shaper Tyler Hatzikian's commentary about the yellow singlefin longboard's construction. The same Hatzikian surfing/shaping footage from the start of singlefin: yellow was shown, while there were quotes from the shaper that were omitted from the movie, presumably for time reasons. Basically, this featurette was a quick 'director's commentary' on Hatzikian's segment, but without the director's voice-over. Here, Cam Gallagher's background music included both acoustic and electric guitar sounds. Regarding Yellow, Hatzikian concluded, "we didn't put a concave in this board because we wanted to keep it clean, and we didn't want to affect the trim at all."