Robin’s Randoms

When you hear of a new surf movie premier, names like Taylor Steele, Jack McCoy and companies like Quiksilver and Billabong come to mind. The surf flick industry is like an epic day at Pipe, uber crowded and only the big names getting waves. Robin Johnston, a local shaper on the North Shore of O‘ahu, paddled out into the surf movie lineup and dropped into a macker as he brought his wealth of surfari adventures abroad with underground surf talents to a big projector screen at Jazz Minds on Sunday, September 21. The O‘ahu surf community gathered together in seldom fashion to rock out to Plumpüs and witness the deep barrels and filthy hacks in Robin’s first surf flick, properly named Randoms. —Noa Myers

FSM: What’s your motivation for putting out the film, especially with such a competitive market?

RJ: My film is unique because it’s not for sale. It can be downloaded for free off my website, http://www.rjsurf.com. My main motivation, though, is that there are all these surfers out there that have such great talent who don’t get any of the exposure they deserve. It’s a pleasure to document, compile and put together something that displays their surfing. These people are unsung heroes, not paid superstars and I wanted to show their dedication to surfing and that it’s for love, not for money.

FSM: Was this movie what you had in mind when you were going on your trips? Has this been your master plan all along, other than getting severely pitted?

RJ: Yes, but it came along better than I had expected with all the help that I had along the way. I invested a lot in equipment and brought it with me on my travels in hopes of putting this film together.

FSM: Is this just the beginning? Do you have a few more movies up your sleeve? Are you the next late-blooming Taylor Steele?

RJ: Randoms 2 will be showing sometime in November. After that, we’ll see. I’m sure there’ll be another one. I’m definitely not Taylor Steele. He is a highly experienced, high profile videographer using superstars. I’m an underground, beginner video maker but I LOVE doing it.