Sebastian Inlet the subject of experimental film

Why yes, that is a tortoise on a surfboard © Yeager

Film Update

Toy cars, interpretive dancing, longboards and hipstamatic vibe go into new film

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 18 September, 2012 : - - Last October, independent filmmakers William and Anais Yeager parked their vintage 1970 travel trailer at Long Point Park and spent months acting, composing and recording music, and shooting footage of the nearby beaches and waves. The couple built a surf shack and produced a 75-minute retro-surf movie, “Sebastian Beach: One Fine Day.”

Next week, the movie’s world premiere takes place during the New York Surf Film Festival, where it is competing in the feature film category. “It’s really neat that the film has been really well-received. Being there, we were on the beach every day. You get to observe the locals and see who really stays ’til sunset, and who’s there at sunrise,” Billy Yeager said. The couple plans to host April screenings of “Sebastian Beach: One Fine Day” in Melbourne, Cocoa Beach and Sebastian before their promotional tour heads up the East Coast.

The screenings will feature live music, dancing and Nemo, their pet red-footed tortoise, who surfs in the film. “Kids love him. When we take him out and show him off, the kids go crazy,” Yeager said. Yeager and his wife practice a concept they call “transcendental filmmaking” — using no script, budget, film crew, stage lighting or special effects — to evoke mood and a sense of simplicity.

“Its principles also include that everything that is found and discarded as junk, garbage, and roadside trash is used to make props, homes, whatever the film calls for,” Yeager said. Footage resembles that shot on 16mm film, featuring South Beaches scenes of surfers, crashing waves, pelicans, sand dunes, an ailing sea turtle and Anais learning to surf. Dick Catri, an East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame inductee, also appears in the movie. As a teenager in South Florida, Billy Yeager says he was introduced to surfing during road trips to Sebastian Inlet State Park

Read the full article by Rick Neale at Florida Today