Justin McMillan and Chris Nelius are a Sydney-based Documentary Director/Writer/Producer partnership that began 6 years ago with the making of The Sixth Element – a bio on the life of legendary Australian big-wave surfer Ross Clarke-Jones, which was released globally on DVD and narrated by Dennis Hopper.
Inspired by the quality of recent documentaries from around the world and a desire to take ‘surf movies’ to a new place, McMillan and Nelius teamed up with Clarke-Jones again in 2005 – this time on a trip to the southernmost point of Africa on a mission to surf the Cape of Good Hope, resulting in a half-hour documentary titled Horror/scopes – Cape of Storms. The film features music specifically composed by Richard Tognetti – musical director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
McMillan and Nelius teamed up with Red Bull again to create a big wave surfing documentary featuring Ross Clarke-Jones, Tom Carrol, Carlos Burle, Ian Walsh, Jun Jo, Beau Emerton and local Japanese surfer Shimpei Horiguchi. Titled Red Bull Tai Fu, the purpose of the surfing mission was to track down and surf the swell generated from a typhoon off the coast of Japan. The weather cooperated, and one of the biggest ever recorded typhoons provided the team with 20ft waves and a great story for the film.
Both Cape of Storms and Red Bull Tai Fu have made the finals of the Action Sports category of the Sundance Film Festival ‘X Dance’ taking place in January 2007.
Off the back of their previous documentary success, Storm Surfers was created by the team as a branded television series that has a big wave/storm chasing theme. Storm Surfers–Dangerous Banks premiered in 2008 on Discovery Channel in Australia and across Asia. It was a huge success and has since gone on to sell in to Europe and North America. Storm Surfers – New Zealand is the sequel to the highly successful Storm Surfers. This time big wave surfing legends Ross Clarke-Jones and two time world champion Tom Carroll will be hunting waves off the South Island of New Zealand.
Chris: chris@dirtradio.com.au
Justin: justinmcmillan@me.com
