Rusty’s Revival: Wade Carmichael and Friends
Rusty recently dropped their first full-length surf film in over 15 years, which the team weren’t even meant to be creating in the first place. After initially being shut down by the CEO, Luke Clark (Rusty’s Global Marketing Manager) decided to go ahead anyway. Over the next 2 years, Luke worked alongside team riders Wade Carmicheal, Ollie Henry, Jacob “Zeke” Szekely, Caio Ibelli and Letty Mortensen to capture over 5,000 clips across multiple countries and locations. From at home in Australia to reeling points in Mexico and crystal barrels in the Mentawis plus a quick wave pool session, the ragtag band of chargers put on an epic show. On seeing the initial collection of clips, the CEO gave them the green light and Revival was born.
Following their journey across the world, this 55-minute feature film is an ode to road trips and epic waves. Kicking off with huge aerials before moving onto heavy slabs and monstrous barrels, the movie combines the unique individualism of each rider, showcasing their strengths and home breaks.
Stylish powerhouse and C-Skins team rider Wade Carmichael is on form throughout, showing us how it’s done both at home and away. We got in touch to find out about life on the road filming Revival.
How was it working on a full-length film and sitting on your best clips from the last two years in the current culture of instant online clips and short edits?
Working on the full length was fun. We had so many sessions so there were clips on clips stacked up. I enjoyed making my YouTube edits along the way so there were plenty of Wade’s World edits coming out and then we just stashed all the best sessions and released all the fun sessions onto YouTube which was mellow. It was just exciting to bring back all the good memories from those best sessions.
Through the early 2000s, particularly in Australia, Rusty’s regular films like Changes, Scissors Paper Rock and Cop It were a big thing. What are your memories of those films and how excited were you to be working on a full-length film for Rusty to follow in their footsteps?
Rusty definitely had some core surf movies back in the day and really stood out, which was cool because when I was growing up I loved them all. Then when we first spoke about making a full length for Rusty I was pretty excited just to be a part of the brand in that way and have our footprint set into the brand and surfing culture. In this time to be able to do an hour long surf movie and do as much surfing as you can and be core surf was epic. I’m stoked that we can be a part of the brand and have our names on that movie.
What was your most memorable session or trip from the film?
There were a lot of good sessions. It’s pretty hard to narrow it down because there were a lot of good waves surfed in the two years we were making it. I’m gonna have to say Mexico at that right hander where it was tubing fro top to bottom. I’ve never seen anything like it and with no crowd, which was pretty special. It was just me and my mate out just getting tubed for 500 meters in a three-hour window and it was just ridiculous grinding barrels.
Did you notorious chart reading skills come in handy when making Revival?
I definitely put a lot of time into choosing what time of year and where to go for the movie, and did a lot of research, spoke to a lot of people and got as much info as I could. Letty and the boys really trusted me on making those calls, which was good, and I’m pretty positive it turned out well! I just wanted to get the best that we could for the movie and surf certain waves and choose locations that worked for us, and where we could a good variety of clips and show the world a bit of different stuff. I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out.
Images by Swilly
