Over the Undertow - meet the wāhine making waves
“Meet the tenacious wāhine behind the lens of Over the Undertow, a surfing film challenging perspectives and assumptions of women’s limits in the moana. These wāhine kōrero about the highlights, lowlights and everything in between.”
Lauren Crerar (left) and Cassia Walton (right) at the first screening of Over the Undertow in Pōneke.
Name [ Cassia Walton ]
City/country [ Pōneke, Aotearoa ]
Profession [ Filmmaker & Photographer ]
Twin, Single, Thruster or behind the lens? [ Thruster + behind the lens ]
Name [ Lauren Crerar ]
City/country [ Tāmaki Makarau, Aotearoa ]
Profession [ Filmmaker & Photographer ]
Twin, Single, Thruster or behind the lens? [ Thruster + single + behind the lens ]
Kia ora kōrua,
Thank you for taking the time to kōrero about your latest project, Over the Undertow and congratulations on being selected for the 2024 Aotearoa Surf Film Festival line up, and winning the People’s Choice Award!
Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves... Where are you from and what is your professional background?
Cassia - I was born and raised in Pōneke (Wellington), and for the last 2 years I’ve worked mostly in film production. Either as a Coordinator, Assistant Director, or a Producer/Directors Assistant. I’ve been lucky to work under and learn from incredible wāhine toa, and I hope to continue directing and producing my own films! I’m also a photographer, working mostly doing my own projects and taking stills/BTS for film sets. My work has been featured in magazines and publications nationally and internationally, including shooting the cover of Aotearoa underground arts magazine, Rat World.
Lauren - I have grown up in Tāmaki Makarau (Auckland) and feel my second home is out west in Piha. I do freelance photography and videography and am an emerging filmmaker. I developed a love of all things media from a young age. Though it was only in the last couple years that I started to fully commit to my passion. Using my creativity to share stories through the means of imagery and film.
How would you describe your surfing background?
Cassia - I first started surfing when I was around 10. Every year since I was born, in summer my whānau and family friends would camp for a couple weeks in a little beach town called Ōhope. Everyone surfed, so naturally I started surfing too. My best friend and I were avid little groms. I remember being 12 and running out of my house, down the steps, and sitting on the street curb in only my wetsuit. With my board resting on my legs, excitedly waiting for my best friend and her dad to come pick me up to go surfing. The ocean was everything to me, and still is.
Thinking back now, often her and I were the only girls in the water, or one of only a few. We talked recently about how lucky we were to have each other, as it made us somewhat oblivious to the fact. Because so many young girls didn’t have that community or friend that provided encouragement.
But of course, I still got the comments. A couple that stick out to me are; a guy coming up to me at a gig just to say ‘I recognize you, you were the only girl out in the surf!’ or a guy I’d just met saying to me ‘Oh, you can actually surf.’ As a teenager, in those moments I felt good about the comments. Something about being recognised, about a validation of sorts. But in reflection, those moments make me sad, and I see them in a different light. A) That there weren't other women out when I was surfing, why is that? and B) That simply just because I was a woman, that guy assumed that I couldn’t actually surf. I realised that's something he would have never said to another guy. In fact, he probably would have assumed that a guy he’d only just met was a good surfer. I’ve come to realise we can tend to overestimate men, and underestimate women.
Lauren - I was a late bloomer to surfing. I used to skate a lot in high school but found I injured myself too much. I grew up in the city, deprived from the coast but had a friend and her mum, who actually features in Over The Undertow, who introduced me to Piha and surfing. As I kept going out I met some wāhine that grew into a crew in Piha who encouraged each other to get out there even when the surf was all over the place. I also became connected with a community called Christian Surfers who also took me under their wing and supported me to push my surfing and go on trips where I met like minded mates who I surf with still to this day.
Over the Undertow - this name seems like it holds a lot of meaning- what is behind the film title for you?
"There was a gap in the media for something like Over the Undertow, which set a fire under us to create it." - Cassia Walton and Lauren Crerar
The name Over the Undertow is a metaphor. An undertow is a strong seaward bottom current returning the water of broken waves back out to sea. The name is meant to signify the degradation that women have historically received in surfing, and how throughout the generations we continue to try and overcome it. Over The Undertow reflects the resilience of women; those who have fought before us for their space in surfing and those who still do today.
The film's synopsis covers a range of points from challenging perspectives and assumptions of women’s limits in surfing to highlighting how far women have progressed in the sport of surfing, what lit the fire to pull together a selection of the best wāhine surfers in Aotearoa to document this?
We had found that there was a general lack of representation of wāhine surfers in Aotearoa, and there were little to no surf films coming out that depicted women on shortboards chasing bigger waves. There was a gap in the media for something like Over the Undertow, which set a fire under us to create it.
How long has your idea been brewing to create a film such as this?
It had been brewing for a number of months before we started trying to action it. We spent the better half of 2022 planning the film, and after a few failed attempts to line up filming weekends with swells, little to no budget, and a group of wāhine who have different schedules, our storyboard sat in the archives for another few months.
We had felt a bit discouraged from the idea, and realised it was not going to be any sort of simple and easy undertaking. So it almost felt like it wasn’t going to end up happening.
But in the beginning months of 2023, a few people around us encouraged us to keep going at it. Which reignited that passion to make the film a reality. So in May 2023, we finally got our ducks in order and found a weekend that worked for everyone to shoot in Taranaki, and that was the start of a long journey of filming!
Something that stands out in the trailer of your film are the wāhine showcasing their talent in reeling barrels and you mentioned finding it logistically challenging to line up filming weekends with swell. How did you go about making sessions like these happen?
We would always plan a few location options but it wasn’t until about a day out that we could make a decision, purely based on where there was good swell.
After the first filming trip to Taranaki, we found we wouldn’t be able to get everything we needed for the film in one weekend. So what was originally meant to be one weekend of filming, turned into about four.
Our ducks were definitely not in a row most of the time. Each trip we jumped from surf spot to surf spot, mostly relying on local advice and friends garages or spare rooms to sleep the 6/7 of us. Somehow we never managed to camp, even though that was our intention from the start. Because of how the girls grew up in the surf community, we were blessed with contacts all around the North Island. Which gave us options of heading to where the swell was best.
Every trip we had a rough date scheduled with the girls in advance, but we couldn’t plan too much due to the nature of swell and weather being unpredictable. We would always plan a few location options but it wasn’t until about a day out that we could make a decision, purely based on where there was good swell.
For most of the trips we still didn't have the weather and waves lining up perfectly. But, after postponing a few dates, and the months starting to tick by, it came to a point where we decided to start sending it and make the most of what we could get. Upon reflection, this ended up really working for us because it made the trips not only about surfing as wāhine, but the connection and fun that comes with an all girls surf trip.
It is great to see you have Ava Henderson representing Te Wai Pounamu, what was your process of gathering this particular group of talented young wāhine?
We had a friend that was mates with all of them through competitive surfing and the Raglan Surf Academy. So she ended up connecting us to most of the girls, and we reached out to some through social media.
At the start, it wasn’t the same group of surfers that would go on to be in our film. We had a few different girls in our group chat, and it took us some time to lock down Gabi, Brie, Liv, and Ava as our group.
We had a Zoom kōrero with them all, talking over our ideas and introducing ourselves. We’re very lucky that they all decided to jump in the deep end and join us on creating Over The Undertow.
It looked like the wāhine had a lot of fun, were there any specific moments of hilarity and/or hijinx?
Over the Undertow won the Aotearoa Surf Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award in 2024.
It was a lot of fun, and there were so many good moments. Going to a latin music night when we were in Raglan, dancing down the streets at night in Whangamata because there were no pubs open, all sleeping in a garage together and laying up till late just yarning about life.
A moment that sticks out was when we were in the parking lot in Tairua, the girls had just finished surfing and were talking about where we would surf next. They were talking about a spot that was going to be big and heavy that day, and this guy came up to them and was like ‘Oh that’ll be a bit heavy for you guys’ and then continued walking down to the beach to go surfing.
Of course, in that moment we were all like, uh, what the hell. But then not long after he’d gone out he came back in, seemingly a bit defeated. Clearly Tairua was too heavy for him, bit of a hypocrite! We all just started laughing and taking the mick out of the moment, that was definitely hilarious.
Funding and sponsorship can be an issue with creative projects, especially so for women's sport and media, as you mentioned earlier, was this a pure passion project or did you manage to find some funding to push it along?
It was both! We were super surprised by the amount of support we got on our idea of filming an all girls surf film in Aotearoa and ended up securing a bit of sponsorship from Salt Gypsy and Coastlines Wetsuits. We are very grateful to have them supporting us and believing in our concept.
On a whole though, we definitely ran these trips out of our own pockets. We’re just incredibly lucky that we had such an amazing team of surfers and creatives that put in the hard mahi and time to help us. It’s a film that’s truly driven by each individual's passion to see this film become a reality.
What other aspirations are in the pipeline?
We need more media that challenges the narrative of wāhine surfing and accurately represents the talent out there.
Continue to produce content. We definitely would love to make another wāhine surf film, and just scale it up a bit more than Over the Undertow. Hopefully with the growing success of this film, we could secure more sponsorship to have a larger team working on it and be able to go to more ‘off the grid’ sort of places, chasing more challenging waves. In the future, we would love to head overseas and create films internationally.
In the near future though, we are working to continue expanding Over The Undertow’s reach. We’re entering it into more film festivals, so hopefully more people can see it globally! We hope that it can drive more girls to create films. We need more media that challenges the narrative of wāhine surfing and accurately represents the talent out there.
Tautoko! Lastly, it is so damn good to see our young ocean wāhine being showcased on film for Aotearoa and beyond to view, have you got any hot tips for budding videographers and/or photographers out there documenting or aspiring to document Aotearoa’s female athletes?
Being in a team really helped us as filmmakers. It meant we could hold each other accountable, keep each other on track, and push each other to create something to the best of our ability. We couldn’t imagine doing something like this on our own, so find someone who you align with to collaborate with!
Yes! It has been a long time coming but it truly makes all the mahi worth it when we hear that others are keen to make films too, and have been waiting for a film such as Over The Undertow to show them it is so possible!
We both had been doing bits of photography and video work, but neither of us had made a proper film before. So essentially we started from scratch and learned along the way.
I think being in a team really helped us as filmmakers. It meant we could hold each other accountable, keep each other on track, and push each other to create something to the best of our ability. We couldn’t imagine doing something like this on our own, so find someone who you align with to collaborate with!
Connecting with established filmmakers and photographers is another hot tip. In general, a lot of people are very willing to provide advice and help you out if you just reach out to them. For us particularly, so many people were keen to see better representation of female surfers of Aotearoa. We were lucky to get great support and guidance along the way.
Ensure that you are very clear in what you want to create and have a solid base plan. Taking time to connect and build a relationship with the athletes that you’re documenting is super important. It’s valuable to get to know their stories and have an understanding of them before shooting their point of view. This will help your work come from a more authentic and accurate angle.
Lastly, you have to believe in yourself, believe in your idea, and put yourself out there. Email and message as many people as you can for support. Not everyone is going to get back to you, but if you keep going at it the right people will. There were so many times that we contacted people never really expecting to hear back, and we did hear from them. Which resulted in awesome sponsorship, publicity, and more. You never know unless you try!
All the very best for the rest of the film tour. We look forward to seeing what's next for you both in the future.
Ngā mihi nui, thank you very much for all your support!
Interview by Daisy Thomas
Images kindly provided by Lauren Crerar (photos 1,4,8,9,10), Cassia Walton (2,3,7) and Daniel ‘Digga‘ Davie (6).
