The Shaper

Recently I came across a short film by Crayfish Films which blew me away. ‘The Shaper’ takes you into the world of a very special talent and his unique thoughts. After watching the film a couple of times I wanted to get in contact with the Crayfish Film team to find out how that were able to come up with such a great film and where their ideas come from, so I contacted Jeremy Joyce who is one of the founders of the team!

I hope you enjoy the film and the short interview, as always I would love to get your feedback so feel free to let me know what you think!

When and how did Crayfish Films begin?

Crayfish Films started in 2011. Rob Lockyear, Rich Pearn and myself (jeremy joyce) have all been good friends since school. We found ourselves all living in London at the same time and we just started throwing ideas around together and got to the stage where we thought ‘lets have a go ourselves.’ We bought some basic kit, scribbled a script down for our first project (wreckers) and headed down to Cornwall shoot it with very little idea of what we were doing. Two or three projects later, we’ve just been trying to get better and not repeat any of our mistakes! The name Crayfish Films comes from when we were on a surf trip in the south of France when we were 16. Rich woke up in his tent one morning with a pissed off crayfish crawling up his leg. His girly screams are still haunting to this day.

Where do you get your inspiration?

We’re all from the West Country and love surfing. So far quite a bit of our stuff has been surf-related. It’s just nice to be in Cornwall and be able to break the shoot up with surfs. Most of our ideas just come from shooting the shit over a beer. We tend to lean towards the bizarre and silly, for some reason. None of us seem to want to make dark, gritty films with a profound message, right now we just want to try to make films that are fun and engaging.

Do you guys still find time to make the ‘creative’ films you want or is your work mostly corporate?

We went through a stage of trying to gear ourselves towards making money from corporate stuff. It soon became clear that this was a crowded and, for us, unfulfilling marketplace. We still do odd bits of stuff for clients – we got kit to pay for!- but our focus and energy is towards 100% creative.

You won London awards at London Surf Film Festival & Byron Bay Surf Festival, what was it like to have your work recognised internationally?

It was awesome. Both those wins for The Shaper came as a surprise. The coolest part was at the London Surf Film Festival sitting in the audience hearing people laugh at the film. It was bizarre! It’s made us more confident about our ideas. Those festivals are an amazing platform for filmmakers starting out. They give you something to aim for and they’re super supportive.

Does any of the team surf, if so what do you ride?

Yeah we all surf. I (Jeremy) ride a 6’6 fish, Rob rides a 6’2 fish – the board we commissioned for The Shaper- Rich rides a longboard.

What does the future hold for Crayfish Films?

We’re starting work on a new project. Its pretty ambitious. It’s going to be feature film in the same style as The Shaper….An environmental disaster is affecting local surfers in a small coastal town. The community come together to fix the problem… We’re shooting the teaser now and we’re assembling a great team. Water-photographer Mark Glendinning of www.markglendinningmedia.com and Sennen actor/surfer/director Lew Smart (www.lewsmart.com) have agreed to come on board. We’re starting our crowdfunding campaign in May and we’ve got some awesome people behind us. It’s gonna be an exciting year!

I hope you found the interview interesting and enjoyed the film. Please note that the above picture is just one example of Mark Glendinning’s amazing photography, more information can be found at www.markglendinningmedia.com