Matt Archbold is Built For Speed in the New Documentary Film by Bill Ballard
ARCHY: Built For Speed, Born To Ride documents the incredible rise, fall and rise again of surfing’s most famous—and infamous—Wild Child. Matt Archbold’s story is told in gripping detail through explosive surfing footage and gritty interviews in this highly-acclaimed film by veteran producer/director Bill Ballard and editor Ryan Ray.
When Matt Archbold started surfing back in 1979 at age 11 the world had no idea that it was about to witness one of the most explosive surfers to ever set foot on a surfboard. With a career spanning nearly 3 decades now, Archy is considered to be the most successful free-surfer of all time and one of the originators of high-performance surfing. As Martin Potter was setting the stage globally for high performance surfing in the early 80’s, a young crew out of San Clemente led by Archy was about to blow the roof off of surfing.
From dropping out of high school as a freshman at 15 and turning pro, to becoming the poster child of surf clothing giant MCD, Archy’s young life was no dull moment. After he struggled with competitive surfing for the next 5 years and had some success winning a handful of Bud Tour events, Archy quickly learned pro surfing’s three turns to the beach format wasn’t for him. He then decided to set out on a fairly new frontier, “free surfing”; getting paid to simply go out and get photos was something that had not been done up until now. In his early 20’s, his name became synonymous with the legendary surf spot known as “Off The Wall” all the while riding shorter boards in bigger surf–something that most had never done or dreamed of doing. Archy’s aeriel attack in the water and explosive surfing revolutionized what we view as high performance surfing today.
ARCHY is a timeless film that tells the story of 3 very different generations in surfing. Spanning the 80’s, 90’s, 2000 and on, Archy’s amazing story is one of survival thru surf stardom at an early age, fame, drugs, alcohol, sponsorships and the surf rock star lifestyle. Light will finally be shed on the true-life story of one of the most charismatic and legendary surfers in history.
Compelling interviews, explosive surf action, timeless photos matched with Narration by Henry Rollins from the legendary band Black Flag and set to an all time soundtrack including The Clash, Social Distortion, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Devo, and many others, ARCHY is sure to effect audiences of all walks of life worldwide. This is a story that needs to be told.
Well, that’s basically the press release for the movie, and you can find all this info, plus trailers and more at the official website, but here’s my take:
About 40% of this film was edited in my offices, so I was fortunate enough to see the creative process go down. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical in the beginning. How much good Archy footage from back in the day even exists? How hard would it be to bring it all together for one project? Is Archy even relevant in 2008? Did he really surf as good as everyone thinks they remembered? Will anyone even care?
The bottom line is that Bill Ballard pulled this one off in fine style. This film is by far Bill’s biggest undertaking in his career to-date. His previous films, which cemented his reputation in the late 90’s and early in the new millenium as a powerhouse surf video producer and peer to Taylor Steele were well-produced surf porn. (Again, as I’ve stated in previous posts, I don’t use the term “surf porn” disparagingly; it suits a sub-genre of surf film-making and I generally use it in the context of videos or films that simply mirror the current state-of-the-art in high-performance surfing and don’t purport to be anything more than that.)
In making Archy: Built For Speed, Born To Ride, Bill took on one of surfing’s most controversial characters in his bid to truly represent Archy’s life; he also took on a whole bunch of headaches, not the least of which were Archy’s San Clemente cohorts who managed to morph from armchair critics to exercising some real muscle in the creative direction of the finished project. Archy’s old-boy network is deep; Bill needed these guys to be on board to get the real story and these are fiercely loyal friends to Archy. Even though they didn’t pull any punches when interviewed, there were some real tensions that arose during the post-production process in how Archy would be portrayed in the final product.
I went to the Newport Beach premiere of the movie at the Lido Theater and the place was sold out–slammed. I guess that answers my question about Archy’s relevance–at least in Orange County. What a cast of characters. Everyone from San Clemente’s famed artist Roy Gonzales (in a red zoot suit, no less) to new-school hipster Alex Knost were in attendance. And Good Lord, the San Clemente Mafia in the second floor balcony was going off! From derisive heckling of PT’s aspirations of turning Archy into a uniformed NSSA clone to raucous hooting at stories of partying madness and footage of Matt boosting, this was their night and they were living it up.
The final product is on the shelves now, and while essentially the same movie that we saw at the premiere, the peanut gallery eventually had their say and the movie now includes actual interview footage with Archy (the version we saw at the premiere was Bill’s original vision, in that Archy’s story was told by his family, friends and rivals–there was no interview footage with Matt in the original version and very little contemporary footage). Most everyone tends to agree that the re-edit is a stronger final product, and while I tend to side with Bill’s right to his artistic vision, I think the new interview and action footage compliments, rather than dilutes, the story.
Archy: Built For Speed, Born To Ride is a crazy ride through the life of one our sport’s greatest–and most flawed–heroes. Did Archy really rip as hard as we remembered? Definitely. Was Bill able to pull together virtually every sick clip ever shot of Archy in his youth and heyday? Sure looks like it. Is Archy still relevant in 2008? Hell, yes! Will anyone even care? Apparently so, based on the copies flying off of store shelves.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TRAILER
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL MOVIE WEBSITE
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