Director Chris Smith on the brilliant HBO docuseries 100 Foot Wave

CS: To be honest, Nicole, Garrett’s wife, does that work for us. She is the voice of reason in my mind, in that she is always sort of the vehicle for the audience. But even within that, there’s some conflict. She talks about, “When is enough enough?” But then later, there’s a big competition that takes place, and she says she wishes Garrett was out there. And it’s incredibly dangerous conditions. I think that we all have that dichotomy within us at times. You want somebody to be safe, but you also appreciate them for who they are, right? That push and pull is something that was evident at the beginning and continues through season three.  

AVC: This season bounces between several years and so many locations: Ireland, Brazil, Hawaii, Nazaré…  

CS: Morocco, Chile, Tahiti [laughs]…  

Chris Smith during the filming of 100 Foot Wave (Photo: Hannah Duerr/HBO)

AVC: Right. What are the logistics of that? How often are people shooting? And once you’re going through all of that footage, how do you decide on an overarching theme? 

CS: Yeah, it definitely is a massive effort from a huge team of people that work together to try to make this show what it is. We have a full-time crew that shoots during the season, which is roughly late October through March. And they are based in Nazaré, and then [they] travel with the surfers wherever they go. So it’s basically about six months of vérité filming. But this year was different, just because so many of the surfers wanted to go to different locations. And so we were challenged with trying to figure that out. So it’s a massive orchestration of people to follow what’s unfolding in front of us. 

In terms of the actual show and what it’s about, that is entirely dictated and formed in the edit based on what we find in the footage. There’s no preconceived notion of where the series should go or could go. It’s always, “Let’s just try to capture as best we can what happens and then try to make sense of it.” And I would say that in this season in particular, there were a lot of things that happened that hadn’t happened in seasons before. There was a tragic accident that happened at Nazaré, which hadn’t happened since people [started] surfing there. Garrett and Nicole go through this incredible sort of journey. And does that bring [them] peace or more conflict? And that’s what we’re trying to understand—and I think he’s trying to understand. It’s very challenging, but it’s also very rewarding, to start to find these thematic connections through all of our different characters and their journeys, to try to construct something that feels cohesive.

AVC: One of the clear through-lines this season is the emphasis on family and kids and, to quote Justine Dupont, “balance.” Do you think that sort of centeredness runs counter to what it takes to be a big-wave surfer? 

CS: I think there’s the central conflict in that idea, yes. But I think wrestling with that is part of what the conversation of this show is about. What does balance look like? How do you achieve that while trying to be at the top of a sport that requires you to be able to travel the world at a moment’s notice? There are a lot of sports that require you to be away from home and to travel. But I don’t know of any sport that is as unpredictable as surfing in terms of its schedule, right? You’re fully at the mercy of Mother Nature. That’s one of the things that I think you wouldn’t really be aware of unless you were really paying attention to the behind-the-scenes of how this sport actually works. 

AVC: So much of the footage on this show is stunning. Can you think of any instance or sequence that blew you away? This season, I’m particularly thinking of the trip in episode three to Cortes Bank, far off the coast of San Diego. 

CS: Yeah, I would agree with you. I’ll say this: To HBO’s credit, we finished season one, and they asked us to do season two. And I felt very uncomfortable with that idea, because I felt like we were going into the unknown. I couldn’t guarantee that there was going to be a show or that there would be anything interesting that we would have. And in doing season two, I learned a lot. I learned to trust the process and go with it. In season three, I had less of that feeling [of unease] just because we had been through it with season two. But season three exceeded my expectations. It’s my favorite of the three seasons. I think it’s the best in its growth and its nuance and complexity, but also visually. They’re all interesting in different ways, but in episode three, they take a boat 100 miles off the coast of California to this wave that exists in the middle of the ocean. And as they’re waking up to see what’s out there, it’s just some of the most striking footage we’ve had. And a lot is not about surfing. It’s just like this boat drifting in the water toward these massive waves.

AVC: When I first got into the show, the thing that really hit me was the marriage of this incredible footage and Philip Glass’ piano score. What is the collaboration with him like?  

CS: Well, I hate to disappoint you, but Philip owns and controls a huge portion of his work. And he has a library that we tap into. I don’t even know how you could begin to score the series from scratch. And so we’ve been fortunate to be able to tap into an extensive archive. And our editors, I have to give them the credit of digging deep to try to find tracks. We have themes that we come back to all the time, of course. But then in between that we’re scouring the library to try to find the tracks that can give each episode or each season its own identity.

AVC: That makes more sense.

CS: I can see how you would think that. But yeah, it doesn’t undermine it. The point to me is I can’t imagine the show existing without Philip Glass’ music. To me, the two are intertwined; the world is intertwined. When I first saw these waves cut against his score, the marriage of that just felt so undeniable. And I think there’s a spiritual quality that many of the surfers reference in terms of their relationship with the ocean, and I think Philip’s music so perfectly brings that to life. 

AVC: Can we expect another season? Season three ends on a beautiful note that could work as a series finale. But it still leaves some things open-ended. Would you want to do another one?

CS: Yeah, I mean, we’re always shooting, so we’ve shot the material and we’re cutting it together. Creatively, we’re always moving forward. But we’re always at the mercy of…if more people watch it, then there will be more seasons. You know, that’s how it goes. But in terms of our interest in continuing, it’s 100 percent. We love the world; we love the characters; and we love documenting and following their journeys. So we’re just hoping that the reception to this is positive enough to warrant [HBO] to want to continue.

AVC: I’d like to end by asking about the beginning of your career and specifically American Movie, which is one of my favorite films. What memories do you have of making it?  

CS: It was interesting. That time was really special. So, yeah, just for context, it was an independent film that I made when I lived in Milwaukee. And I think the thing that you might not notice from that film is that what was happening behind the camera was very similar to what was happening in front of the camera. It wasn’t as if there was a successful filmmaker filming an up-and-coming filmmaker. We were two independent filmmakers living in Milwaukee, trying to find our way. And I think that is what made that movie work. And so that movie, similar to the surf show, was very immersive in terms of the way that it was filmed. We were filming for six days a week. And so when we would film Mark [Borchardt] and Mike [Schank] and Mark’s family having dinner, once they were done, there would be two extra plates, and we would eat. 

I think there was something very special about the process on that, because also, I had nothing else going on. So life was very simple and it was very clear, where you could be completely immersed and focused on one thing and just in the creative process. Life has only gotten more complicated since then. That movie was one, two, or three people at most whenever we were filming. And you look at the surf show, and it’s over 50 people that help bring this to life. And so sometimes you feel more like a train conductor than a filmmaker. You’re just trying to help keep the train on the tracks. It’s just different. But they’re both great. So I look back at that time very fondly, just because of the simplicity of it.