Backyard surfing safari

Self-trained filmmaker finds extreme wave-riders in Laguna.With a beat-up, bandaged and super-glued-back-together video camera, filmmaker Michael Spencer Taylor has gone to extremes to give his audience the best in cutting-edge surfing action.

Taylor, 39, recently put the finishing touches on his latest project, “Nobody’s Heros.” The title refers to the everyman aspect of the surfers he chose to train his lens on.

Working with his 12-year-old son and assistant, Dakoda, “Nobody’s Heros” marks the first solo film from Taylor’s company, Moments in Time.

Presenting tricks known as “varial sex changes,” “shrink wraps,” “gorkin flips” and “kick flips,” the film is heavy on technique.

The 43-minute DVD matches surfing moves to music grooves, as an eclectic soundtrack containing blues, country and rap matches various wave-riding styles.

Profiling mostly local surfers, “Nobody’s Heros” features Lagunans Bill Bryan, Mike Morrisey and Grady Archibald.

“No one has heard of the surfers in my movie; magazines don’t cover them because they’re not in the top 45, but they’re just as good,” Taylor claims.

Taylor spent more than two years gathering hundreds of hours of footage for his film, most of it on local beaches.

To compete with the fancy helicopter shots and teams of camera men other surf movies use, Taylor came up with creative solutions.

He crouched low with a rigged tripod, climbed a ladder set against a pier, and tied a rope around his waist to film on top of poles.

“You don’t have to go on an expensive surf trip -- you have everything in your backyard,” Taylor said. “I’m looking for how clean and how graceful the moves are.”

“Viewers have to rewind five or six times to see what is going on,” Taylor said. “It’s like a video game.”

With the help of distributor Digital Wunderland, the filmmaker says he has sold around 3,000 DVDs.

Taylor believes his film offers things that other surf films don’t, including tricks never seen before on video, such as the “Superman finger flip” performed by Zach Rhinehart.

A computer crash that destroyed the first edit of the video turned out to be a blessing, as a second attempt produced a better cut, Taylor said.

All of the postproduction work was conducted in Taylor’s El Morro trailer. With El Morro Village shutting down in late February, Taylor hopes to find another home in the Laguna area while he completes four projects currently in progress.

He has been gathering footage of the waning days of El Morro for a film titled “El Morro Forever: Memories of a Seaside Community,” scheduled to be released in January 2007.

Only a handful of inhabitants remain in El Morro, which to Taylor now feels like a ghost town.

He and Dakoda are spending their last days at El Morro riding vintage bikes given to them by neighbors and residents who have moved on.

“There was a strong sense of community around here, it’s a beautiful, amazing place,” Taylor said.

Taylor fears Laguna is losing its edge as expensive housing has made it increasingly difficult for artists to live in the area.

“If it keeps going like this, we’ll just have a bunch of rich housewives at Sawdust Festival,” Taylor said.

Also in progress for Taylor are films titled “A Piece of Laguna: The Movie, Vol. 1” and “Boost to Save Trestles.”

“Nobody’s Heros” will be shown Tuesday at Laguna South Coast Cinemas from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. A sneak preview of “A Piece of Laguna” will also be shown. Tickets are $7. Information: (949) 497-1220.20060127itobo3ncDON LEACH / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)El Morro resident and filmmaker Michael Spencer Taylor documents extreme surfing in Laguna Beach. His son Dakoda, 11, works as his assistant.