Noah Lane’s been living on the west coast of Ireland for ten years now. To the layman it’s not the most obvious place that someone from Australia’s Sunshine Coast would move to, but when you factor in surfing and his Irish wife, it all makes perfect sense. In that decade he’s become very well acquainted with the waves that Ireland’s become internationally renowned for, and he’s one of the standouts whose surfing shows just what is possible at those slabs.
Blow In features nine minutes of such surfing. It offers a glimpse into Noah’s life in Ireland and the world-class waves that he has put in the hours to get to know. Filmed by friends and long-term collaborators Andrew Kaineder and João Tudella through 2023, and produced by Noah’s footwear sponsor Globe, it won best short film at this year’s Irish Surf Film Festival in November and is rightly a contender for Stab Magazine’s Edit Of The Year.
Over the course of a whole bunch of voice notes with Noah, AK and João, we managed to overcome time-zones (Noah was back in Australia in early December) to get the low down on the barrels, the boards, the people and the process behind Blow In. Put the kettle on, read the interview, and then sit back and have your hair blown back.
How did Blow-In come about – was there always a long-term plan to document your life in Ireland like this, or is it a project that’s developed more recently when you all realised how much footage you had?
Noah: It was a piece made for Globe, and it wasn’t part of any long term plan. It was actually only really filmed in about six months, with a few older clips in there. It turned into a bit of a snapshot of the last ten years but really all the surfing footage is from just one winter!
Noah and João, you guys live a few hours apart in Lahinch and Bundoran on the west coast of Ireland, and then AK's in Australia. How often do you get to connect and film together?
Noah: Myself an João get to film together pretty regularly, whenever there’s waves. We’re a couple of hours apart but we tend to travel to the same places to surf or shoot. So we see each other quite regularly. And then Andrew and I first met and became mates in 2015 or 2016 and we’ve worked on a few different projects together in the years since. I’m actually at his house in Australia right now! We see each other less frequently, but he was in Ireland for most of the spring of 2023 so we managed to hang out. The waves weren’t amazing whilst we were trying to film for this but we managed to compile enough to make the film happen.
What benefit has time, familiarity and repetition had at these marquee slabs?
Noah: I’m not naturally used to heavy waves, so it took a lot of exposure and mental coercion to become familiar with the spots here. Each wave has its own specific technicalities and quirks, and I’ve enjoyed years of trying to learn how best to approach and ride them.
João, filming in-water in these waves takes skill, familiarity and dedication. What are the factors that play into your decision to get in and roll the dice for a successful link up on a good wave?
João: It takes a lot of time. You just put in so much of your time in the water that you get to the stage where you’re familiar with each spot. But every day is so different and you still need to be lucky and link up with a surfer. Obviously through putting in the time you learn to deal with different sea conditions, the different light, rain, lenses and ports…. Everybody has their own techniques shooting in-water. It’s quite cool, whether swimming or on the ski, everyone have their own set of tricks which is quite impressive. I guess it’s a bit about knowing the wave and then being comfortable swimming, and when that link happens it’s just amazing both for the surfer and for me as the filmer.
João and Andrew, films are notorious for leaving hours of footage on the cutting room floor, even for a short edit. What’s been your approach to filming Noah over the years and how many hours of footage would you estimate went into making Blow-In?
João: Every time the waves are pumping I try to be there to film Noah because he’s such a talented surfer. He always gets good ones in every session! While we were filming for the project we actually got a bit unlucky because we had a few good sessions but not those big Mully days, so we ended up using clips from the year before and a few others that were shot before we started filming for this project. But it all worked out well in the end. And in terms of unused footage, you shoot what you can but try not to overshoot, so you don’t have to wade through loads of footage that won’t make the cut.
What’s the working relationship between the three of you?
Noah: Pretty much AK and João are the bosses! When it comes to making a film there’s the filming part and then the post-production part, which is entirely their field of expertise and completely between them!
There’s a mix of analogue film and digital footage in Blow In. How did you plan the final edit to utilise everything that you had to work with?
João: The movie has a mix of film and digital footage. AK had brought his Bolex with him from Australia and he was shooting Russ [Aussie charger Russell Bierke] as well for his new movie, and we decided to use some film combined with some archive super-8 film that I had of Noah. I think it gave it a nice feel, like looking back over all of the years that he’s been there. It’s a surf movie at the end of the day, but we just wanted to give it that tone.
Was it difficult to sit on some of these clips and save them for this edit, when there’s such a culture of immediacy in surf media these days?
Noah: We didn’t really sit on any clips for that long to be honest. It’s more of a snapshot of this point in time, after a decade of being in Ireland. The final wave is probably the best or most special waves that I feel like I’ve ridden in Ireland.
Back in Australia, the term Blow-In doesn’t always imply being a welcome addition to a community. But, there’s a great community of surfers on Ireland’s west coast, and plenty of international additions who have put down roots there and made their own valuable contributions. What does that community mean to you guys?
Noah: Yeah the name Blow In was a bit of a piss take. João came up with it and it’s a bit of a laugh at all of our situations in Ireland. But for me the community is really important. I have a different relationship with it personally than through the café [Foam, in Bundoran, that Noah founded and runs with a couple of mates], but through Foam we particularly try to use the business to create vibrancy and celebrate the local community. We hold events and try to contribute and add to what’s going on, and celebrate the people and the landscape. Community is really valuable and it is a really special place.
João: Everyone is so welcoming here, especially in our community. I just thought it was quite a funny reference, because Noah and I are both blow-ins to these different towns in the west of Ireland, and it felt like the perfect title for this surf movie.
Noah, why you’ve stayed is bloody obvious from the waves in the film but there’s a balance and pay-off to living on this stretch of coast that doesn’t make it for everyone. Can you talk a bit about that equation, and all of the elements that feed into the sum total of your lives in Ireland?
Noah: Being back in Australia has really highlighted the challenges that the weather poses, but you know in a fairly simplistic way, as I spoke to in the film, it is challenging and it’s not for everyone but that’s a big part of the appeal of the place. Talking directly on surfing it just makes everything a little more challenging, but because of that it is more rewarding.
There’re a huge variety of waves featured, and a lot of different surfboards. How have your boards and your quiver developed over the last decade of living and surfing here?
Noah: Ireland's got the full range of waves, and I use a much wider variety of surfboards now compared to what I would have ridden when I was younger in Queensland, Australia. They’re all mostly specific to each wave, so the Arks which are the channel bottom twin pins, I pretty much only surf at two spots and they’re just for getting in early and going fast in a straight line in the tube. I then have a wide variety of boards for a lot of the fun waves or the taller slabs.
That’s where Markie’s been really helpful. He comes and visits and he understands the waves, and because he surfs really well himself that really helps when I’m trying to explain a really difficult to articulate feeling. It helps when you have somebody who understands what I’m talking about, and he does a great job of translating that into beautiful surfboards.
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