The Cigarette Surfboard Documentary
Donation protected
We believe the mass amount of plastic on our beaches and in our ocean is a direct result of our habitual disconnection to our waste and the way we culturally treat our oceans and planet. However, as surfers, we play a vital role that could help turn these tides before they turn on us…
In the summer of 2017, I filmed a few videos with my good friend Taylor Lane, who built a surfboard out of 10,000 cigarette butts, all picked up off the beach. Our goal was to design an artistically creative and usable surf craft that makes a strong environmental statement. We submitted our videos to Vissla’s and Surfrider’s “Creators Contest”, which prompts individuals to make surfboards from upcycled materials, and in October 2017, we won the contest!
News of the Cigarette Surfboard went completely viral - it was featured in hundreds of publications around the world, including the New York Times, LA Times, SF Chronicle, Shanghai Daily, The Telegraph, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News, Lonely Planet, Surfline, The Inertia, and many more. Taylor has been interviewed by multiple television stations and radio programs, and there were evening news reports across the country about the Cigarette Surfboard, on ABC, NBC, and CBS. It was even featured on NPR’s Morning Edition! The point is, news of the Cigarette Surfboard keeps spreading, which is giving us a unique opportunity to spread our environmental message.
Within our film, we are using the Cigarette Surfboard to question the mentality of littering cigarette butts, and how this largely represents our single-use plastic culture and its effects on the ocean. Our goal is to inspire, educate, and share creative solutions to encourage a “call to action” for the international surf community / industry to become more engaged stewards of the sea. We aim to provide people (surfers and non-surfers alike) with tools to help reduce their impact on the ocean. Furthermore, professional surfers from around the world are riding different models of Cigarette Surfboards to help promote our environmental message.
Since the first Cigarette Surfboard went viral, we've lobbied with the surfboard at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, attended numerous conferences and events, made key connections within the ocean conservation and surf worlds, spoken at schools, beach clean ups, and music festivals, interviewed scientists, NGO's, CEO's, professional surfers, and political activists, and travelled through Western Europe for two months shooting for the film… a lot has happened. We've learned an incredible amount along the way, helping us gauge the problem (our out of sight, out of mind mentality), but more importantly, what can be done.
We are currently building new models of the Cigarette Surfboard, going through a year’s worth of footage, and preparing to have environmentally active professional surfers ride the new boards this winter. All in all, it’s a good time for the Ciggy Butt Board Boys. It’s also a lot of hard work. But we have momentum, support, and unwavering ambition and dedication to the project. Most important, it truly feels meaningful and unquestionably useful of our time to be creating this film.
To continue making progress on the film, we need some more financial help - last January, we raised over $20,000, which has gone towards camera equipment / insurance, international travel and filming, Cigarette Surfboard materials, and events / conferences. To put it in perspective, we have taken no salary thus far, relying on other jobs (and family / friends) to keep us housed and fed. We spent 40 of our 55 days in Europe pitching tents on beaches and at campgrounds, surviving off bread and cheese (and the graciousness of locals). We take contributions seriously and are truly a transparent, low-budget production, fueled by passion.
Donations will go towards building more Cigarette Surfboard models (three are currently in the works, with three more beyond that for different styles and sizes of surf), traveling to Hawaii this winter to detail the culture and origins of surfing, and future international travel after the New Year. We hope to release this self-funded, independent film in about a year.
With a growing public awareness and international upset about our polluted oceans, we truly believe this film will make an environmental impact. Thank you so much for reading, donating, and sharing. We are so excited to make this film come to fruition!
Learn more at thecigarettesurfboard.com
In the summer of 2017, I filmed a few videos with my good friend Taylor Lane, who built a surfboard out of 10,000 cigarette butts, all picked up off the beach. Our goal was to design an artistically creative and usable surf craft that makes a strong environmental statement. We submitted our videos to Vissla’s and Surfrider’s “Creators Contest”, which prompts individuals to make surfboards from upcycled materials, and in October 2017, we won the contest!
News of the Cigarette Surfboard went completely viral - it was featured in hundreds of publications around the world, including the New York Times, LA Times, SF Chronicle, Shanghai Daily, The Telegraph, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News, Lonely Planet, Surfline, The Inertia, and many more. Taylor has been interviewed by multiple television stations and radio programs, and there were evening news reports across the country about the Cigarette Surfboard, on ABC, NBC, and CBS. It was even featured on NPR’s Morning Edition! The point is, news of the Cigarette Surfboard keeps spreading, which is giving us a unique opportunity to spread our environmental message.
Within our film, we are using the Cigarette Surfboard to question the mentality of littering cigarette butts, and how this largely represents our single-use plastic culture and its effects on the ocean. Our goal is to inspire, educate, and share creative solutions to encourage a “call to action” for the international surf community / industry to become more engaged stewards of the sea. We aim to provide people (surfers and non-surfers alike) with tools to help reduce their impact on the ocean. Furthermore, professional surfers from around the world are riding different models of Cigarette Surfboards to help promote our environmental message.
Since the first Cigarette Surfboard went viral, we've lobbied with the surfboard at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, attended numerous conferences and events, made key connections within the ocean conservation and surf worlds, spoken at schools, beach clean ups, and music festivals, interviewed scientists, NGO's, CEO's, professional surfers, and political activists, and travelled through Western Europe for two months shooting for the film… a lot has happened. We've learned an incredible amount along the way, helping us gauge the problem (our out of sight, out of mind mentality), but more importantly, what can be done.
We are currently building new models of the Cigarette Surfboard, going through a year’s worth of footage, and preparing to have environmentally active professional surfers ride the new boards this winter. All in all, it’s a good time for the Ciggy Butt Board Boys. It’s also a lot of hard work. But we have momentum, support, and unwavering ambition and dedication to the project. Most important, it truly feels meaningful and unquestionably useful of our time to be creating this film.
To continue making progress on the film, we need some more financial help - last January, we raised over $20,000, which has gone towards camera equipment / insurance, international travel and filming, Cigarette Surfboard materials, and events / conferences. To put it in perspective, we have taken no salary thus far, relying on other jobs (and family / friends) to keep us housed and fed. We spent 40 of our 55 days in Europe pitching tents on beaches and at campgrounds, surviving off bread and cheese (and the graciousness of locals). We take contributions seriously and are truly a transparent, low-budget production, fueled by passion.
Donations will go towards building more Cigarette Surfboard models (three are currently in the works, with three more beyond that for different styles and sizes of surf), traveling to Hawaii this winter to detail the culture and origins of surfing, and future international travel after the New Year. We hope to release this self-funded, independent film in about a year.
With a growing public awareness and international upset about our polluted oceans, we truly believe this film will make an environmental impact. Thank you so much for reading, donating, and sharing. We are so excited to make this film come to fruition!
Learn more at thecigarettesurfboard.com
Organizer
Benjamin Judkins
Organizer
Fairfax, CA
