'Surfer' - The Guinness TV Advert
Created | Updated Jul 22, 2002
Once in a while a piece of work comes along that defies a simple description of the craft used to achieve it.
- John Smith
Jury Foreman of the British Design and Art Direction Awards
We are greeted with a close up of a man who looks expectantly at something just above our view.
He waits; that's what he does.
...says the voiceover. The relentless drum slowly fades into earshot. The surfer and his three friends rush into the dark and foamy sea; bare chests and slight boards.
The voiceover continues on as the beat drives aggressively forward.
And I tell you what: tick followed tock followed tick followed tock followed tick...
So begins one of the most celebrated adverts in the history of British TV.
The Plot
It takes 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint of Guinness, which is a long time to wait for any pint. This is what probably inspired the caption 'good things come to those who wait' as applied to pouring a glass of the black stuff.
Many adverts for Guinness have latched onto the common thread of waiting or just being plain surreal*; among them the 'Statisics' advert, as with the 'Snails' advert.
The theme of waiting is what inspired the story of the surfer - the man who waits for the ultimate wave experience with his friends. The group spot the 30 metre high wave off in the distance and make for it. As the wave crashes down, the crest turns effortlessly into giant white horses which descend upon the surfer and his friends.
There is a mess of hooves, tossing manes, boards and spray, but the wave is conquered, and in their cameraderie, the surfer and his friends run to the shore to celebrate.
The Man Behind the Motion
The advert was directed by the critcally acclaimed director, Jonathan Glazer.
His previous work was with music videos; he was the man behind the strange moving room in Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity video1, Blur's heavily A Clockwork Orange-influenced video, The Universal, and the notorious UNKLE's Rabbit In Your Headlights2.
His forays into directing adverts have also been very successful. The Stella Artois adverts, and of course, the 'Swimblack' advert for Guinness3 set him up nicely for yet another memorable reel of filming.
His most recent work includes the full-length feature film Sexy Beast, and at the time of writing, the current Levi's advert, 'Odyssey', which involved two people running through walls, up tree trunks and flying off into space4.
How It Was Done
Originally, the whole sequence was to be computer generated, or at least, either the waves or the horses to be computer generated.
In any case, it was eventually decided that as little computer generated effects as possible would be used.
The Waves
These were filmed in Hawaii, at a place called Waimei Bay. It was there where the crew had their first stroke of luck - whilst looking for a nice angle to shoot from, they met their surfer, called enigmatically, 'Rocky'. He, and three of his surfer friends were to be in the advert.
For the waves, the crew were doubly lucky. The massive waves only happen a few days each year, and so with camera equipment rigged to jetskis, helicopters and the longboards themselves, the waves were filmed.
The Horses
Back in the studio, there was the question of the white horses. The Lipizzaner Stallions* from the Spanish Riding School of Vienna were recruited for such a task.
The horses were trained in the moves required for the sequences, and had to match frame-by-frame to the previously recorded footage in Hawaii. These moves involved jumping over short gates in a water bath. The studio was completely blue, so that in a move similar to that used on Knightmare, the blue would be de-selected, and the horse placed in the appropriate area.
This in itself, took about 3 days to film.
The Visuals
So then, the computer voodoo magic then was employed. The surfer and his group were placed in the overhead wave shot, so that they appeared to be paddling toward it. The horses were then duplicated, the blue de-selected, and placed in the wave shot where the crest rises menacingly over the surfers. At this stage, the whole sequence was still in colour.
The confusion of hooves, mane and spray were in part live footage and computer generated images.
When the visuals were then done, the whole sequence was converted to black and white.
The Voiceover
Spoken by Louis Mells, the voiceover comprises of passages from Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Again, the passages were chosen for the 'waiting' theme - the surfers for the wave, Captain Ahab and his crew for their search for the white whale.
The full voiceover is as follows:
He waits; that's what he does.
And I tell you what: tick followed tock followed tick followed tock followed tick...
Ahab says, 'I don't care who you are, here's to your dream.'
The old sailors returned to the bar, 'Here's to you, Ahab!'
And the fat drummer hit the beat with all his heart.
Here's to waiting.
The Music
The pounding, rhythmic drum which rises slowly in the background is in fact the intro from an actual track - Phat* Planet by Leftfield. The original track itself is more of an electronic affair, which is really to be expected from a group acclaimed for their electronica.
Unlike groups or bands which have their tracks featured on adverts, Leftfield didn't release Phat Planet as a single*, which, in this researcher's opinion, was probably a good thing, as the very harsh electronic track bears very little relation (apart from that drumline) to the organic sound of the advert. The 5 minute track can be found on their album, Rhythm and Stealth - or that one with the Samurai armour on the front.
The Awards
The advert made its debut in 1999, yet had such a profound effect on the British public that two years later, in a poll run jointly by the Sunday Times and Channel 4, it was voted as number 1 in the 100 Greatest TV Adverts of all time.
The accolades didn't just stop there. It won a Gold Lion in Cannes (1999) and a Gold in the British Television Advertising Awards (2000).
'Surfer' won two awards in the British Design and Art Direction Awards in 2000, a Gold in TV and Cinema Advertising over 60 seconds, and a Gold in Direction.
And finally...
It was not lost on me that when I was sitting down quite comfortably, watching 'The Fellowship of the Ring', that something seemed quite familiar about the 'Riders at the River Bruinen' sequence. In fact, as the horses rose out the the spray in an almost identical mess of hooves, manes and surf, that I found myself humming the drum bit to Phat Planet. I was also looking for the surfers hidden somewhere on the banks, ready to run at the bore...
Video Links
For those who have not seen the adverts, or those who want to remind themselves of what they looked like, here are links to the videos.
You will need both QuickTime and RealPlayer to view them.
'Swimblack', was Glazer's advert that preceded 'Surfer' - this file is quite large, so it's really for the very patient or those with a reasonably fast connection (14 megs).
To view the full 'Surfer' advert, click:
Here - be warned though! The filesize is over 14 megabytes, so again, only for those with oodles of patience or a fast connection.
Those who can wait, but not for too long, click here for the advert in medium quality (4 megs).
For those who have a slower connection or are just really impatient, click here for something smaller in byte-size. It's lower in quality though (270 kbytes).
The follow up to 'Surfer' was the 'Dream Club'; involving squirrels, a laughing horse and the discovery of the meaning of life... Again, at 14 megs, it's one big file...
'Odyssey', Jonathan Glazer's most recent advert to date, can be seen here; again, this file is pretty large (7 megs).
BBC Related Links
Even the BBC, despite a 'no adverts' policy, paradoxically make adverts promoting themselves. Take a look at 'Rush Hour', when an office worker decides to beat the jams and take a more aerial route... Don't try looking for the wires, crash mats or computer voodoo magic - there aren't any.
From a black and white globe of the 60s to the dancers of today, here is a glimpse at the history of the BBC's idents.
