School of Surf
My first TV Show, School of Surf came at the height of Mtv reality. it premiered the same week as Jersey Shore, and half of it also took place in that location. Though I did a little bit of everything, I was mostly just the director of this show, with old friends Matt Nauser shooting, Jonah Kaplan editing, and Meredith Danluck producing.
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Jersey Shore’s Other Side Explored in MTV2 Surfing Show
By Steven Kurutz, December 11, 2009
While MTV's new reality show, "Jersey Shore," has drawn much media attention (and criticism), another series chronicling East Coast beach life quietly premiered this week. "School of Surf" follows a group of high school surfers from Ocean City, N.J. as they hunt for elusive waves and advance through a surfing contest that takes them to California. There, a golden-haired team of Malibu surf kids awaits. Produced by VBS.TV and airing on MTV2, the series runs six episodes, and the narrative is split between the East and West coast teams.
The show's creator, Jake Burghart, a documentary filmmaker, grew up surfing in Florida and said he was originally drawn to the Jersey kids because they're underdogs. "The surfing industry is out West, they get better waves. In the northeast, surfing is still a subculture," Burghart said. "The kids in Jersey have to make a choice to be a surfer; they have adverse conditions."
In the first episode, after a snowstorm blankets Ocean City, the kids brave frigid temperatures to surf the big waves created by the squall. It's a moment that defines both the two coasts, and the edgier character of the Jersey team. "In Malibu, you’ll get a swell and you’ll have waves for two weeks," Burghart said. "On the East Coast, those moments are rarer. The waves are here and gone. You have to be an amateur meteorologist to figure it out." As a result, Burghart said, the Jersey surf community is a "tight-knit" group with fierce Jersey pride. "They’re freaking out over this other show on MTV," Burghart said, referring to "Jersey Shore."
Burghart sees "School of Surf" as a documentary, rather than reality TV, a term he finds "a bit of a jab." "We never coached the kids to do anything," he said. "We shot, at the most, with two cameras, vérité style." The camera follows both groups of kids home, but much of the action is centered on the waves. Burghart does admit to visually heightening the contrast between the coasts. "We wanted Malibu to look sunny and oversaturated and Jersey to look cold," he said, adding, "We didn’t have to do much to pull that off."