Tin Ojeda and Kassia Meador dive into the process behind filming for Abstracts
New York based filmmaker friend, Tin Ojeda, has something big on the way. In 2017, he brought us “Free Jazz Vein” gaining attention from the mainstream audience while earning the Argentinian a SURFER Award nomination for Movie of the Year. He’s back at it again this year, already working on his new film featuring RAEN ambassadors Kassia Meador and Alex Knost.
Straight from Peru to Oceanside, we brought Tin and Kass in to grab a cup of coffee and sit down to chat about the new project.
This new project is going to be different from his last, while not shooting in all film, but with a mixture of digital, cinematic tools, and a little film. Without a doubt this project will still get a little weird and abstract.
Tin has had a desire to create something with more contrast, a lasting piece, re-watchable, and different – and he’s doing exactly that with Abstracts. In his past films, he always shot people with similar styles, Abstracts takes a new approach. For every trip Tin planned to bring two people with different rhythms and each trip will tell it’s own story. That's the idea for Abstracts – the kind of clash of styles.
Tin’s initial idea was to base this project solely on Justin Adams, “I think he’s one of the most interesting surfers,” Tin says when speaking on Justin’s style. Tin has always been drawn to a different type of surfing. They agreed on bringing Justin to different locations with other surfers he admired, but had different styles from his own.
The project began in New York, with Justin, during hurricane season capturing a lot of great footage in the conditions produced by the storms. From there the two of them traveled to Peru, met up with Kassia and started getting weird. He was able to capture tons of footage around ruins called Chan Chan, from the year AD 500. Kassia compared the place to the likes of The Walking Dead or the Wild West; “It makes Mexico look like the French Riviera. You don’t see that much footage or many people going to Peru, but it truly has the best, most consistent lefts.”
From cruising on empty lefts on her longboard with style, to Justin crouching and surfing a finless board, the clash of styles couldn’t be more prevalent. While the two surfers have different styles, their energy and positivity made for a great match. “He has such a wild style, he is such an alien. Everything about him is an abstract rhythm, like the way he moves.” Kassia on putting Justin Adams into words.
The next move for Tin, in piecing together Abstracts, is to head to Morocco with Alex Knost – another wild ride sure to come.
Photography credit: James Katsipis
