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Flowstate Behind the action of surf filmmaker Aaron Lieber
F roma young age, Aaron Lieber was innately drawn to the outdoors, sport and film, and used this passion to fuel his early work filming friends skating, surfing and snowboarding. During his adolescent school years, students were presentedwith the option of submitting work as a written paper or a video. The decisionwas obvious and it offered Lieber yet another opportunity to develop his skills as a filmmaker. He racked up quite a portfolio of work while simultaneously teaching himself Final Cut Pro, shooting techniques, script writing, directing and how to tell a story, while making amix of action films and school film narratives. These fledgling steps eventually led him to an internshipwith TransWorld Surf magazine’s online editor just as broadband began to bring internet-basedmedia consumption to themainstream. Inspired fromhis internship and only 20 years old, Lieber resolved tomake a surf movie. He created a proposal and set off down the obligatory road of rejections until, at last, one group said yes. Armedwith a small budget, he embarked on the unknown journey tomake an hour-long surf film. Lieber travelled the world filming while juggling 15 units each semester, simultaneouslymanaging to raise double his initial budget. He graduated fromcollege in 2004with the completion and release of his film just twomonths later. More than a decade on, and after many improvements to his workflow and equipment, he hasn’t stoppedmaking surf movies. “I did competitive surfing in college and high school,” Lieber says, “but I wasn’t very good. That’s part of the reasonwhy I wanted tomake surf films. I’m really drawn to the sport and the ocean. For me, the next best thing to being an athlete ismaking films about them.” Taking G-Technology to the sea Focus plays a huge role in the life of any creative professional, but it’s hard to imagine it beingmore prominent than in the world of surfing. Wave-riding athletes talk about being in a ‘flow state’ of nearly perfect concentration, amental zone where time crawls, sensory consciousness expands and the body responds instinctively to do- or-die decisions. In the water, as close to these surfing superstars as he can get, Lieber confesses that hemay not share his subjects’ flow state, but he does have a similar zone of focus for his work behind the camera.
his on G-Technology’s Evolution (ev) Series storage solutions. As soon as he gets back to his hotel, Lieber plugs his flash cards into his laptop’s card reader. The laptop copies the cards out to 1TB or 2TB G-DRIVE ev units over USB 3.0. For safety, hemakes a second copy on to another set of G-DRIVE ev units. “I like the G-DRIVE ev products, because they’re small,” Lieber says. “I can fit a bunch of them inmy carry-on, which can be a big deal when you’re on the road for six to eight months of the year. Travelling as light as possible is a key competent for success.” Travelling light can’t mean travelling small, though, at least not in terms of capacity. Lieber usually keeps at least 10TB of G-DRIVE evs on a job, and he rarely feels this is overkill. He normally shoots 6K Red Dragon cameras, andwhile he tries not to overuse slowmotion in hismovies, he finds that shooting 72fps offers a lot of creative leeway, since it backs down to standard play speeds very cleanly. The trade-off, of course, lies withmassive data collection. “Basically, 1GB is like the smallest file I’mshooting,” he says. “That’s only a few seconds. It’s crazy. But every frame is a photo, so if it’s in focus and sharp, I can pull that image and sell it or use it for media purposes around the production.” Unlikemost G-TEAMmembers, Lieber doesn’t typically have clients expecting near-immediate turnaround of content.
Naturally, nothing hasmore immediacy than tending to his camera controls and the quality of his image capture, but this focus also extends beyond the water, especially when it’s time to protect his hard-won footage. Preserving andmanaging his footage is everything. Early on, Lieber recorded on to film, thenmigrated intominiDV tapes. As resolutions, codecs and themarket’s quality expectations scaled, Lieber’s storage workflowhad to keep pace. Hemade the leap into pure digital. In some ways, that made things easier, but it didn’t change that he often operates a one-man show. He shoots, directs and edits everything. As a result, every facet of his workflowmust be made fast, seamless and simple. One of themore cumbersome aspects of his traditional workflowhas been the migration of data fromcameramedia into editing. After working through years of experimentation, Lieber now standardises
“G-Technologymakes its drives to be business-grade, not the usual consumer stuff”
ABOVE Aaron Lieber says he has always been drawn to the ocean, allowing him to capture great surfing footage
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