Juju The Surf Musical, created by Jaleesa Vincent and Luka Raubenheimer, is exactly what it says it is. It’s far from your bog standard surf edit. The pair have combined surfing, song and dance into an eclectic 30 minute creative masterpiece that tells a story through music.
The project, which took seven months to make, may be an entirely new genre of film. The song, surf and dance platform enabled Jaleesa to combine many of her talents – writing, singing, dancing, art, animation and surfing – in a single, grand-scale production.
Jaleesa wrote all the songs herself and her band, Cupid and the Stupids, helped bring the music to life with other friends pitching in at various points and contributing to certain vocals throughout the musical.
Jaleesa plays Ju Ju, a disillusioned receptionist looking for answers. In what might be described as a warped, surf-themed fantasy, Creed McTaggart, chimes in as Creed of the Dark, while the nimble-footed Josie Prendergast is cast as The Queen of the Light. In the Tracks office we use to joke that someone might write an ‘Occy the musical’ one day. It never happened but Jaleesa did give him a part in Ju Ju, where Occy plays a mean boss who threatens to fire her.
While it follows a brief storyline, Jaleesa explained that there was not much script and that it’s more told through the song. In terms of surf footage there is clips from Deserts, Sandbar and the Maldives.
We caught up with Creed, who plays a demonic character that describes himself as rock and roll, to learn more about what its like to feature in Jaleesa’s creative venture.
How much fun was it working on the musical? Did Jaleesa and Luka have it well mapped out and scripted?
Creed: It was a really fun experience shooting with those two. They had it all planned out with shot lists and knew exactly what they wanted. It was a funny night walking through the bush and up the river, hoping my mascara wouldn’t run. Lots of mosquitoes and slippery rocks but it was all worth it when we go to the cave. It had just rained and the waterfall was popping off massively. We had a few beers and shot all the stuff they needed in roughly an hour or so. Luka and Jaleasa were really prepared and had rented up bunch of lights and cameras to make it look super Hollywood.
Jaleesa’s creative energy must be good to be around?
Creed: It’s really cool being around their creative energy, always super positive and keen to make things happen. Ambitious but in a way where you can tell that they are really enjoying the journey as well.
What’s Jaleesa like to surf with?
Creed: Jaleesa is one of my favourite people to surf with. She’s always going huge and pushing her surfing. She worked really hard to get the clips she did in the film, going on back to back to back trips.
All the acting and music in the film is incredible and her surfing is amazing. All round just an iconic film that will be watched and talked about forever. I feel lucky to be apart of it.
Click the link above for some surfing, song and plenty of dance.
