It’s the era of narrative surf films and who better to feature in the next cult clip than Frankie Harrer, Caity Simmers and Jaleesa Vincent with Luka Raubenheimer.
After a couple of weeks in the Basque Country, Frankie is back on home turf in LA with an onset of three features. In between juggling two kids, and a brand, we caught up with the super mum on the latest project.
How is the little family going? I feel like you have been jetting around a lot lately.
Yeah, everyone's good. We were in Europe for a while and now kind of just settling into being home.
And three parts out in what, one month?
Yeah I’ve been working on lots of things for the last couple of years, not putting anything out and then for some reason it all happened where like everything's coming out within a month which is kind of fun.
Always the way. Tell me about how you got involved with this latest one with Jaleesa, Caity and Luka?
Jaleesa hit me up a while ago and sent me the script. I love Jaleesa, we’re really good mates so I’m down to do whatever idea she wants. I really trust her taste. I feel like her stuff is just so camp and cool in a way that only she can pull off that is still so authentic to her and Luka. There was no doubt for this project it would be really funny and well put together.
The vampire angle is so original. It’s nice to see surf films starting to take on a bit more of a storyline nowadays.
Yeah it’s pretty iconic. I think they’ve been working on the script for over a year or something. The first ten days of shooting we didn’t even surf, only the acting scenes.
Did you have any creative input at all?
Not really because Luka and Jalessa just have it so dialled already. They are so professional. Like they sent me a script and day one it was filming the acting scenes straight up. There were a couple scenes where we could freestyle but for the most part, Jalessa has the vision, I put full trust in her and we just try to learn our lines. There was one audio file she sent to Caity and I where we needed to memorise words to this rap song and I just avoided it for so long because I just didn’t want to sing and then it got to the day of filming and Jaleesa was like cmon guys (laughs).
So you didn’t do your homework?
Definitely didn’t do my homework.
Where was it mostly filmed?
We filmed like most of the scripted stuff around LA and then went to Puerto Rico and Indo.
Where’d you score the most?
Caity and Jel got sick waves in Puerto Rico. I didn't do it as much because I suck surfing backhand. Then we got super fun waves in Indo. We didn't get it as big as we were hoping for, but still just really fun waves.
And there’s a lot of premieres for this one - are you or the girls going to be in attendance for any?
Shit I should probably message the girls and ask them that. Definitely the ones here in LA, maybe New York. I’m not sure about Jalessa or Caity. Are you still in Europe?
Yeah I live in Biarritz now so I’ll be at the one you guys do here. I fully missed everyone when they were here for the Quiky fest because I was in Greece but heard a few stories about it on the grapevine.
Greece would’ve been lovely. It was so much fun but I felt pretty battered afterwards.
Yeah I heard it was a pretty sober week.
Yeah definitely a wellness retreat.
How are you feeling about your surfing lately?
Yeah I feel like my surfing is in a really nice place. I’ve been riding Ryan Burch boards a lot and I just feel like they’ve been so responsive to the way I ride. Not that my other boards haven’t been but I feel like I’ve just really resonated with the shapes and everything. And obviously having kids, it takes a while to get back into it. So yeah, feels like finally after a year and a half after having my second kid, I feel really good physically.
And then how do you feel about women’s surfing at the moment, I know there’s a lot going on in the media?
Yeah, I mean all the stuff that's been coming out is so horrific. It’s honestly hard to believe that that is what is happening, I mean there’s a lot of it happening everywhere in the world, especially in college and stuff, but it’s really hard to hear that it’s happening so close to home, right under our noses. There’s just absolutely no way you can behave like that and get away with it.
I agree.
But in terms of the positive side of surfing, I think women’s surfing is in such a good place, especially the free side of things. I feel like people are so much more excited to see women's footage and are open to receiving it than ever before.
Are there any young ladies you’ve seen coming up that you think we should have our eye on?
There's so many. Like every time I see a young person surfing, I'm just blown away by how good they are. Like, oh god, they have like they got a big bag of tricks that I definitely don't have. I'm the most excited to see somebody that maybe has a little bit of a different approach or just really looks like they're enjoying it rather than going all in on the high performance side of it. I think there’s still a lot of kids that start in the competition side of things when they’re young which I think can be really hard to find your way. Hopefully now the younger people can see there’s more ways to approach surfing, especially for women.
