The Surface was produced and directed by James Dean and Matt Crocker from Level Films.
We share a love of history, sport, culture, and visual storytelling. We are interested in documentary films that explore the origins of cultural movements and tell pioneering stories. Ideally these are stories that are fresh and cover uncharted territories.
Our approach is to find a story that seems unique and important – it doesn’t have to be a big flashy story, in many ways finding hidden stories that have had a profound impact on a community, sport or cultural group is best.
We may tell the whole story, but often we seek out the heartbeat moment along the way. After all most stories never end, there are always innovators writing the next chapter.
Sport stories
From explorations into how and why the European surf scene really came to be, to tackling racism in football, to uncovering the life and times of some of rugby’s greats, sport has been our muse and passion time and time again. We can view these sports from the outside which creates an invaluable perspective.
Hockey was interesting because living in the UK it is always around on the fringes, and occasionally in the headlines with GB Olympic golds in 1988 and 2016. And unlike other sports there isn’t a tradition of the history of the sport being told.
Also, there is so much more to hockey; a 4000-year history, an Olympic sport, a community sport, a sport handed down through families, and it is played around the world to an elite level, for example how many sports have the geographical variety of teams such as India, Belgium, Japan, Argentina and South Africa at the top level?
It is also a traditional sport that hasn’t been afraid to be hugely innovative, where other sports often seem a bit more stuck in their traditions and struggle with innovation.
We look for stories that we can tell in an authentic, original way. In hockey we found an untapped history rich in stories and no shortage of interesting characters, from champion players to behind-the-scenes gamechangers. The Surface is only one of many hockey stories we would like to tell, such as Zimbabwe women’s 1980 gold medal, Kenya at the ‘71 Men’s World Cup, India’s revolutionary skills during the golden age, the gender equality in the game….
The full process
We are involved in the full film making process – we conceive the stories, do the research, seek funding, film, direct and edit our films.
To help bring our storytelling to life we work with companies, such as Polytan and AstroTurf, who are part of the tale, and in many instances are crucial to it. This relationship is essential as getting films off the ground is difficult for example our surf movie, The Endless Winter, took 3 years to make!
We hope you enjoy The Surface.
James Dean, Director
Matt Crocker, Producer