"It's a surfing How Green Was My Valley the loss of an aristocracy, the end of an era, the passing of a more innocent time to a more corrupt and complex one-all growing up is the passing of innocence. It's based on the lives of three friends ten years ago. It's about their friendship, and the value of friendship. I don't think that kids today have the same kind of values that these people had then; I don't see movies being made about that kind of thing. This movie is about friendship: surfing is just the background. It's about love of a place, love of a time, love of your human contacts, and the loss of those things. It's the most personal film I'll probably ever make, and I figured I ought to do it now, before I get too far away from it. At least half the people who participated are dead now. The attrition rate among surfers is very high. A lot of them died in Vietnam and OD'd on dope."