Editor’s Note: The Hometown Hype film tour is presented by White Claw.
While you weren’t looking, a thriving surf scene developed in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, powered by the awe-inspiring vastness of the Great Lakes. And Sheboygan’s thriving wave riding community embodies that wild adventure that North America’s largest bodies of freshwater provide. For The Inertia’s Hometown Hype Tour, filmmakers Andrew Jakus and Cole Sheldon have taken a deep dive into the complex nature of Sheboygan surf. And what’s more, it’s a story that has largely gone untold, until now.
Let’s rewind a little, though, because the pair had a long road that led them to directing The Inertia’s second episode of Hometown Hype. “I was living with another family, growing up, and they had an uncle from California. He brought back a van full of boards,” explains Andrew. “It started out as just kind of a playful thing for us, and then we realized that actually, Sheboygan has a lot of surfers and a really rich culture of surfing.”
Andrew’s transition to filming actually started with skateboarding, though. He first handled film equipment in art school, and eventually ended up traveling across the country, filming skate videos for his own skateboard company. A few years back, he had the opportunity to buy EOS Surf, Wisconsin’s first surf shop, where he had once worked as a teen. “When I purchased the shop, one of the biggest things that I noticed was just the opportunity to tell the story of Great Lake surfing,” he says. “So, right off the bat, one of the first investments I made was quality film gear and drones and stuff like that, to be able to showcase what people had heard about but hadn’t necessarily seen.”
Cole Sheldon similarly came to surf filming through skating. He originally went to school for botany, to be an environmental landscaper. After failing his first college biology class, though, he decided to reevaluate his life trajectory. “I’d become the de facto film guy for my crew of skaters, because everybody was getting much better and I was not progressing as fast,” he explains. “So I had to find a way to stick with the crew and nobody ever wanted to film. I’ve always been kind of an artistically geared person, so it made a lot of sense for me to do that.” He eventually found a home in narrative filmmaking, and connected with Andrew, who remembered him as a punk kid who once frequented the shop.
Together, they have embarked upon an ambitious quest: to create a definitive retelling of the story of Sheboygan surfing.
“There’s so much narrative, there’s so much publicity about surfing on the Great Lakes, but there’s never been one piece that you could point to and be like, ‘This is a good representation of what surfing on the Great Lakes, or surfing in Sheboygan, is like,’” says Andrew. “There’s like, this cool clip that, highlights a good day, but there’s never been something that’s a snapshot of the community, the culture, the past, the present, the up and coming, all of these pieces.”
In attempting to do that, Andrew and Cole have sought out Great Lakes surfers who haven’t had their stories truly heard, despite surfing for decades. They also brought together multiple generations in the process. “I think that has been the really amazing part about this is seeing all of these people come together to build this one cohesive story about the history of this and the culture and the love that’s been built throughout the years,” explains Cole. “There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in this community that it’s nice to be able to kind of put that all to the side and just say, ‘Look at how awesome this thing is. Look at how awesome it has always been, and look at how awesome it’s going to be in the future.’”
“I almost feel like the theme of this piece has become each one of these individuals, at different phases in their life, trying to explain why surfing means so much to them,” says Andrew. “It’s actually a lot of emotions in these interviews. It’s always come back to the same thing that, ‘This is incredibly special, and I don’t quite know how to put words towards why.’ And starting to almost decipher that.”
In the end, part of what makes it so special is the very thing that makes it all so improbable.
“One of the underlying themes is that this is not supposed to be happening,” says Cole. “Because nobody would expect this tiny town of 50,000 people that’s on this lake that’s not supposed to have waves. We’re not supposed to have this amazing scene. But the fact that they’ve been able to cultivate something over the years, it’s really special.”
The Sheboygan Hometown Hype premiere is Wednesday, October 22. Please RSVP here.
Directed by Andrew Jakus & Cole J Sheldon
Produced by EOS Surf Shop & False Take Films
Starring (In Order of Appearance)
Tom Gabriels
Charles Koehler
Teek Phippen
Grant Davey
Aaron Renzelmann
Mike Miller
Alexandra Nugent
Sean McMullen
Matt DeMaster
Cinematography
Cole J Sheldon
Drone Operator
Andrew Jakus
Additional Footage
Aaron Renzelmann
Andrew Jakus
Seth Gudmundson
Edited by Cole J Sheldon
Music & Sound Effects provided by Artlist.io
Special thanks to our friends at White Claw for making this celebration of surf communities happen.