Joe Surf: Bisson breaks through

In the film-making world, getting your “big break” is almost essential for success. For Devyn Bisson, her break was more literal than she would have liked, but it indeed set her on a course to make waves in the filmmaking industry.

Bisson, a Huntington Beach lifeguard, released her first film, a documentary called “The Wave I Ride,” earlier this year. Her second film, “Lighthouse Molyvos,” is in post-production.

A third film is in pre-production and will be shot in Japan. The 2010 Huntington Beach High School graduate says the topic is “on the down low,” but I’m wondering if it has something to do with surfing in the Olympics? We’ll see.

All of her films are produced by her production company, Hues of Blue, which she calls her “storytelling” company.

Bisson’s big break? It wasn’t quite what she would have chosen.

Bisson was in the H.B. Junior Lifeguard program at age 15 during the summer of 2007. On a “surf day,” when the junior guards get a break from the normal day-to-day workouts, Bisson and her friends enjoyed catching waves.

Bisson took her last wave of the afternoon all the way to shore, jumped off her board and waited for her friends. Her friends came in moments later, but one of the boards got loose and was flipped into the air by the surge.

The board hit Bisson in the neck and damaged her spinal cord between her C-3 and C-4 vertebrae.

But she was lucky.

Thanks to her friend Kylie Cucinotti, who put Bisson in a C-Spine hold — taught to the JGs just a day earlier — no additional damage took place.

Bisson spent a few days in the hospital, had to wear a neck brace for three months, and underwent extensive physical therapy.

But it was her emotional recovery that set her on her life’s course.

“It was a huge turning point in my life,” said Bisson, now 24. “I really look at it as a ‘before and after.’ Before the accident I relied on sports to fill my time and my passions. But when it happened it gave me the mindset that I only ever have enough time to do that which I’m extraordinarily passionate about.

“It’s kind of why so many things in my life, when I do them, I go full at them and maybe some of my peers wouldn’t do things like make a feature film right after school. But for me, with that accident, I was 15 and was doing a ton of different activities, many of which relied on me being able to be physical. And when I broke my neck, I only could do a few things that I picked and that I would have to work towards in order to get the ability to do them again.”

What Bisson is passionate about now is filmmaking. Her first film, “The Wave I Ride,” came about after she read an article in Surfer magazine about the “Boys Club” of big-wave riders.

So what about the female big-wave riders?, she wondered.

She heard about Paige Alms, a female big-wave rider from Hawaii and decided to feature her in the film. The film was shown at the Maui Film Festival last year and has since been shown at film festivals all over the world before being released to the public in April.

“When I was growing up, ‘Riding Giants’ — I used to watch that film all the time, and I was obsessed with big waves,” Bisson said. “Mostly because, as a lifeguard, they are my biggest challenge in gaining progress towards being able to grab my spot on the beach. And I always struggled with large surf, so it blew my mind how anyone would want to surf these macking waves.”

Bisson said hers isn’t merely a “surf movie,” but a movie with a deeper meaning.

“I wasn’t ever intending to make a ‘girl power’ movie, but I am tremendously passionate about storytelling and, myself being a woman, I just want to do something always on female characters,” Bisson said. “It is truly more a human story about someone who was going to go after something no matter what. It’s not just about big-wave surfing, and it’s not about females big-wave surfing. It’s really about whatever wave that’s in your life that you’re trying to go after, go after and try to ride it. Life doesn’t benefit from anything less than riding your wave.”

Bisson started making the film during her final six months as a student at Chapman University. She had no idea what she was getting herself into, particularly from a financial standpoint.

“For ‘The Wave I Ride’ I was really lucky to be young and dumb and think I could actually fund a feature film,” she said. “If I knew then what I know now, like everyone says, it’s practically impossible. I am so shocked that I don’t have insane amounts of debt for taking something on that was way too big and way too risky. I was fortunate that I started it in college so I could use some free college friends for a bit.

“But when it got bigger, and I needed lots and lots of money to finish it, I thought I could pitch to all these brands and some brand would pick it up. But it was a terrible, terrible experience pitching to brands. It was so hard, and I learned so much. I was going to go belly up if I didn’t get private money, and in the end, I did what lots of documentarians do and find a strangely passionate, private investor who is willing to put the money on the line for you so you can finish the project.

“That was after the eight hardest months of my life, trying to carry a film forward with absolutely no funding, putting all of my savings into it, making probably dumb decisions, now that I look back. There were multiple times my parents were like ‘Hey, this has to stop. You’re totally going off the deep end.’ It was a crazy, crazy brawl just to get it done.”

But she did get it done, and the feeling she had when watching the film at the Maui Film Festival last year was one she’ll never forget.

“It was so surreal, because anytime you make something out of nothing it’s the most magical feeling in the world,” she said. “I don’t know if I fully believed when I first started making the movie that I actually could do it. I just knew I really wanted to.”

Her second film, “Lighthouse Molyvos,” pays tribute to the International Surf Lifesaving Assn. lifeguards.

“It’s about a group of lifeguards who guarded the shore of the Aegean Sea during the Syrian Refugee crisis,” she said. “It’s totally from a lifeguard’s perspective, it’s not a political film. It’s truly what happened in the water there.”

In 2010, Bisson won a Jim Valentine Courage Award given by the Orange County Youth Sports Foundation to students who have suffered from a serious or catastrophic illness. She recently spoke at their banquet, showing the foundation’s investment in her is paying off.

“I was never a kid where I was, ‘Oh, I want to be the next Steven Spielberg,’” Bisson said. “I’ve always been obsessed with the role that storytelling plays in society, meaning the way that stories influence a culture, where someone who maybe doesn’t have money or power can have a really strong voice just by understanding how to tell a story.

“That proved true to me with ‘The Wave I Ride.’ They just announced this year that we’re going to have our first female [big-wave] tour. That proved to me that you can tell a story and make a difference.”

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JOE HAAKENSON is a Huntington Beach-based sports writer and editor. He may be reached at [email protected].