Riding a wave to Utah

The Arches restaurant has long been known as the place where famous people go to grab a bite to eat in Newport Beach. Little did owner Dan Marcheano know that one of those big names was on his staff.

Arches’ maitre d’ and waiter for more than a decade Greg Weaver is recognized as a pioneer in the surfing community. For more than 40 years, Weaver traversed the globe, documenting the evolution of surf culture in the hottest and often most-secret spots in the world.

Recently Weaver worked along with director Greg Schell to edit years of previously lost footage into a full-length film that will be screened this weekend in Park City, Utah.

“I had no idea. I only found out two or three weeks ago, but I was pleasantly surprised,” Marcheano said of Weaver’s celebrated achievements. “I don’t know what else he has up his freaking sleeve.”

The film “Chasing the Lotus” narrated by Jeff Bridges, will screen at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the X-Dance Festival. Held in step with the renowned Sundance Film Festival this week, the X-Dance Festival focuses on action sports — such as skateboarding, snowboarding or base jumping — films.

Weaver, a beach boy all his life, was “sort of a little stressed,” he said. “It’s going to be a long drive, and there has been some gnarly weather,” Weaver said. “I’m not a mountain man. I have like five aloha shirts in my closet.”

For decades, Weaver and fellow photographer Spyder Wills circled the globe to then-remote locales to film surfers and the people who inhabited the areas.

“Wherever surfing was becoming hot they would travel to,” the film’s director Greg Schell said. According to Schell, the film documents the two filmmakers as much as it does their discovery.

Previously, this footage was only shared in private, in-home screenings with close friends. Now it’s going to belong to the world.

Schell, who lives in Santa Monica and has surfed since his middle-school years, was ecstatic to work with the two men recognized as frontiersmen of surf filming.

Opening with the California long-boarders of the 1960s, then following the movement to Hawaii, the film tracks the two photographers through their journeys.

In the late ‘70s in Indonesia, they used Super 8mm film to capture footage of surfing greats Gerry Lopez and Rory Russell, while mastering follow-focus cinematography along the way, Schell said.

“Instead of shooting a surfer from the beach, you would go about 300 yards away, to a tree or cliff or just further down the beach, use a long lens and you would see more of the background, not just the wave, which was important to Spyder,” Schell said.

“You may see a mountain or the angle oft the reefs, because you’re so far back you get so much more in the footage. It gives a richness to the film I don’t think you see today.”

Schell likened the surf culture of the 1960s and ‘70s to the beat poets of the previous generation.

“There was this code of ethics; everything was very free-flowing,” Schell said.

According to Schell, some people have started referring to his film as the surf version of “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” the 2001 documentary on the breakthrough boys of modern skateboarding in the late 1970s.

“During the making of [Lotus], I actually discovered some footage of Stacy Peralta and the Z-Boys team,” Schell said. Peralta “came down, saw the footage — a little homage — we got an interview, and now he is in a small part of the film.”

One of the things that attracted Schell to making this film was tracking down the older surfers and getting to know the culture behind the phenomenon.

“Like Dogtown, it’s not just the skateboarding — you see the gang hanging around,” Schell said.

Schell would show the older surfers Weaver and Will’s footage of their younger surf antics before each interview, finding “it was the best way to sort of energize the subject — to show them the film would actually bring back memories of the experiences,” Schell said.

When Weaver first asked Marcheano if he could take a couple of days off during busy Restaurant Week next week, Marcheano was reluctant — until Weaver told him about his film at the festival. Marcheano not only gave him the time off, he paid for his hotel room.

Weaver was stoked. “Yeah I’m excited. This is our little trip up to the plate,” Weaver said. “We’re hoping for the best.”

An awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, and Schell and Weaver hope the film will be well received in Utah.

“I want to see it [the film] on the big screen,” Weaver said. “I’d just rather be in the projection booth, like back in the old days.”