Surfers Up for Movie Venture : Proceeds of Film ‘PCH Dreams’ Would Benefit Museum in Huntington Beach

Natalie Kotsch knows how to talk to surfers.

There she was on a recent afternoon, standing at the ocean’s edge, in a billowing dress and high-heeled shoes. She held a copy of a movie treatment for a film titled “PCH Dreams.” And she spoke to surfer after surfer as they emerged from the water.

“The International Surfing Museum is taking part in a feature movie that’s going to be made right here in Huntington Beach,” she told one surfer. “We’re going to use a lot of local surfers in the movie. Would you be interested?”

Invariably, the surfers beamed at the idea.

“I know a lot of people who will be interested in this,” said Scott Woodard, 24, as Kotsch told him about the proposed movie.

Huntington Beach’s “Surf City” image has been in movies before. But this proposed motion picture, scheduled for shooting by early 1994, has an extra twist: Its proceeds will go to build a new $5-million home for the International Surfing Museum.

“We’re hoping this movie will generate a lot of interest and money for our museum,” said Kotsch, who is the museum’s founder and board chairwoman.

For the past three years, the International Surfing Museum has been housed in a 2,000-square-foot, remodeled building on Olive Street in downtown Huntington Beach. The museum’s board has plans to grow 10 times as large and wants to relocate in a new city-owned plaza at the entrance to the municipal pier.

That’s all right with city officials if the nonprofit museum board can raise the $5 million it will cost.

To solve its money problems, the board decided to think big, as in the Big Screen.

“We believe there’s a lot of interest in the nation in surfing, and we think this feature movie can raise a lot of money,” Kotsch said. “We hope it’ll be able to raise the $5 million we need.”

The script for “PCH Dreams” was written by Michael Gonzales, a film instructor at USC and at Biola University.

“This (movie) is about what we all go through at one time or another in our lives: discovery and breaking through misconceptions about our differences,” Gonzales said.

“PCH Dreams” tells the story of a 19-year-old black resident of South-Central Los Angeles--Kevin Nichols--who accidentally comes into the world of Huntington Beach-Newport Beach surfers.

His mother works as a housecleaner for a Newport Beach family. Kevin meets the 19-year-old surfer son of the Newport Beach family, Denny Baker, and they become friends while Denny teaches Kevin to surf.

Kevin finds a new world in the surfing culture, and much of the movie involves Kevin’s painful efforts to reconcile life in the ghetto with life along the glittering beaches of Orange County.

The story calls for many ocean scenes, including hair-raising surfing contests.

“We’ll be able to use the new technology in creating the surfing scenes,” said Don Strout, a Huntington Beach graphic designer who is volunteering his work on the film. Strout is a former art designer for Surfing magazine.

“When I was at Surfing magazine, I must have arranged 20,000 photos of surfing, from every camera angle,” he said. “Now with new technology, we can let the computers help make the scenes. We can do some Jurassic Park-type stuff.”

As a result, Strout predicted that “PCH Dreams” would have some of the most memorable ocean footage ever seen in a motion picture.

And while the waves would be big, costs would be small in the proposed movie. Its budget would be between $1.6 and $3.5 million, he said, and calls for no big-name actors. Almost all of the movie would be shot in the Huntington Beach area, Strout said.

“This is going to be an Orange County movie,” he said.

Some scenes have already been filmed this summer.

“We took crowd scenes at the Op Pro (surfing) Tournament in Huntington Beach in July,” Strout said, “and we’ve also filmed a few auditions. There are some surfers who can act, and we’re going to find them.”

Kotsch and Strout said the only holdup so far is getting advance money to turn the story line into a script. “Once we have the completed script, I’m sure we can get the development money,” Strout said. “Some studios have already expressed interest.”

Meanwhile, Kotsch is drumming up interest among the local surfers. By beach and by pier, she tells them of the forthcoming movie.

“I hope you guys will be applying for auditions when we have a cattle call,” she told a group of surfers recently.

The message is as welcome as an awesome wave. The surfers usually nod their heads enthusiastically and say they’ll be trying out for the film.

Kotsch shares the enthusiasm. “It’s going to be fun,” she said.

“And for the sake of the new surf museum, I hope this turns into a cult movie that just keeps running and running.”