Laurie Towner - Self Shape - needessentials

In between his product design and development role with needessentials, Laurie Towner is always tinkering away at creative projects. Whether he’s making his fishing lures, spearguns or timber Alaia surfboards, Laurie is always engaged in an ongoing process to make things that are best designed and cater for his own needs. In this short film, Laurie takes us through the process of shaping, glassing and sanding a 4’11 x 20” x 2 ½” swallow tail with hand-crafted marine ply keels. This little self-shape formed part of the quiver Laurie took with the family when they traveled around Australia on a trip of a lifetime that was captured in the feature film Slow Lane. ‘After mainly shaping timber boards over the years I thought I’d record having a go at making a fun board that’d go really fast in head-height waves then show how it surfed. It’s basically a little flat, disky groveler. It was fun going through the whole end-to-end process of recording the process of shaping a blank, making marine ply keels then glassing and sanding at home. I guessed if I shaped some sort of board with foam it'd work, and if I was lucky, go fast, and it kind of did!’’ Filmed by Nathan Henshaw Original music score - 'Lulu' by Nick Bampton Directed by Laurie Towner