Shortboard
Also known as: thruster, performance surfboard
The small high-performance surfboard built for vertical turns and aerials in steeper waves, which produces short, sharp moments rather than long rides.
Updated
What it means
A shortboard is built to change direction. Six feet or less, ridden for vertical turns, snaps and airs, which means the interest comes in bursts rather than across a whole wave.
That makes it the opposite editing problem from a Longboard. One long graceful ride wants to be held; a shortboard wave wants to be cut at each turn and each piece of spray.
Steeper waves are where it works. The board needs a face to push against, so the discipline concentrates where the wave is hollow and the window for any Peak action is brief.
How it works in practice
A long lens from the beach is the baseline. The action happens far out and compression is what makes the turn and the lip readable, where a wide lens produces a figure on water.
A water housing changes what is possible entirely. Being in the wave rather than watching it produces the angles that define modern surf footage, and it is a different skill from filming.
A Lineup shot before the ride does structural work. A wide view of the wave arriving gives a viewer the context that the tight shots then spend, which is how surf sections are built.
What to watch out for
Water on the glass ends everything. Water droplets on the lens are the single most common reason a session produces nothing, and there is no fix once a drop sits in front of the subject.
Distance flattens the wave. A head-high wave from the beach on a wide lens reads as flat water, which is the reason long lenses dominate this discipline.
The best moment is brief and unrepeatable. An air or a critical turn lasts a moment on a wave nobody can replay, so the camera has to be running and pointed before it happens.
How RawClip handles it
Short, sharp manoeuvres score as clear peaks and cut tightly against music, so a session of many waves reduces to the strongest moments. A wide lineup shot is kept where one exists, since it gives the sequence its context.