Cluster represents something of a departure from Kai Neville’s previous work, in that unlike his first three full-length films — Modern Collective, Lost Atlas and Dear Suburbia — Cluster is a “parts-based” movie: each surfer is given his own individual section lasting three or four minutes, or as long as the song selected to accompany it lasts. So rather than asking Kai all the usual shit, which we’d already asked him anyway, we thought it might be fun to get him to choose his five favourite video parts ever. And bugger us if it wasn’t.

This, off the top of his head, in no particular order, is what he said…

•  Surfer: Bruce Irons
• Song: ‘Buenas Tardes Amigo’ by Ween
• Film: Volcom Stone’s Magna Plasm, 1998
• Director: Veeco Productions (Richard Woolcott and Troy Eckert)

“Bruce in Magna Plasm, the last section with Ween, I think it’s mostly in Indo — I remember seeing that section and that movie and thinking it was the sickest shit ever. ‘Cause it was young Bruce, and that Ween track goes fucking flawlessly I think with the surfing.

“And I think it’s not the surfing — like, he’s not surfing that good… Well, he’s ripping, but it’s not that unbelievable, and I think it just goes to show when you mix a good subject with the right music and it’s shot the right way, it can be more impactful than just good surfing.

“So, to me it was like, ‘Woah, Bruce is the coolest,’ back when I was a grom… When Bruce is flipping the eggs, and on the phone, and it’s shot 16mm, like Dutch tilts — it was just so cool, so Volcom…

“Those guys had such a good aesthetic with music and visuals — maybe not the most beautiful shot you’ve ever seen, but they were like, let’s work with what we’ve got, this gritty Super 8 shot to this song, and it just worked. There are so many films out there that have the most amazing shot but the other elements don’t really combine. So I think they clicked it on a lot of shit — like Magna Plasm, and a bunch of the old films were really cool.”

Ween’s ‘Buenas Tardes Amigo’ does indeed work wonderfully, and in the light of Andy’s passing the lyrics cannot help but assume an air of added poignancy, even eerie prescience: “You killed my brother last winter / You shot him three times in the back / In the night I still hear Mamma weeping / Oh Mamma still dresses in black.”