Blue Sway by Jack McCoy and Paul McCartney
Blue Sway – Created and Produced by Jack McCoy and Paul McCartney
Over 20 years ago legendary Beatles front man Sir Paul McCartney wrote Blue Sway. Only recently McCartney sought the legendary surf film maker photographer Jack McCoy to come up with some ideas for a film clip that would fit in with the smooth tunes of Blue Sway.
Fortunate for Paul McCartney, McCoy had just finished filming some of the most ingenious and truly unique way of filming waves and surfers riding waves that have and probably will ever be filmed.
Jack McCoy wanted a way to film underwater from the back of the wave, “backstage” as likes to call it, but also to keep up with the wave, much the same way the dolphins surf along waves.
Blue Sway – Jack McCoy was in luck!
Jack was also in luck, and sort the services a good friend, Todd Bennett. Bennett, a West Australian surfer who introduced Jack McCoy to mini under water submarines, or Sea Hawks as they are known. Jack McCoy then spent a year in Tahiti learning to use the Sea Hawk in the dangerous impact zone of some of the most infamous surf breaks that break along razor sharp shallow reefs. He then fitted his cameras to the front and went about capturing some of the most spectacular underwater surf photography to date.
Jack states that shooting the images with the mini sub was risky but produced with out a shadow of doubt some of the most breath taking surf images that has ever been captured on film.
A friend of Jack McCoy’s, Chris Thomas, who happened to be a music producer, visited Jack in Sydney over a year ago. Jack then showed Thomas a surfing sequence he had put together using one of Paul McCartney’s songs from The Fireman album. McCoy used some of the images he had taken using the mini sub. Thomas was absolutely blown away by what he witnessed.
Upon returning to the United Kingdom, Thomas, who was a friend of Sir Paul McCartney, gave McCartney a copy of the sequence.
Paul McCartney was “blown away” by Jack McCoy’s photography – Blue Sway.
Blue Sway
It was fair to say that McCartney was also blown away by what Jack McCoy was able to produce. McCartney then thought that McCoys unique film mastery would be an ideal suit for his music, Blue Sway.
Jack McCoy was then contacted with the idea to create a music video for Blue Sway. McCoy then spent the best part of the next 6 weeks putting the Blue Sway music video together. He was also working on on his own surf video, ‘A Deeper Shade Of Blue”
McCoy used the images that he had shot in Tahiti at the world famous surfing spot “Teahupoo”. What you see in the now released version of Blue Sway was all shot at Teahupoo.
Upon finishing the Blue Sway music video, it was sent to Paul McCartney who then went on to say, “When I saw Jack McCoy’s underwater surfing footage put to the soundtrack of “Blue Sway” I was blown away”
With the absolute genius of Jack McCoy and Paul McCartney combined in Blue Sway, it was inevitable that Blue Sway would end up winning a host of awards. One of the awards that Blue Sway has notched up was at the NYC BE Film short Festival.
I know you will watch Blue Sway again it is really that good. Do your friends a favor as well and tell them about it…Blue Sway by Jack McCoy and Sir Paul McCartney.
