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Kelly Slater is fearless. He's conquered the Banzai pipeline, a wave famous for its taste for surfer limbs. He rides a board nearly a foot shorter than the rest of the surfing population. He's the nine-time surfing world champion. But Slater's never dealt with something like this.

In May 2008, Quiksilver announced that Slater would be starring in Ultimate Wave 3D, an IMAX production directed by Stephen Low. "I've had a couple cameos in movies before, but I've never been the star in some big-budget film," Slater says. Sponsored in part by Suzuki, the film follows Slater to Teahupoo (pronounced cho-pu) in Tahiti and the jaw-dropping volcanic islands of French Polynesia in search of the perfect wave. But beautiful surroundings don't mean easy shooting-especially when the camera crew has to maneuver a 130-pound camera. "With a camera that big you can't swim well or get right in the wave so you have to find a way to get close," he says. "The crew would be on the boat filming and I'd literally finish the wave running into the boat."

Slater and crew also faced the kind of weather that might make for awesome surfer movies-but isn't so friendly to the guy out there on the board. "It was nerve-wracking waiting around for a swell that was going to be four times over our heads," Slater says. "I had a lot of time to think about it and I'd get a little nervous when I'd go to bed at night. Every day the storm would get stronger—we were looking at 40-mile-per-hour gusts."

But the worse the weather, the cooler the action-and that's what really mattered. "I wanted to bring the action to the viewer," says Slater. "Riding a wave is something big and kind of scary. This film is going to bring that to reality for anyone who sees it."

Ultimate Wave 3D is scheduled to premier in Spring 2010. For more information, surf over to www.ultimatewave.com.

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