When I think of Mike Black, I think of a mix of old-school surfing, advanced mathematical theory, and his drug influenced experimental art and films. Not as three seperate parts of his life or personality, mind you, but all smushed together into one weird sworling mass of Mikeness.

Mike was raised on a ranch in Texas, moved to Santa Barbara to study upper-level mathematics, and surfed heavy old logs at the nearby point breaks in between classes on the Mathematics of Evolutionary Dynamics.

The first time I met him, I was living in San Francisco and he had just returned from a round-the-world surfing and filming mission. He'd left a good job, his girlfriend, and spent every penny to his name, all in pursuit of his dream project: a science-fiction surf movie called Invasion! From Planet
C.

Mike thought it would be easy to slip right back into "normal" society, but he had gone so deep into his primal fantasy world while filming that adjusting back to teaching kids algebra proved to be a lot more difficult. He was spending a lot of time at Mollusk during those transitional months and would often share clips of his travels. I never once thought he'd actually string together all the different clips and vague plot-line ideas into any sort of cohesive story, but 6 months later the first trailer was put online, and soon after, they premiered the film and are now working on what's next.

TYLER MANSON