What this project is about.
By the time NorCal asked for this film, the story had already happened: the Folsom Lake Surf 2011 Boys had started outside the NPL, climbed the NorCal ladder one promotion at a time, and finished the run by winning an ECNL RL National Championship. The film's job was not to cover the climb — it was to rebuild it, honestly, in under five minutes.
How the work was made.
One day of shooting, and one voice. Fritz Libby, the club's Executive Director, is the film's only interview — on the field, narrating the climb — and everything the film remembers comes from the team's own archive photography, supplied via Desiree Hankerson at NorCal: years of snapshots of the same boys growing from kids into the teenagers who lifted the trophy, treated in the edit as footage — collages stacked the way memory stacks. A viewfinder-overlay motif (shutter speed, aperture, the red REC light) runs through several sequences; it was Leo's creative choice to show how the team is with each other, the way their coach describes them. The film is honest about its own construction: the trophy-lift climax is an archive photograph, not Leo's footage — Leo was not at the ECNL RL final.
The making of it.
- Role
- Director / Cinematographer / Editor — Leomar Moring
- Shoot
- One day — Sunday, August 17, 2025, at NorCal's League Cup Opening Weekend, Davis soccer fields, 26375 County RD 105D, Davis, CA 95618
- Interview
- Fritz Libby, Executive Director, Folsom Lake Surf Soccer Club — the film's sole interview
- Archive photography
- Folsom Lake Surf team archive, via Desiree Hankerson (NorCal) — credited as archive, including the trophy-lift image
- Edit
- Three cuts, shaped by Desiree Hankerson's notes
On location.
A director usually protects a film's climax with his own camera. This one arrived in a folder. Building a championship story from one interview, one day around the team, and other people's photographs is the production's central craft decision — and the reason the Field Note about this film ("The Long Way Up") leads with how it was made. What stayed with Leo, in his own words: how the coach really trains the team, and seeing the photos from when the players were just kids to adults.
The films.
Folsom Lake Surf Community Spotlight
Folsom Lake Surf Community Spotlight (4:46), NorCal's published film embedded above. Read the field note: The Long Way Up
Where the work goes.
Purpose (verified): a Community Spotlight that gives the club and the league a forwardable record of the 2011 Boys' climb, in the Executive Director's own telling.
