In melborn
How we got started…
We started with an idea.
Tired of describing the surfing experience, founder Billy Curry wanted to create a video camera that provided a surfer’s point-of-view.
He couldn’t find a simple camera that would do this. So he started to sketch some designs. This was the beginning of the concept of BarrelViz.
The idea came to him while working an office job in Docklands, Melbourne.
Each Monday morning colleagues wanted to know how the surf was on the weekend. Billy could describe it, but felt he wasn’t doing justice compared to if he could show some video, and keep his mouth shut.
The surfing video camera sketches were weird and wild. With no industrial design background, there were no boundaries or limitations. Billy had to rely on instincts and intuition about being in the ocean during childhood. The ocean has a lot of natural properties. Surfing places like Bells Beach you get exposed to the power of the waves. The force of breaking waves. The energy that comes with walls of white water can completely challenge you when it’s big. And so the next stage was trying to refind the ideas into one prototype for the surfing video camera. But before this, Billy who had a business degree and no design qualifications, sought to find things that he knew worked in the ocean. Having been punished surfing Joanna and Gunammatta, he know it had to be strong the materials that were going to be considered for a surfing video camera.
Materails that seemed to work include those that were used in legropes and watches. Legropes work around 99% of the time. They usually only fail once they were around five years or so. Watches seem to stay on in the ocean. They were a combination of plastic and stainless steel. These items provided clues as to where to start.
Designed by BarrelViz in Australia.
The company aiming to make the best camera for surf video.