Climate & Sustainability
The creation of the Cigarette Surfboard
Alumnus Ben Judkins’s (Kresge ’17, film and digital media) award-winning documentary follows the creation of the Cigarette Surfboard: A surfboard created by friend Taylor Lane from 10,000+ cigarette butts collected off beaches. Judkins’s documentary has helped influence legislation in Santa Cruz County, and will be screened at UC Santa Cruz on March 8.
Alumnus Ben Judkins (Kresge ’17, film and digital media) films friend Taylor Lane creating a surfboard made of 10,000+ cigarette butts collected off beaches. Photo by Hanna Yamamoto.
Key takeaways
- Ben Judkins graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2017 with a B.A. in film and digital media.
- Judkins made a documentary alongside his friend Taylor Lane, who created a surfboard made of 10,000+ cigarette butts collected off beaches for an upcycle contest.
- The documentary will be screened at UC Santa Cruz on March 8.
Ben Judkins was seven years old when he picked up a camcorder.
It started off with recording his friends acting out self-directed-written-and-produced plays. Once they were old enough, the productions moved outside. In skateparks, Judkins (Kresge ’17, film and digital media) took on the role of filming the tricks, the antics, and the moments. Recording was more than just capturing the perfect 360 or kick-flip.
“It was my way to document the world,” Judkins said. “I’ve always been fascinated with how we can use film and photography to capture moments in our lives.”
Judkins’s love for surfing budded as he reached high school. It became a tradition for him and his friends to go to Ocean Beach in San Francisco. While most of his friends had been surfing since they were young children, there were times where the waves were beyond Judkins’s limit. On those days, Judkins would paddle back to shore, grab his camera, and begin filming.
“The early to mid 2000s was sort of the pinnacle of surf magazines and surf films. I really came into it at a great time. My immediate obsession with surfing and my love for filming coupled in that moment,” Judkins said. “It was a natural thing for me when I became obsessed with surfing and was watching all these incredible surf films to bring my camera out.”
Judkins knew that film was where his heart lied, so when it came time for college, he started off studying film at UC San Diego. Judkins interpreted the parameters of every assignment into a surf video of some sort. For two years, he accumulated film knowledge, but after his sophomore year his heart yearned for Santa Cruz. Judkins took a hiatus from school, but knew that when he did continue, he would be at UC Santa Cruz, studying film and digital media.
For a year and a half, Judkins found work on a farm in Soquel, Green Planet Organics. Around the same time, he got an opportunity to work as a production assistant for a PBS show called The Mind of a Chef. Judkins found himself doing everything from making coffee runs to learning industry tips. One day, the team planned on filming the chef, who was also a surfer, catching some waves. The directors of photography who were on set asked Judkins if he wanted to film some shots for the show. He paddled out with an underwater housing and filmed the chef. When the opening reel for the season of the show came out, his shots made the cut.
That was just the beginning. Judkins began working with many Santa Cruz locals who were looking to shoot music videos, events, and promotion videos. Around that same time, his transfer application to UCSC was accepted, and it was an opportune time to go back to school.
“When it came time to study film for my last two years, I was so ready to be there. I utilized all the resources on campus, and I really tried to connect with my professors,” Judkins said. “The film program at UCSC was really geared towards social impact documentaries, and that helped shape the filmmaker I am today and the route that I chose.”
Professors like Lawrence “Larry” Andrews and Gustavo Vasquez inspired Judkins in his exploration of film. His senior thesis film, “Marshall”, won the Dean’s award and also won best locally produced work at the Santa Cruz Film Festival.
Judkins felt empowered as he graduated UC Santa Cruz in 2017. His send-off assured him that he had a place making films in this world. The question was: What’s next?
Meeting Taylor Lane
Judkins met Taylor Lane, an industrial design major at San Jose State University, shortly after moving to Santa Cruz. The two quickly hit it off and became friends, surf buddies, and collaborators.
Lane would build stuff and Judkins would shoot videos of his work. One of those times was for the Vissla Creators and Innovators Upcycle Contest. In 2016, Lane decided to participate in the contest and make a handplane for body surfing made of champagne corks, worn wetsuits components, and old climbing rope. He asked Judkins to film a video to enter the competition. Lane’s creation was one of the finalists. When Judkins and Lane got to San Clemente, they saw surfboards made of old records, agave cutoffs, and other creative upcycled waste items. The folks who placed were the ones who made surfboards.
Immediately inspired, that night they brainstormed what they would do for next year’s competition.
“We knew we had to compete again because it was a cool way to combine art, environmentalism, film, and use these things to start a conversation about something important,” Judkins said.
Sitting on a curb in the parking lot of the competition venue, Judkins and Lane conceived the idea of the Cigarette Surfboard.
However, the idea of creating a surfboard made of cigarette butts was a logistical nightmare—but if there was anyone for the job, it was Lane.
“No one loves a problem more than Taylor,” Judkins said. “If there’s a problem, he’s going to be the first person to try and fix it, and I am going to be the first one to film it.”
Lane started prototyping and talking to professional surfboard shapers a few months after the competition, deciding the feat would be difficult but possible. As the design was finalized, Lane and Judkins would walk around the beach collecting cigarette butts. Volunteers at beach cleanups also helped collect butts. During this process, they met several surfers and environmentalists who connected with their project, many of them relating their own run-ins with trash on the beach. Judkins and Lane used the opportunity to start filming.
After months of trial and error, Lane finally had a workable version of a surfboard made of cigarette butts. The 2017 competition rolled around, and this time, the Cigarette Surfboard won first place. Lane’s interview with the Orange County Register was quickly picked up by several major news outlets like The Associated Press and NPR, making the Cigarette Surfboard an overnight sensation.
Around this time, both Lane and Judkins had just graduated college. They weren’t ready to leave the Cigarette Surfboard just yet. Lane wanted to make a better version of it, while Judkins had a documentary to film.
Cigarettes after Santa Cruz
For Judkins and Lane, the documentary meant more than filming the impact of cigarette butts. It meant actual advocacy. Alongside local activists and nonprofits in Santa Cruz who had been pushing towards this for many years already, the physical “cigarette surfboard” (and the documentary) helped influence local legislation to ban the sale of single-use cigarette filters.
Santa Cruz County passed the legislation in October 2024, five months after the documentary premiered, with the cities of Santa Cruz and Capitola following suit in 2025. The bans will go into place in 2027.
“We as communities coming together around an issue can truly create change. It’s going to take a multifaceted approach from art to science to local activists to surfers to create that change,” Judkins said. “It’s not just one small group of people, it’s all these different people across the spectrum coming together to see that happen.”
Reasons to watch the film
Seven years of a labor of love went into creating The Cigarette Surfboard documentary.
“Surfing is connecting you with the natural world and marine environment in a really intimate way. As surfers, we are the first to notice changes happening in the ocean like plastic pollution or algae blooms. We get sick, we get infections, we get affected. We are the litmus test of society,” Judkins said. “As surfers, we have a moral obligation to stand up and speak up for the ocean.”
Judkins knows there’s a lot of issues in the world right now, and he knows how overwhelming it can all feel. Keeping that in mind, his goal with Lane was to create a documentary that inspires people to get involved and take action, and show what grassroots organizing and local engagement can do for any cause.
On March 8, you can watch a screening of The Cigarette Surfboard at UC Santa Cruz’s Media Theater M110. There will be an installation of cigarette surfboards that you can interact with. At the end, there will be a Q&A section with Judkins and Lane.
“As someone who graduated in film and digital media from UCSC in 2017, I had no idea where this film would take me or how I was going to use my degree in film. I would love to share part of that journey with you and how I’ve taken my education from my UCSC film professors and done something with it,” Judkins said. “No matter what your major or interests, everything can come back to environmental sustainability. Come on out and learn how you can be a part of the movement to protect our ocean and planet, and let’s have a fun night.”
What to expect at the screening of The Cigarette Surfboard :
5:00-6:00 PM | alumni meet & greet with light refreshments
6:00-7:35 PM | film screening
7:35-8:30 PM | filmmaker discussion
8:30-9:00 PM | mingle