Derek Hoffmann
Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, he discovered the ocean at Sandy Beach. At 13, he picked up a yellow Minolta waterproof camera and began photographing his friends. He took a photography class in high school, which fueled his passion.
In the summer of 1984, after graduating from Kaiser High School, Derek moved to the North Shore with Mike Prickett. They rented their first house at V-Land, where their landlord was Mark Foo. Both Derek and Mike were taking photographs and learning to navigate the winter waves and capture the moments on film.
Around 1988, water housing builder Taro Pascual made a custom housing for Derek's 8mm video camera. Tom Boyle saw his Sandy Beach footage and put him in Winter on the Rock in 1989. That same year he was shooting 16mm water footage for directors Scott Dittrich on Rolling Thunder, released in 1991.
In 1990, 1991 and 1992, Chris Bystrom flew him to Australia to shoot water footage for his upcoming surf films. In 1993, he joined his close friend Sonny Miller on Rip Curl's The Search; they traveled from Jeffreys Bay and Mozambique to the Mentawai Islands aboard the Indes Trader for the first filming boat trip. Then, in 1994, at Bawa near Nias, Tom Curren rode that fireball fish, and the footage became part of Sonny's Searching for Tom Curren.
He co-produced Blast Off Phase 3 with Chris Bystrom in 1993, made Fluid Combustion with Larry Haynes in 1994, filmed Cave Dwellers with Pat Watson and Richard Cheski, and shot Stewart's View on 16mm with Mike Stewart from 1995 to 1996. The film was shelved when Mattel sold Morey Bodyboards; the film finally premiered in 2023 on Nalu TV. In 2010, he and his brother Craig made Fiberglass and Megapixels.
Alongside his surf work, Derek built a long career as a television camera operator on Survivor, The Apprentice, The Celebrity Apprentice, The Ultimate Fighter, Boarding House: North Shore and Hawaii Five-0. His work on Survivor has earned him seven Emmy nominations. In 2014 he shot second unit on the feature film Point Break at Jaws, with Mike Prickett and Sonny Miller.
When Sonny passed away in 2014, Derek and Richard Cheski helped his family move his archive into storage. Sonny's father, Bud, asked Derek to take care of his son's archives, which started the Nalu vault. In February 2022, Derek launched Nalu TV to stream the newly remastered film "Searching for Tom Curren" in Sonny's memory. He then reached out to his filmmaker friends to feature their films on Nalu TV and secured their archives in the Nalu Vault. This effort led to the establishment of the Nalu Film Foundation, where Derek now serves as executive director.
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