Surfing Dreams : Tinseltown: It seems everyone <i> is </i> writing a movie, even the International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach. The group hopes the film will raise $5 million for a new home.

By BILL BILLITER

Aug. 17, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Natalie Kotsch knows how to talk to surfers.

There she was on a recent afternoon, standing at the ocean’s edge in a billowing dress and holding a copy of a movie story outline entitled “PCH Dreams.” She spoke to surfer after surfer as they emerged from the water and walked on the beach.

“The International Surfing Museum is taking part in a feature movie that’s going to be made right here in Huntington Beach,” Kotsch told one surfer. “We’re going to use a lot of local surfers in the movie. Would you be interested?”

Invariably, the surfers beamed at the idea.

“I know a lot of people who will be interested in this,” said Scott Woodard, 24.

Huntington Beach’s “Surf City” image has been in the movies before. But this proposed motion picture, scheduled for shooting by early 1994, has an extra twist: Its proceeds will go to build a new $5-million home for the International Surfing Museum.

“We’re hoping this movie will generate a lot of interest and money for our museum,” said Kotsch, the museum’s founder and board chairwoman.

For the past three years, the International Surfing Museum has been housed in a 2,000-square-foot, remodeled building in downtown Huntington Beach. The museum’s board has plans to grow 10 times as large and wants to relocate in a new city-owned plaza at the entrance to the municipal pier.

That’s OK with city officials if the nonprofit museum board can raise the $5 million it will cost.

To solve the money problems, the board decided to think big, as in the Big Screen.

“We believe there’s a lot of interest in the nation in surfing, and we think this feature movie can raise a lot of money,” Kotsch said. “We hope it’ll be able to raise the $5 million we need.”

“PCH Dreams” was written by Michael Gonzales, a film instructor at USC and at Biola University.

“This (movie) is about what we all go through at one time or another in our lives: discovery and breaking through misconceptions about our differences,” Gonzales said.

“PCH Dreams” tells the story of a 19-year-old black resident of South-Central Los Angeles--Kevin Nichols--who accidentally comes into the world of Huntington Beach-Newport Beach surfers.

His mother works as a housecleaner for a Newport Beach family. Kevin meets the 19-year-old surfer son of the Newport Beach family, Denny Baker, and they become friends while Denny teaches Kevin to surf.

“We’ll be able to use the new technology in creating the surfing scenes,” said Don Strout, a Huntington Beach graphic designer who is volunteering his work on the film. Strout is a former art designer for Surfing magazine.

“Now with new technology, we can let the computers help make the scenes,” Strout said. “We can do some “Jurassic Park”-type stuff.”

And although the waves would be big, the costs would be small in the proposed movie. Its budget would be between $1.6 million and $3.5 million, he said, and calls for no big-name actors. Almost all of the movie would be shot in the Huntington Beach area, Strout said.

Kotsch and Strout said the only holdup is getting advance money to turn the story line into a script.

“Once we have the completed script, I’m sure we can get the development money,” said Strout said. “Some studios have already expressed interest.”

Meanwhile, Kotsch is drumming up interest among the local surfers. “I hope you guys will be applying for auditions when we have a cattle call,” she told a group of surfers recently. “And for the sake of the new surf museum, I hope this turns into a cult movie that just keeps running and running.”