Back in the day when surf flicks came on VHS and the best ones got rewound so many times that the tape broke, there existed a certain aesthetic. Films were stripped down to high-performance action and fast music – lower-thirds maybe told you who the surfer was in the frame, or possibly the location, but that was it. Often wave after wave was haplessly mashed together. One minute you could be in Hawaii, the next in Indonesia, and the next in California. All that mattered was flicks were compositions of the best surfers on the planet surfing the best waves with little story to get in the way – the kind of film you could watch while eating your cereal before heading out for a morning surf.
By and large, the modern surf filmmaker has eschewed that antiquated structure for something either with more story or that’s simply shorter in length. Blame the internet for the reason today’s edits rarely extend past the four-minute mark.
But, for filmmaker Josh Pomer, the halcyon days of surf filmmaking never ended. Case in point: the above, a 49-minute full-length featuring some very big names including Dane Reynolds, Kelly Slater, Tom Curren and more.
