Photo: Connor Trimble
Editor’s Note:The Hometown Hype film tour is presented by White Claw. The Haleiwa, Hawaii film premiere is November 20th at Haleiwa Distilling Company. RSVP here.
Oahu’s North Shore may be the most documented place in all of surfing. There’s Pipeline, of course, quite possibly the single most important wave in the sport, but all along the Seven Mile Miracle are world-class breaks, and a rich community centered around them.
This presented Connor Trimble, the director of HOMETOWN HYPE: Haleiwa, with a unique challenge: How do you say something new about a place that has already had so many stories told about it?
Connor’s answer to that question has been honed by 10 years of filming Pipe, an obsession that began soon after he came to Oahu to swim for the University of Hawaii. “I realized that I was never going to be a good enough surfer to be out there,” he explains. “Simultaneously, I had a GoPro and I was just getting into photography and videography, and Instagram was starting to become a thing. I was just kind of videoing and photographing all my adventures with a GoPro in college and I just took that and ran with it. I was like, ‘Okay, well, how can I merge Pipeline and creating?’ And that is being a surf photographer and videographer. That’s really what started it all.”
Since then, he’s racked up an impressive resume, over the course of a career that has taken him far beyond the North Shore. Ironically, all that experience filming Pipe, and that intimate knowledge of the place it holds in the surfing world, led Trimble to turn his camera away from the wave. Because it turns out that, despite the amount of coverage the North Shore gets, there’s still a lot to still be discovered in the margins.
“The North Shore of Oahu is the Mecca of the surf world, but it expands far beyond the waves,” he explains. In searching for exactly what there was beyond the waves, he talked to shapers, skaters, lifeguards, kite surfers and even a taro farmer.
Photo: Connor Trimble
In the end it turned out that, as interesting as each of those parts were, the sum was ultimately greater. “It’s actually the community that makes the place so special,” he continues. “I think that’s the overlying theme of the entire thing: If there’s no waves there, the community would still be really special.”
That sense of community is so strong because, at the end of the day, the North Shore is a small town. A place with only two grocery stores and one road in and out. Where everybody knows everybody, and if you step out of line, word gets around via the “coconut wireless” and you better believe you’ll get straightened out.
Of course, though his eye may have briefly wandered beyond the breaks, surfing was never far off. After all, though the North Shore may have a small town feel, it also has the eyes of the entire surfing world on it.
That because the North Shore is still surfing’s main stage. It’s a place where world championships are decided and surfing legends are made. Where a competition like The Eddie can draw as many spectators to Waimea Bay as there are residents in Haleiwa – to watch an event that has only seen conditions worthy of its namesake 11 times in 40 years.
It’s a place where respect is earned, not given. With a community that both merits and demands that respect.
Directed by Connor Trimble
Featuring
Mason Ho
Jamie O’Brian
Brian Bielmann
Jon Pyzel
Moona Whyte
Rosie Jauffers
Jon Shirley
Kyle Useldinger
Noah Montes
Joey (Kahana) Cadiz
Christa Funk
Jake DiPaloa
Music
Fair Warning – Twin Fin
Down For the Ride – 808 Imposters
Special thanks to our friends at White Claw for making this celebration of surf communities happen.
