Five years is the digital equivalent of a full millennia. Five years ago, the world hadn’t seen Kelly Slater in a beanie one chilly morning in California’s Central Valley, absolutely losing his mind over a wave he’d helped create. Five years ago, John John Florence had yet to win his first World Title. Five years ago, surfing’s library of daily and weekly Youtube vlogs pretty much consisted of Who Is J.O.B. and Ben Gravy’s NubTV. Five years ago, there was no such thing as a women’s Big Wave World Tour. Surfing has changed a lot in the past five years. Some things hold up, others don’t.
But do you know what never changes? The objective of a good surf film.
The surf film — or now more commonly broken down into the bit-sized edit nowadays — is an institution. Its job is simple: display a person or people riding waves in a fashion that makes the viewer, in turn, want to go out and surf. Five years ago, Yadin Nicol was wrapping up his run on the CT roster and Conner Coffin had yet to qualify. And five years ago, those two surfers were joined by Jay Davies and the younger of the Coffin brothers, Parker, on the kind of jaunt through Indonesia that also never goes out of fashion. Wildfire was the full-length film that came of that trip. And the surfing? Yeah, it still holds up.
Enjoy the next 19 minutes. You’re going to want to surf after this.
