OK, I'll admit - this won't mean much to most of you, but it really does to me. One of the people who shaped my childhood died over the weekend and you might recognize his name.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...earch-for-the-perfect-break-redefined-surfing
If you read the story, you'll hear about his movies before "Endless Summer" that were screened in high school auditoriums along the coast in Southern California in the late 50s / early 60s. My father was a surfer who started surfing in the late 40s. He would take me to these movies religiously - it was truly a magical experience. There would be several hundred in the auditorium whooping and hollering at each wave! It was always with a marginal, small projector on an equally small screen, but to us it was equal to an IMAX experience
A few years later, we heard that Bruce had put together a full length movie - Endless Summer. The hard-core surfers viewed the movie as a sell-out - if he was able to spend THAT much money on a film"(as it says in the article, the budget was $50,000
), how could it possibly be real to the purist?
Needless to say, that movie has been viewed by more people than all of his others combined and arguably created a "surf culture" that still lives today. Being one of the purists, I found the DVDs of his early films. It's really scary how many of the people in those films were friends of mine "back in the day". I can't be sure, but I think that I am in one of the beach scenes of "Slippery When Wet".
Makes me miss my Dad
... and yes, I am blubbering like a baby...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...earch-for-the-perfect-break-redefined-surfing
If you read the story, you'll hear about his movies before "Endless Summer" that were screened in high school auditoriums along the coast in Southern California in the late 50s / early 60s. My father was a surfer who started surfing in the late 40s. He would take me to these movies religiously - it was truly a magical experience. There would be several hundred in the auditorium whooping and hollering at each wave! It was always with a marginal, small projector on an equally small screen, but to us it was equal to an IMAX experience
A few years later, we heard that Bruce had put together a full length movie - Endless Summer. The hard-core surfers viewed the movie as a sell-out - if he was able to spend THAT much money on a film"(as it says in the article, the budget was $50,000
), how could it possibly be real to the purist? Needless to say, that movie has been viewed by more people than all of his others combined and arguably created a "surf culture" that still lives today. Being one of the purists, I found the DVDs of his early films. It's really scary how many of the people in those films were friends of mine "back in the day". I can't be sure, but I think that I am in one of the beach scenes of "Slippery When Wet".
Makes me miss my Dad
... and yes, I am blubbering like a baby...
