| ADVENTURES IN PARADISE | |
Filmed By: Scott Dittrich
Year Of Production: 1984
Duration: 80 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 6 (for sheer Hawaiian over-exposure)
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
A classic time capsule of surfing, this video follows the world's best surfers around the world's best beaches. Hawaii, Indonesia, Australia and the Caribbean - just some of the stops on a ten thousand mile search for the perfect wave. Strangely enough, this film starts in Hawaii and heads off from there.
It takes nearly 20 minutes to finally get away from Pipeline and another 5 minutes or so before we get into HUGE North Shore swells.
Finally after an hour the viewer gets to see some more waves that aren't in Hawaii. Maybe I'm too cynical, but boy I can only stand seeing the same waves breaking at the same Hawaiian beaches for so long and then I have to say, "show me something different!!!!"
The best of the Hawaiian stuff is saved for the last few minutes when Third Reef at Pipeline breaks. Cowa "bloody" bunga dude!
Filmed By: Don King
Year Of Production: 1988
Duration: 60 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 7
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
This is 60 minutes of unadulterated Hawaii. It's a mixture of modern Hawaii, old longboard footage, a bit of island history, and crystal clear water. To get that real Hawaiian feel the producer has even gone for a sound track straight out of the islands. Not a bad little flick overall.
Filmed By: Scott Dittrich
Year Of Production: 1986
Duration: 90 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 6
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
Described as a six-pack of surfing adventures each exploring a different aspect of the total surfing experience. There's a bit of everything in this video. Bodyboarding, skateboarding, windsurfing are all covered.
The video is actually a group of six presentations from the pages of Surfer Magazine. North Shore Profiles, True California, Maui, The Tom Curran Story, Winter Waves and Tahitian Dreams. The commentary is American propaganda at it's best - or it's most annoying.
No special sound track to speak of, just a bit of background music.
Filmed By: Chris Klopf
Year Of Production: 1990
Duration: 45 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 7
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
This is a short film, at 45 minutes, with some additional footage by Tony Roberts. The quality of the film isn't the best, but at least it isn't totally monopolised by pro surfers.
You get to see Noosa as you've never seen it before (unless you were there of course).
There is no commentary at all, with the producer letting the surfers and the sound track do all the talking.
Not a bad little flick at all.
Filmed By: Greg Huglin
Year Of Production: 1980
Duration: 80 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 7
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
This video from 1980 features performances by some of the best in the business at the time.
The flick opens with an animated sequence that dissolves into one of George Greenough's many back-pack tube shots. From here the viewer is taken on a full-on surfing epic covering Australia, South Africa and Hawaii.
Filmed By: Scott Dittrich
Year Of Production: 1980
Duration: 85 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 7
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
Starting off with the pros in Hawaii (of course), it takes about 20 minutes to get to another part of the world (South America) where some traveling surfers get some classic solo waves.
The video inevitably returns to Hawaii. There is one sequence towards the end where there are a bunch of wipeouts and a few near punch-ups, and this is followed by big Waimea and Cheyne Horan taking it on on a 5'8 single-fin tear drop.
Filmed By: Scott Dittrich
Year Of Production: 1988
Duration: 90 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 6
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
At the start of this video you will be thinking you've either picked the wrong one off the shelf or, as I thought, the person I bought it off has mis-labeled it and sent me the wrong one. But all is revealed a bit further down the track. You actually get some of Bustin' Out as a forerunner to Gone Surfin'.
The Gone Surfin' video is billed as six action-packed stories that capture the essence of the surfing experience. Mahalo, The Baja Story, The Next Generation, Coast to Coast (Mainland USA), Wheels of Fire (Skate boarding), Surfer Profile on Richard Schmidt. There is perfect waves in Fiji, Tahiti and Baja, and body surfing like you've never seen before.
The commentary is straight out of Surfer Magazine, so is a bit annoying, and hardly the "Ultimate Surfing Film" that it's advertised as.
Filmed By: John Severson
Year Of Production: 1969
Duration: 85 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 8
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
Probably remembered best for it's "psychedelic" cover, this is a trip back to the era of peace, love, Vietnam and Woodstock. The opening sequence is full of "drug-induced" movement and colours. The sound track is right out of the era as well, with music by Ry Cooder, Cream, Crosby, Stills and Nash, etc...
Of all the Classic Surf Stories Series videos, I think this one is the best of the lot. It is one of the only John Severson films that are still available on video. There is a funny story attached to the psychedelic cover, but you'll have to get the video to find out about it.
Good flick.
BALI HIGH
Filmed By: Stephen Spaulding
Year Of Production: 1984
Duration: 90 minutes
Rating (out of 10): 7
Available Through: Dick Hoole at Byron Bay or via your favourite surfing mag.
Mid-80's tube riding of Peter McCabe, Tom Carroll, Larry Blair and others. Twenty years on and it's probably a bit dated. But the waves were definitely a lot less crowded.