Bruce Brown

Have you ever wondered why the portrayal of the typical surfer changed so quickly from the disobedient, almost absent-minded perspective to the cool kids we see them as today? The answer lies mostly within the works of Bruce Brown, who is largely credited with changing the conception of how the public views the surfer. Brown’s revolutionary documentary, “The Endless Summer”, has been celebrated as a turning point for the surfer in America’s eye ever since the film was released.

Not a stranger whatsoever to the sand and sea, Bruce began surfing at age 11 in the Southern California area. Instead of going right into a surfing career out of high school, Brown decided instead to enlist to the US NAVY, where he went to great lengths to make the top of his class. Upon achieving that, his reward was to choose his assignment. And where would be better for a natural born surfer than Hawaii? While there, aside from surfing and serving his nation, Bruce developed an interest in the cinema, and learned to take movies with an 8mm camera. This ended up paying huge dividends for Bruce in 1958 when his first movie was released, entitled “Slippery When Wet”. This was quite the experience for the newfound filmmaker, who recalls a lot of surfing between California and Hawaii, sleeping on beaches, and just making enough money to cover expenses.

Brown followed up with four more films: “Surf Crazy”,” Barefoot Adventure”,” Surfing Hollow Days”, and “Waterlogged”, all of which served to show his passion for the sport and how greatly he wanted to bring more of America’s attention to it. It all seemed like much more than a job to Bruce; he truly loved being out on the water with a camera capturing all that he could. Even while shooting films, he managed to catch epic sights such as Phil Edwards riding the Banzai Pipeline. These times marked the beginning of much greater things to come for Bruce and his crew.

In 1963, with the film industry getting overloaded with surfer movies, Brown decided to embark on what would become his signature piece, “The Endless Summer”. The idea for the name of the movie originated from the idea of surfing in the northern hemisphere in the summer, then turning to the southern hemisphere to surf when the winter came along. The revolutionary movie depicted Robert August and Mike Hynson cruising the waters in search of the perfect wave. In turn, when the movie was blown up to 35mm and shown to nationwide audiences in 1966, Brown knew he had created a hit when theatres were consistently sold out. Bruce was so convinced that he could persuade the average American to appreciate surfing that he did everything he could to bring the film to the country’s heartland.

After enjoying the success of his big hit, Bruce turned his attention to another favorite pastime of his – dirt bikes. With new offices built in Dana Point, California, and his friend and co-producer Steve McQueen helping out, “On Any Sunday” earned Academy Award nominations when it was released in 1971. Brown continued in this direction with the release of “The Edge”, a movie geared towards extreme sports.

Bruce didn’t do much else in the 70’s and decided to announce his retirement in 1980 where he proceeded to relocate himself and his family to a ranch north of Santa Barbara. This didn’t last too long, however, as Bruce came out of retirement after several years to begin work on “The Endless Summer II”. Brown experienced the vast changes in the movie industry firsthand from the time he began work on the movie in 1992 until its release two years later. Being backed by New Line cinema and bankrolled with a Hollywood type budget of 3.5 million was largely different than his first version, an independently released documentary than included a budget of $50,000. One way to evaluate the sequel to the original is by noticing the changes that took place in the surfing world between the two. Robert Weaver and Pat O’Connell replaced Hynson and August, and displayed things such as shortboarding, windsurfing, and bodyboarding, as opposed to the longboarding we saw in the first. It was also an exhibition of how far surfing had caught on globally, with footage being shown from places such as Costa Rica, Australia, and Alaska, among others.

Today, Bruce Brown is more focused on taking it easy. He will get out and race a rally car from time to time, but at the same time enjoys the simple things life has to offer. There is no question that this Surfing Hall of Famer has left a tremendous impact on the sport, and who knows where surfing would be today without his memorable contributions. One thing is for sure: Brown’s most famous piece, “The Endless Summer”, was one of those movies that come along every once in awhile and changes how Americans as a whole view something. In this case, it changed the view of surfing completely.

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