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Some of the breathtaking scenes of "Step into Liquid" include this shot from behind a wave at Jaws surf spot on the north shore of Maui, also known as Peahi.
Surfing filmmakers
Dana Brown follows
Dad's "Endless Summer"
Dana Brown has proved that life is often stranger than fiction -- or, in the case of his surfing documentary "Step Into Liquid," more miraculous than fiction.
Unlike the definitive surf film "The Endless Summer," by his father, Bruce Brown, Dana Brown's film is about the pure enjoyment of the sport, whether it's riding sloppy, windswept 1-footers on one of the Great Lakes or the potentially deadly 60-foot waves at Cortes Banks, 100 miles off the southern California coast.
The Cortes Banks footage "probably will be my Cape St. Francis," Brown admitted earlier this week during an interview before the film's VIP screening.
Brown is referring to the perfect, small performance wave dad Bruce "found" in South Africa with surfers Robert August and Mike Hynson in the 1966 film classic. But Dad had a much better chance to find his perfect wave than Dana, who required two large fishing boats, three jet skis and a 12-hour voyage to the Banks, where weather charts indicated this day could have large surf breaking on the underwater sea mount.
Brown said it was just the third surf location filmed.
Their boat arrived at the spot a few hours before sunrise, so he tried to sleep but was kept awake by watery explosions.
"The noise would shatter the air, then a moment later, the boat would start rocking," he said. "The boat's radar showed these areas of white water in a perfect A-frame shape."
The night before their departure, the four tow-in surfers were excited about the adventure.
"Someone said, 'Man, catching that first wave at Cortes will go down in surf history like when Robert (August) caught that first wave at Cape St. Francis, and everyone still talks about it," Brown said. "I told them to forget about that and just be careful. 'Don't get hurt.'"
The highlight of the sequence is Parsons' unbelievable ride on a wave more than 65 feet in height. What audiences don't see is a later wipeout amidst the seething mass of white water where he loses his board, which was never found.
"What were the odds we would hit it so perfect?" Brown said. "Dad got his Cape St. Francis; I got Cortes. I guess it's in the genes."
IT SEEMS impossible that Dana Brown could have been anything but a surfer or documentary photographer.
"Everyone we knew surfed. We always lived close to the beach. And honestly, I loved all my Dad's movies, even those that weren't about surfing, like (the motorcycle film) 'On Any Sunday.'"
Brown decided that the story line for "Step Into Liquid" was going to be similar to "On Any Sunday," something "global and diverse" about the activity itself rather than the personalities.
But the filmmaker still had to find the subjects who had to have a lifelong "stoke" for surfing.
And he found them: The Great Lake surfers, the Texas surfers who ride swells created by oil supertankers, the Northern California wave rider who has surfed every day for more than 25 years and, most poignantly, Malibu, Calif.'s Jesse Billauer, who suffered a spinal cord injury surfing but continues to ride waves in a prone position with the help of surfing friends.
Bruce Brown is happy to have his son take over the family business with "Step Into Liquid," in which the elder Brown appears and serves as an executive producer.
"I'm 65. I'm getting Social Security. When I was young, there was no way you could make money as a surfer," Brown said. "Every 10 years, someone calls me to say surfing is back and that it's the next wave. For many of us, it's always been."
Son Dana said his father downplays his influence, but the elder Brown is the man Dana trusts most when it comes to filmmaking.
"If I send him a rough cut of a segment, he understands what I'm trying to do and makes suggestions," he said. "I really like his story sense and sense of humor."
Is it a dream being a surfing filmmaker, traveling to exotic locations, riding perfect waves?
"I only got in the water on this film when the surf was really bad," Brown said. "You're only at a location for a short while, and it's a lot of money and you have to accomplish the most you can in a specific amount of time."
When he does surf, Brown seeks waves 8 feet and under.
"I like the glide," he said. "I'm not very big on slamming into the bottom and bouncing off a reef or being held under for 30 seconds.
"The film shows that whatever surfing you do, it's all just pure enjoyment wherever you find it."
When dad Bruce was a teenage surfer, Dana said, people asked him repeatedly, "When are you going to grow up and see the light and stop doing that silly thing?"
"Fortunately, we were right and they were wrong. It's another very important thing I learned from my father."
BACK TO TOP |
Even nonsurfers
will enjoy 'Liquid''Step Into Liquid" is a personal glimpse into the world of surfing from the original family of surf films, Bruce Brown ("The Endless Summer") and his son Dana.
In the final analysis, this is a film for surfers, but non-surfers will also enjoy it because it's about people with a passion for life, a collection of stories about those who live to ride waves.
"Step Into Liquid"Not Rated
Wallace Art House
at Restaurant Row
For many, surfing is a hobby; for others, an identity and lifestyle; for a talented few, a profession. For all, surfing is salvation.
Some 40-plus years ago, Bruce Brown traveled with Mike Hynson and Robert August to several continents to film a real surf movie "in search of a perfect wave," rather than the "Beach Blanket Bingo" stories Hollywood studios were cranking out. Now son Dana has taken the genre several steps further, with a modern tribute to his dad's film that maintains the humor, originality and dignity of the original, but with phenomenal film and sound quality that can only have happened in the 21st century.
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Pro surfer Rochelle Ballard.
Dana Brown finds that "the stoke" -- the passion and elation that keeps surfers paddling back for more -- can be found in some pretty unlikely places. Moving far beyond the beaches of sunny SoCal, surfing now crisscrosses the globe, from Texas to Wisconsin, Ireland to Vietnam. Traveling to some of the hottest surfing spots in the world, Brown finds the real search isn't necessarily for the biggest tube or most radical ride, but instead uncovers and examines what it is about surfing that hooks people's souls, becoming integral to their lives in ways that far exceed a simple pastime.
Since the 1960s and the "soul surfing" mentality, the sport has changed immensely in attitude, surfboard design, technique and challenges unheard of even a few years ago.
While "The Endless Summer" featured a shot of bored surfers riding waves behind power boats. "Step Into Liquid" features surfers traveling the world in search of enormous ocean swells that sometimes break miles offshore -- swells that can only be ridden after being towed in by a jet ski.
There are unbelievable tow-in surfing scenes at Maui's Jaws and Easter Island's Rapa Nui with Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama, and California's Mavericks with Peter Mel and Skindog. But clearly stealing the show is Cortes Bank, a submerged sea stack some 100 miles off San Diego, Calif., where Brad Gerlach, Mike Parsons and crew arrive to perfect wind and sea conditions and waves in the 50 to 75-foot range. The sequence looks like something created in a special effects studio.
A SEGMENT ON surfing in Ireland steals some of the picture's glory, not only for the surprisingly good waves ridden by the oh-so-Irish Malloy brothers (especially at a big reef called Mullachmore) but for the incredible scenery.
Other highlights include:
>> Great Lakes surfers at Sheboygan, Wis., riding slop, but loving it;"Step Into Liquid," more than any surf film of late, provides a clear sense of what surfing does to one's senses -- from the rush of noise that fills your ear after the wave has driven you into the reef to the decisive moment of takeoff.>> Galveston, Texas, where surfers chase supertankers to ride the great ships' wakes literally for miles over shallow shoals;
>> The always grinning face of Jesse Billauer, a promising young California pro who broke his neck and was paralyzed while surfing Zuma Beach. With help from his friends Rob Machado and the Malloys, Billauer rides waves on a longboard on his stomach;
>> The guy who hasn't missed a day in the water for over 27 years.
This is a film about devotion with such beautiful cinematography that it seems like every translucent drop of water is a living medium that transforms itself from one state to another, while the sun is reflected through tube after tube.
Dana Brown has one advantage over his dad and he uses it wisely. His is a stripped-down film from his pop's surfing documentaries because he understands that the world no longer needs to be educated about surfing. So Brown gets to the meat of the sport and its diverse personalities quickly.
The downside may fall along the lines of "Blue Crush," which sparked more female surfers to try the sport, adding another layer to already crowded surf spots.
"Step..." no doubt spreads the meaning of real stoke and one of the greatest ways to enjoy life.
Maybe that's not such a bad thing.
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