Surf clips that boggle the mind
You don't need to be a surfer to be impressed by these videos
The clips below are mesmerizing. Finding them wasn’t easy because most surf footage is actually pretty boring.
Every basketball player at your neighborhood court spends time watching the games of their favorite teams or players. If you go to a surf break, you’ll have trouble finding surfers who watch surfing regularly.
Surf videos are kind of like wine. Unless you are a connoisseur, they all seem pretty the same.
Every once in awhile surf clips appear that are jaw dropping to everyone whether they surf or not. For example, this is John John Florence making big airs look easy. Filmed from the beach behind a cheering crowd.
And here is a clip that looks like it shouldn’t be possible: a multi-barrel ride by Koa Smith that lasts over 2 minutes. The video is filmed from the first person/POV perspective with a mouth mount. It’s so good, then it gets better… because you realize that the same ride was filmed from a drone as well.
Most surf footage falls into one of four categories:
From the shore
From the water (surface)
First person/POV (via mouth mount)
Selfie (via nose mount)
Nose mount shots are great for capturing an advanced surfer especially when the camera is placed on an arm and has a large field of view like in this clip:
However, these 4 angles get repetitive quickly. That’s why some of our favorite surf clips are from unique perspectives:
Underwater
Follow cam
Selfie (via tail mount)
It’s rare to see surfing from under the water on purpose but when you do it’s magical.
The follow cam angle gives you a good understanding of how big the wave is from the surfer’s perspective, what the wave is doing and what the surfer is doing on it. In this clip, from O2 SURFTOWN in Munich, the giggling is a bonus!
This second follow cam clip is really hard to capture because the videographer needs to avoid hitting the surfer. As we see here, it’s a success that pays off because you can see all her maneuvers in great detail.
Finally we have the selfie from behind via tail mount, also known as the butt view. It seems to only really work for barrels which gives you a beautiful view of the shoreline as well as the wave.
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