The newest category at SURFER Poll was implemented to celebrate the awesome short films surfers are producing and distributing online. Nominees included Quiksilver’s experiment in super slow-mo (Cypher Vision), two installments from the Innersection.tv dynasty (Ozzie Wright and Peter Devries), and Karim Rejeb’s stop-motion surf classic (Lino), but Allan Wilson and Mickey Smith’s poem to the passion of surf photographers is a seven-minute classic.
San Diego’s Derek Dunfee has been chasing ridiculously large waves his whole adult life, and when one embarks on such a career he’s likely to have some horrific moments. His rag-doll roll down the face of a Maverick’s monster in his 2010 film Down with the Ship is truly a goose bump-inspiring moment.
While Derek Dunfee (Down with the Ship), Fergal Smith (High-5), and Brian Conley (My Eyes Won’t Dry III) all put in serious performances in big surf, there was little doubt that Jamie O’Brien’s charging in Who is J.O.B. was a class above. Though he seldom surfs outside the tropics, his risk-taking in some of the most serious conditions the Pacific can dish out was nothing short of awe-inspiring, and his performances at Pipeline and Backdoor may just be the best surfing ever done there.