A great gathering of the surfing community paid tribute to pioneering surf filmmaker Bud Browne, known as "the father of surf films," this past Saturday evening, Sept. 13th, at the Surfing Heritage Foundation.
Bud lived most of his life in Orange County and was inducted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame in 1996. While a Lifeguard at Venice Beach, CA, he began shooting footage on 8 and 16 millimeter cameras in the late 1940s. He made his "underwater housing" that enabled him to be right in the wave with the surfers taking the tumbles right along with them in a "wipeout". He screened his first film, the 45-minute-long "Hawaii Surfing Movies," in California beach towns in 1953. Bud made handmade posters that he nailed to telephone poles near local surf spots, he debuted his first film, at John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica in 1953. Admission cost 65 cents. Bud would play taped music and do a "live" narration while running the projector. The career of a surf filmmaker was now born.
Local filmmakers such as, Bruce Brown of Endless Summer and John Severson founder of Surfer Magazine followed in Buds footsteps. Bruce Brown a longtime admirer of his film's, went to Bud to asked his permission to film surfers as well and Bud told him to go for it!
The evening at the Surfing Heritage hosted a number of Bud's friends and fans all shared stories amongst themselves as well as hearing special tributes from Greg Noll, Linda Benson, Anna Moore, and a tape presentation by Greg MacGilliveray of 5 Summer Stories fame.
Story by Denny Michael
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