She Likes to Watch

“Step Into Liquid” filmmaker Dana Brown looks at the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing

You could say that surfing is in filmmaker Dana Brown’s blood.

His father is legendary surf filmmaker Bruce Brown, the guy behind such classics as “The Endless Summer” and “On Any Sunday.”

Dana Brown cemented his own movie-making career with 2003’s “Step Into Liquid,” and his son, Wes, has directed the surf documentaries “Islands In the Stream,” “Chasing Dora” and “Peel: The Peru Project.”

So it comes as a surprise when Dana Brown admits, “I don’t want to be seen as just a surf filmmaker.”

“When I finished ‘Step Into Liquid,’ I thought that was the last surf movie I’d do,” Brown told The Tribune recently. “I thought I’d said everything I wanted to.”

Instead, he turned to the world of racing.

His 2005 documentary, “Dust to Glory,” chronicles the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, an annual off-road race held in Baja, Mexico, that attracts hundreds of racers and thousands of fans.

Brown was working on his next project, a reality show, when he found the perfect subject: the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing.

Held between Halloween and Christmas on Hawaii’s famed North Shore, the annual surf competition pits 400 male and female surfers against some of the world’s biggest waves.

“For those six weeks, the whole surf world’s focused on one place — the North Shore,” said Brown, comparing the event to the Super Bowl.

Created in 1983 by former world champion Fred Hemmings, the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing features the world’s finest surfers competing in three key events: the Reef Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa Ali’i Beach Park, the O’Neill World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach, and the Billabong Pipeline Masters at the Banzai Pipeline. The women’s Triple Crown was added in 1997.

Today, surfers of both sexes brave hazardous conditions and fierce competition for a shot at world titles and $750,000 in prize money.

With so much at stake, Brown said, the opportunities for storytelling were nigh endless.  The 2008 documentary “High Water” was born.

“From the Kelly Slaters going to the championships to the kids trying to make it big to the locals have to put in with the fact that this sleepy little stretch of coast just explodes for six weeks, there were a lot of avenues to explore,” he said.

Written, directed and narrated by Dana Brown and edited with the help of his son Wes, “High Water” covers the highs and lows of the competition — from 13-year-old Hawaiian surfer John John Florence’s bid to become the youngest Triple Crown surfer ever to Tahitian charger Malik Joyeux’s tragic death at Pipeline.

Big-name surfers Kelly Slater, Sunny Garcia, Sofia Mulanovich, Andy Irons, Rochelle Ballard and Rob Machado make appearances. So does local character Eric Haas, known for surfing the waves off Haleiwa Ali’i Beach in a football uniform.

Brown said he tried to capture “the spirit of the sport” while lending insight into what drives surfers.

“What they do is just insanely dangerous,” the filmmaker said. “I’ve surfed for 40 years. I look at (the waves) and go, ‘Holy God, you’ll die out there.’”

“I love to film it, but you’d have to pay me to go out there on a big wave day,” he added with a chuckle.

Brown himself has visited the North Beach of Oahu, known colloquially as the “7 Mile Miracle,” about 20 times.

“I was there probably on my first birthday,” the filmmaker recalled. “(My dad would) go there every winter to film his latest surf movie.”

Over the years, Brown said, he’s seen surfing enter the mainstream — gaining corporate sponsors, national media coverage and a fiercely loyal fan base.  Perhaps that’s why surf movies, too, have seen a boom in popularity.

“A lot of surfing is about family and friendship and connection,” he said. “You don’t have to be a surfer to appreciate that.”

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“High Water” makes its Central Coast debut at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Fremont movie theater, 1025 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo.

Proceeds benefit the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, which runs March 12 through 21, 2010. Tickets are $15, $10 for students and film festival members.

A portion of the proceeds will also benefit Rebekah Malloy, a friend of the Brown family who’s been diagnosed with leukemia.