Sundance Beach’s 4th annual Surf Video Contest brought big waves to downtown Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theater this weekend in a series of 10 short locally submitted surf flicks.
Twenty shorts were submitted for the contest but only 10 were selected for the event. The films were being judged in the categories of Best Overall Video, Best Cinematography, Best Surfing Footage and Most Original by a panel of five industry and film professionals including Jay Larsen, Matt Bovard, Jon Schafer, Shawn Tracht and Josh Pomer.
The films screened included: “California Lands” by Chadd Konig, “Overflow” by Aaron Howard, “Jibs” by Dennis Rizzo, “Surfing the Goodland” by Kevin English, “Ample Amps” by Andrew Schoener, “To the Moon” by Nicholas Mah, “Maui Left” by Orion Owens, “Dead Dog” by Katie McLean, “Born and Raised” by Dana “SkimShady” Baldzikowski and “Sun Vern” by Adam Lambert.
Aaron Howard’s film “Overflow” took home the award for Best Surf Footage. It featured some awesome tube shots.
“Sun Vern” by Adam Lambert was awarded Best Cinematography while the title of Most Original was awarded to Katie McLean’s film “Dead Dog”.
The two runners up for Best Overall Video were Andrew Shoener’s “Ample Amps” and Adam Lambert’s “Sun Vern” respectively.
The winner of Best Overall Video was “Dead Dog”. Katie McLean is the first girl to have won this award in the four years that Sundance Beach has put on the Surf Video Contest.
There is one award that has yet to be given out – The Viewer’s Choice Award.
All of the films screened are posted to Sundance Beach’s facebook page where anyone can watch and vote for their favorite by “Liking” the video of their choice. All of the videos were fun to watch and featured some great surf footage, so get on over there, watch, and vote!
All winners were awarded packs of surf and skate gear provided by sponsors, as well as checks ranging from $500 to $2000.
Kicking off the event at 5 pm, sponsors that included Billabong, Reef, Electric, Volcom, O’Neill and others gave out free swag. Over the course of the evening Sundance Beach raffled off and gave out t-shirts, hats, flip-flops, backpacks, and other merchandise.
The night ended with a free screening of Matt Kleiner’s surf documentary “Way of the Ocean”, which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last month.
