There is a stronger force than money in the surfing industry and it's called friendship. While that may come as no surprise to those who surf, it might be a strange concept to the rest of the world where the almighty dollar controls the backscratching and connection-making which occurs.
Taylor Steele and his friends epitomize the surfing brotherhood which exists in beachside towns around the world. What really sets them apart, though, is their impact on the rest of the surfing world. After all, this is no ordinary group of wave-riders.
To begin with, the 23-year-old Taylor Steele makes surf films. They're rather simple films, really, just video footage of his friends surfing at various beachbreaks with soundtrack music by his favorite bands.
Nothing fancy, no special effects, not even any water photography or slow motion. So what's the big deal? Well, Steele's friends are the best surfers in the world, and he's got the footage, the music and the style which have made him the most copied, envied and successful surfing filmmaker in the world.
When the Steele family got its first video camera, no one thought much of it. Taylor and his buddies would take turns filming each other at their local surf spot in Cardiff-by-the-Sea. When he signed up for a filmmaking class his senior year at Torrey Pines High School, no one thought much of it.
Once again, he filmed his pals surfing, this time adding some music and a title, "Seaside and Beyond," and submitted it to his teacher. Finally someone thought something of it and his film won "Video of the Year" for his class. From there, a momentum began to build, and has yet to slow down.
Unhappy with school at Palomar Junior College, a friend persuaded him to take a trip to Puerto Escondido to film a group of young, relatively unknown surfers at the "Mexican Pipeline." The friend was Rob Machado, who also served as the then-largely unknown subject of his first film.
"He didn't really want to go," Machado said. "So I kind of had to talk him into it."
It was a decision he never regretted, as he met not only some crucial future acquaintances, but also some of the people who would become his best friends.
Winter of '90-91 proved to be a crucial turning point in Steele's life. After his successful Mexican excursion, he bought a plane ticket for Hawaii and left for three months, with hopes of scoring some epic footage of the Hawaiian winter season. Things didn't quite turn out like he had planned.
"I wasn't able to stay with the guy I was planning on staying with," Steele said. "He had some relatives come over and it got really crowded, so I just bought a van."
Sleeping in a van parked in front of Pipeline, one of the most famous surf spots in the world, wasn't exactly his idea of a winter in paradise.
"It sucked," Steele said. "It was either really hot with no mosquitoes (windows rolled up), or it was little cooler, enough to sleep (windows rolled down), with lots of mosquitoes. What I'd do was set it up so it was cool enough, and then I'd wrap a T-shirt around my ears so I couldn't hear the mosquitoes. They'd eat me, but at least I couldn't hear them and I could sleep."
Sleeping was only a part of his misery because he also had to deal with the police continually telling him to move, which he would do, only to return the next day. Showering consisted of a refreshing surf. He ate anything which didn't require cooking such as bread, fruits and an assortment of junk food which would make Dan White's infamous "Twinkie" defense look like a Julia Childs' course in gourmet cooking.
"I was still amped though," he said. "I was motivated to do well and it was also one of the best winters in Hawaii that I've ever seen. It was just a great winter and we had great waves."
After a month of living like a gypsy in his van, salvation came in the form of a young up-and-coming surfer named Benji Weatherly. Steele and Weatherly had met in Puerto Escondido a few months before, and soon Steele was living in the Weatherly household, just steps from the beach, with all the hot showers, clean sheets and screen doors he could ask for.
"It was like rags to riches," he said.
This was only the first suggestion of the bond which would soon develop between Steele and this elite group of surfers.
With the footage he compiled from trips to Mexico and Hawaii, as well as the local San Diego footage, he borrowed $10,000 from his parents and released "Momentum," his breakthrough film.
"I put one ad in Surfer Magazine for $3,000," Steele said, "and people just seemed to want it."
Technically, his films were almost a step backward. It was shot entirely on video and from the beach. Gone were the slow-motion water shots of surfers in the tube which filled the majority of surf films up until then. Gone also was the traditional surf movie soundtrack, which was usually comprised of either slow reggae music, or purchased session music from unknown musicians.
"A lot of the older films had soundtracks which sounded like porno music," said Ben Marcus, of Surfer Magazine.
Marcus, the surf film reviewer for Surfer, has been critical of Taylor's films for their lack of creativity, but still acknowledges their influence and massive popularity.
"It's what the kids want to see," he said. "But don't ask me. I'm old."
Steele was just as surprised as anyone else at the success of his films.
"I didn't think anyone would really like it," Steele said. "Because I was using music that I liked, which was a bit faster than what most people were used to."
The combination of young, radical surfers going full speed in fast beachbreak waves accompanied by hardcore punk music proved to be a magical mix. He had struck a nerve with young surfers all over the world who were disillusioned and bored with traditional surf films.
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