Taylor Steele has made some of the best surf movies out there, which is why it is just as exciting to pick up one of his old films from years ago and watch it today. That’s how it was for me with Campaign, a film by Taylor Steele in association withPoor Specimen Productions. There is a Campaign II and tons of other movies directed by Taylor Steele that have come out since the original, but the first Campaign will always remain a classic.
The theme of this surf movie is that surfing is the new way for big corporations to capture the youth market. It is full of fake ads involving all of our favorite pro surfers, giving a little bit of comic relief in between amazing surfing footage. The movie is long too…over an hour. I like having movies of all different lengths, since I always have different amounts of time to watch them. I’ve had this movie for a while now and never had a chance to watch it, but I had an hour to kill the other day and was looking for a surf movie to take up the time. Luckily I had Campaign, because it was the only movie long enough in my collection.
Campaign features a ton of professional surfers. Rob Machado, Bruce and Andy Irons, Joel Parkinson, Mick Fanning, Shane Dorian, Kelly Slater, Kalani Robb, CJ and Damian Hobgood, Dean Morrison, Taylor Knox, and Taj Burrow are just a few of the names found in this surf movie. The waves are insane and the surfing is incredible. The movie was released in 2003, but I felt like I was watching footage from 2009. I had forgotten that surfers were actually that good 5 years ago.
One unique feature of this movie is that you can choose between 5 different soundtracks. There is the original, punk, emo, rock-n-roll and funk, so you can choose whatever fits your musical taste best. This surf movie was filmed over a period of 2 years, so there is a ton of footage from all over the world and a lot of work put into the editing. The two-disc package also contains a ton of bonus features and extra footage to keep you entertained long past the 70-minute film. Campaign is definitely a surf movie I will watch over and over again.
