Gather some friends and a camera because Sunset Clips Classic will be coming back for its third season at Point Loma Nazarene University. The event is a viewing and competition of students surf videos that they filmed and edited in teams. On Oct. 30 via @sunsetclipsclassic on Instagram, an account run by the students hosting, a post announced the return of the event in spring 2024. Submissions for the premiere will be due by midnight on March 23.
Despite the competition between videos with the winners receiving prizes, the intent of the event is to bring together a community that shares a common interest.
“The purpose of the event is to showcase students surfing and the waves that we have access to right in our backyard. It’s really about students making their own film, having fun, exploring and getting to showcase their talent,” said third-year mechanical engineering major Jacob Le, one of the students helping organize Sunset Clips Classic this year.
Fourth-year business administration major Will Nicholas said that the first season of Sunset Clips Classic was a tight knit group of friends that wanted to show what they had been working on and simply hangout together.
Professor of PLNU’s surf history class Ben Cater attended the viewing last year and witnessed the sense of community that seemed to overpower the competitiveness.
“Last year it wasn’t just the people who participated in the event. There were people who just wanted to see their friends or hangout together and talk about a common interest,” said Cater. “So, two cheers to the community aspect.”
Second-year business marketing major Mitchell Tysler submitted an edit that was projected last season and said how even after the winners were announced, it didn’t change the environment in the room.
“I didn’t feel like anyone was bummed that they didn’t win. It felt like everyone was just stoked that the whole event came together,” said Tysler.
Cater also connected that this is coherent with what you see out in the water while you’re surfing in front of the school.
“One thing that is super cool about [Sunset Cliffs] historically is that it has a tightly knit surf community,” said Cater. “It does not overemphasize modern values of individualism and self expression. It rather emphasizes knowing people in the lineup and going through life together and developing new friendships and nurturing old ones.”
Just as the year before, the event is ever changing and a few new rules are being implemented. The most notable change being that, instead of having a two or three month window to collect videos, the organizers expanded the time frame across two semesters.
“It was so last minute last year and there was no swell. We extended the timeline so that people have more time to film, better opportunity to get better waves and can work on their videos more and make something that they are really psyched on,” said Nicholas.
Another change the committee is planning to implement is the use of an overall crowd vote to determine the winners of each category. Following the screening of last year’s videos, there was a panel of three commentators who noted details that stuck out to them in each video, and ultimately picked the winning videos.
“It’s more interactive with the crowd and it’s a better picture of who came to the event and what they liked. We also think it will smooth out the event flow better,” said Le.
Similar to prior years, teams must include two to three surfers, however there are no restrictions on whether or not they can all be surf team members. The footage must be taken from waves within the distance from Sunset Cliffs to Ocean Beach. Lastly, videos must be between a minute and a half to three minutes long.
To continue receiving updates or to sign up, visit @sunsetclipsclassic on Instagram.
Nick Hancock 
Steve Anderson 
Grace Chaves