I was wrong.
http://thisdistractedglobe.com/2008/05/15/big-wednesday-1978/
To substitute the actors for the big wave sequences, Jay Riddle & Billy Hamilton, Peter Townsend and Ian Cairns doubled for Vincent, Katt and Busey respectively, while Jalama and Cojo Bay – both near Point Concepcion in Santa Barbara County – stood in for Malibu.
I think I read in Surfer's Journal that the Big Wave stuff is Sunset. I think the preceding quote is a little ambiguous- Townsend, Hamilton and Cairns stunt doubles in the big wave sequences, and Jalama and Cojo doubled for the Bu- but the big wave stuff was pretty much iconic Sunset.
Other tidbits I just found:
Production history
John Milius had scored a critical and commercial hit with a movie he wrote and directed – The Wind and the Lion – while an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he’d written in the late ‘60s – as Apocalypse Now – was set to start shooting in the Philippines under the direction of Francis Coppola. With the success to make nearly any movie he wanted, Milius turned to a subject he considered the most important in his life; his days surfing and growing up in Malibu.
Milius had at one time envisioned Big Wednesday as something he might write as a novel. Realizing the visual magnificence inherent to surfing, he brought in childhood friend and surfer Dennis Aaberg to remember everything they could about their youth and to write a screenplay together. Warner Bros. agreed to produce the memoir to the tune of $12 million. With an eye on casting actors who “all looked kind of heroic,” recreational surfers Jan-Michael Vincent and William Katt were selected, as was Gary Busey.
"Milius sums up the film’s appeal on the DVD audio commentary: “Surfing is a sport you do alone. You judge yourself alone. The only competition you have is yourself. You don’t bring anything back. There are no trophies, no antlers. You ride the biggest wave and the wave just dissipates on the beach. And so, it is a thing that’s internal. But what is strange about surfing is that the thing you remember most are the relationships. So really, it is something that is best done alone, but it is also something that builds incredible camaraderie and friendship. It is a brotherhood.”"
Big Wednesday practically defines the category “cult classic.” There may be little political material, and the coming of age story is tame by today’s standards, but there’s not much middle ground to occupy here. Moviegoers have either dismissed Big Wednesday for its flat characters, its melodrama or its inaccuracies – like a twenty-foot swell in Malibu – or been struck by the beauty of its mythos and its atmosphere, which capture the feeling of old time surfing better than any movie ever made.
Borrowing a page from Sam Peckinpah, Milius is less interested in exposing reality and more interested in exploring archetypes; larger than life characters achieving some sense of destiny against adverse forces. Instead of a plot, the story unfolds as any memoir would, as a series of loosely knit recollections. The characters aren’t as important as the memories: a house party smashed up by crashers, a dangerous excursion into Mexico, civil disobedience against the Draft Board. Milius and cinematographer Bruce Surtees capture these moments with real visual panache.
Milius sums up the film’s appeal on the DVD audio commentary: “Surfing is a sport you do alone. You judge yourself alone. The only competition you have is yourself. You don’t bring anything back. There are no trophies, no antlers. You ride the biggest wave and the wave just dissipates on the beach. And so, it is a thing that’s internal. But what is strange about surfing is that the thing you remember most are the relationships. So really, it is something that is best done alone, but it is also something that builds incredible camaraderie and friendship. It is a brotherhood.”
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