REEL LIFE / FILM & VIDEO FILE : Tide Is Right for Return of Surf Classics : Director Hal Jepsen, who’s filmed some of the county’s most popular spots, brings his long board movies to Ventura Concert Theater.

Hal Jepsen calls himself the second man of surf films.

“Bruce Brown (‘Endless Summer’) is number one,” Jepsen said. “I consider myself Number 2.”

You can see Brown’s work when “Endless Summer II” is released early this summer, 30 years after the original. But Jepsen will be at the Ventura Concert Theater on Friday with a bundle of long board movies, backed up by a live band playing surf music on vintage guitars and amps.

During the 25 years Jepsen has been making surf movies, he’s filmed some of Ventura County’s most popular spots.

“I have some unbelievable stuff from the Santa Clara River in ‘A Sea for Yourself.’ I was at McGrath (State Beach) filming toward the northwest with the fairgrounds and the green hills in the background on a day on when it was so clear you could see every detail. It was really one of those magic days. Waves 5 to 8 feet. It was beautiful.”

The show will last an hour and a half, but because there are two screens that will show different films simultaneously, Jepsen is bringing three hours of film.

“Hal went from early long boarding and he has some really good footage from the ‘60s,” said Paul Nielsen, owner of Waveline Ventura, a local surf shop that has Jepsen movies on videotape. But Nielsen thinks Jepsen’s biggest contribution has been the movies featuring the transition from long to short boards.

“His movie ‘Cosmic Children’ came out when I was just graduating from high school,” Nielsen said. “I’m 41 now, and it is still probably the best movie on the topic.

“There’s places in ‘Cosmic Children’ with great Ventura County stuff,” Nielsen said. “In fact, I have about five of his videos in the store and I think they all have scenes from Ventura County.”

The show at the Ventura Concert Theater begins at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $6 and are available through TicketMaster or at the box office, 26 S. Chestnut St.

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Faithful readers of this column will doubtless remember camera collector extraordinaire Wes Lambert of Camarillo who boasts the largest collection of hand-crank motion pictures in the United States.

Well, Lambert has several of his cameras on display at the Stagecoach Inn Museum, 51 S. Ventu Park Road, Newbury Park.

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“Ruby in Paradise,” winner of last year’s Sundance Film Festival, goes on screen Sunday at the Ojai Playhouse.

The movie is about a young woman from Tennessee on her own for the first time in a small Florida beach town. Critics called Ashley Judd’s performance as Ruby sensitive and winsome and described the film as the sort of humanistic approach typical of directors Jean Renoir or Roberto Rossellini.