Raised on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, Simon has made Hossegor his adopted home.
Simon Levalois-Bazer is a surf filmmaker and editor based in Hossegor, France, but he’s done his share of world traveling: South Africa, Portugal, Ireland, Indonesia, and the list goes on. He’s worked for major surf brands such as Volcom, Vissla, and Channel Islands, and with world-class surfers like Charly Quivront, Matthew McGillivray, and, most recently, Enzo Cavallini for an edit titled SLOT MACHINE. I caught up with Simon to talk film, travel, and of corse, surfing.
So, you’re from Hossegor. Is that where you’re based out of, or were you born there?
I was born in Guadeloupe, which is a French Island in the Caribbean. I was born and raised there. Then, six years ago, I moved to Hossegor for my studies. Then I started working freelance maybe four years ago. And now I’m based here because the whole surf industry in Europe is around Hossegor, so all the brands are here and it’s where most of the stuff happens for Europe. That was the easiest move for me to work as a filmmaker, especially in surfing.
Is that your ultimate goal, to be a surf filmmaker?
Right now, my goal was to be able to make a living out of filmmaking and its the cherry on top to do it in surfing. So I’m super grateful. I easily see myself doing this for maybe 10 more years, maybe more if I’m still motivated. I’m just taking whatever comes at me. In terms of filmmaking, I would say that I’m more of a director of photography and an editor. The last few months I’ve been enjoying a lot doing some different stuff like short commercials for surf brands and I really like doing that as well. It’s a good balance with the longer surf edits that can take months, even years.
I saw you did a G Skate film in Indonesia. Was that an advertisement or would you count that as an edit?
That was more like an edit. At first, when we went there, we didn’t have it in mind to make that edit, but the waves ended up being not that great most of the time so we were like, “okay, let’s make a G-skate edit.” And then CI was super keen on it, so we just ended up doing it.
You’ve traveled a ton with some really good surfers. Do you find that traveling while you’re filming a project is a lot different than traveling normally? What’s that experience like?
When you travel for filming, you look at things a bit differently because you’re hired on the job, so you’re always trying to capture things that can be cool and that could be interesting in your project. And you always want to do the best job and create the most images possible. When you travel for yourself for fun, you might not look at things the same way, I’d say.
It looked like you shot some of the stuff on like eight or 16 millimeter maybe?
Yeah, 16 mil.
Oh, wow. Was that hard, bringing film on the plane?
It’s not really a problem, but the cost of film right now is getting worse. You have to be really careful not to waste a single foot of film because it’s getting so expensive. But yeah, I love the process of shooting on film. It really brings something different, and I just love the colors of film and how it looks, so I’m always super keen to shoot film on all my projects.
These days, Simon is a veteran when it comes to lugging camera gear around the world.
Yeah, it’s so beautiful. I loved your edit with Charly. On SLOT MACHINE. I thought all the film cuts were so cool. But you’ve done a lot of different projects; do you have a favorite one or a most challenging one?
I did a trip to South Africa like two years ago for Pride, a bodyboarding brand. I would say that was one of my best trips ever because the whole trip was insane. The waves, the country, the location, the people we met and just the whole thing made that trip really special. The clip is called Holy Africa and I’m super stoked on it. I worked with Seb Boulard who is a really good movie director. He had this idea of making a fiction with a voiceover and a cool story behind it. We shot all the lifestyle on 16 mil. Everything was prepared in advance, and we just fucking scored (laughs). Yeah, that’s probably one of my favorite movies and trip!
What wave were you shooting at?
We were around Cape Town, and the movie starts at a slab on the west coast of South Africa, and it’s a right-hand slab, the water’s super cold. I shot water there and it just looks super cool from the water. And then we had two different wedges in the Cape Town area as well. It was perfect for bodyboarding and the guys were just sending it the whole time.
Shooting from the water at a slabby spot can be so gnarly, too. How did you get into filming? Did you start off as a surfer, and then move into the film scape, or did you always have more of an interest in photography and then go to film?
I would say from a young age, I’ve always been interested in photography, making movies and stuff. When I was young I would take the family camera and I was always super keen to capture the random moments, take photos, and then I would edit on the family computer and made some weird effects. I started surfing around 15 and I was spending a lot of time in the water. I wanted to mix both passions. At first I was more into photography. I probably focused on photography for one year or two, and then I was like, oh no, filming is more my thing.
But it really started when I spent a year in Barbados. I was like, “okay, I’m moving to Barbados and when I go there, I’ll try film as much as possible and make edits.” There’s a really sick wave over there called Soup Bowls. The year I was there, it ended up being the swell of the decade, I think. Like, wow. Soup Bowls was like 10-foot and perfect, super insane. I’d say it was on that trip to Barbados that I really realized I was hooked on filming surfing. I kept doing it the following year and the paid work started to arise.
Soup Bowls is super gnarly, right? I feel like I’ve heard of a ton of people getting hurt there.
Yeah, a lot of people compare it to Backdoor in Hawai’i.
That’s crazy.
Yeah. When it’s on, it’s a world-class wave.
Did you meet a lot of professional surfers when you were out there? Or did you already know a bunch of people?
So no, when I moved there, I didn’t know anyone. I spent 10 months over there. I was studying and I didn’t know any surfers. I was surfing and when it was getting too big, I was just filming and taking photos of locals. And on that huge swell some pros came and that’s when I met Charly for the first time.
No way.
Yeah, (laughs). Charly ended up having some of the best waves of his life over there.
So, you guys were able to network because you were both from a similar area?
Yeah, and that was the first time I was seeing proper waves and proper surfing, as well, because I grew up in Guadeloupe. We got good waves sometimes, but not like 10-foot pumping waves, like spitting, (laughs). I was like, “this is insane.” And that was where I met Charly.
It sounds like you’re self-taught, or did you go to school for filmmaking?
Self-taught. Yeah. I have a master’s in digital marketing, but I spend a lot of my free time on YouTube learning new stuff, filmmaking-wise and watching as many clips as possible.
Do you have a favorite surf movie?
Strange Rumblings in Shangri-La.
That’s a cool movie. Your work has some parallels to that style where it’s super artistic.
Yeah, I get a lot of inspiration from Strange Rumblings, just the story, how it’s filmed. It’s one of my favorites, for sure.
With SLOT MACHINE, your description of it was interesting, how you were talking about how surfing is like gambling and you never know if you’re gonna score or not.
We came up with that idea with Enzo on the way back. We’re like, “how are we gonna name the film?” He was like, “we went to Indo for three weeks. Tickets were booked in advance. We didn’t know what we were going to get, and at first we thought we were gonna score this way and this way and this way. And then you go there, and you ended up going the complete opposite direction sometimes.”
You are always gambling. Even though you are gambling, I’m going to try to make the best of each place, each location.
It was a really cool edit. I was frothing on it when you sent it over. Do you have anything in the works right now?
With Charly, we’re gonna try to do another cold-water strike mission. We’re just waiting for a swell to show up, and we’re both ready and we got a proper van this time. We wanna try to score Scotland and then drive from France in the van for two weeks and spend some time up north and hopefully score some cold-water slabs and make another fun strike mission video. And this time I’m really focusing on the adventure side of it.
Your guys adventures seem so gritty and it’s so fun to watch (laughs). I’ll be frothing when that comes out. Pray for swell. Good luck with the strike mission.
Fingers crossed.
