This is an interview I shot with Californian pro surfer Timmy Reyes, sitting with his girlfriend Megan in the Red Bull tour truck during the 2010 O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Thurso.

Tim’s a super-chilled guy, pretty laid back and cruising up and down the Californian coast in his Toyota truck, sometimes venturing into remote spots in Mexico, such as Puerto Escondido and suchlike.  During 2010 he wants taking the Tour pretty easy, after 10 straight years of travelling.  Despite injury he came back strong in 2011.  As well as a constant threat on the ASP World Tour, he brings a relaxed approach to big wave surfing and is a fun free-surfer to watch.  He gets a big thumbs-up from Loose Films!

Tim is sponsored by O’Neill, Arnette, AstroDeck, Timmy Patterson surfboards and Elmore Toyota.

Music – First track by Jimmy the Bard and Alishia Whitney.  Second track by Tim Snowball.

 Loose Films caught up with Huntingdon Beach pro surfer Brad Ettinger a while back, whilst Brad was competing in the O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Thurso, Scotland.   Brad talks about a typical day when he’s back home, surfing with Brett Simpson and other local surfers, as well as the areas of his surfing he’s focussing on right now.

Brad is actually quite an inspiration and he probably doesn’t fit the archetypal model of what surfer looks like.   As well as being a devout Christian, he also doesn’t drink and he plays bass guitar in his church band!  He’s also annoyingly good-looking, obviously a great surfer and his wife, Danielle, was featured in the March 2010 Surfing magazine!   Please check out his online bio here from his website.

Brad Ettinger is sponsored by Hurley and HSS, he’s hoping to make the ASP WCT World Tour after recovering from knee injury at Trestles and he’s posted some solid results including the Katin Pro/Am.  

Jean da Silva took a trip to Bali and Sumbawa earlier this year.  As well as being one of Brazil’s top surfers, he also has a great eye behind the lens and he’s produced numerous films of his own.   This film was shot on the first day of the trip, where he flew from Bali and he surfs Lakey Peak.  

Loose Films will certainly continue to show Jean’s work.  I first met Jean on the beach at Carcavelos, Portugal, during the 2008 WQS contest.  He went on to win the event and you can watch his progress through that contest on this film which I produced of him.  

He’s a real character, full of passion for surfing and for life in general.  I remember shooting his interview on the beach.  He just talked and talked, it was hilarious.  Some of the pro surfers I interview can sometimes come across as “media clipped”, with short answers and a lack of content.  Jean da Silva can never be accused of this.  It’s great to see real characters like Jean on the Tour.

Jean is sponsored by Maresia, Overboard, Banana Wax and Snapy Surfboards.

With the recent North Atlantic swell hitting Portugal at 4 metres with 16 second intervals, New Zealand pro surfer Rowan Aish heads up the coast from Lisbon to score the first decent winter swell of the season.

Having fought his way back from injury over the past few years, Rowan Aish is training hard and working to get his surfing and fitness back on track, ready for Tour events in 2012.   Paddling into waves like these in his video, we at Loose Films are confident he’s definitely on the right path!   Loose want to support Rowan all we can (without having to paddle out and get water shots in 12ft surf!), so we’ll show all his progress and footage on the Loose site.

Other surfers featured include Ivo Santos and Antonio Silva. 

Sponsors include Pigeons Bay, Curve Surf and Surfari Switzerland.  Please check them out!

Here’s a great new movie, shot, edited and starring Rowan Aish and Luis Eyre, surfing an early morning session in Ericeira, Portugal.

Whilst Rowan is from New Zealand and Luis’s family are British, both surfers have really found their rhythm in the Portuguese surf and, as you’ll see from the film, plenty of training has certainly paid off!  Rowan’s finding his way back onto the ASP Tour after breaking the same leg twice – but you can’t keep a good man down, so he’ll be in the Pipe finals in no time!

Loose Films have been trying (or promising!!) to film Luis Eyre for far too long now.  By contrast, Rowan has featured in 2-3 Loose videos so far – check out Nick White and Rowan in Mexico.

Rowan has been training with Gony Zubizarreta and Marlon and Melvin Lipke recently.  We hope to see plenty more barrels, reverses and punts from these two ex-pats in Portugal.

Luis Eyre is sponsored by O’Neill Europe, Sanuk, Oakley, Board Culture Surfboards, Dakine, Future, Robie Robes, SURFIBERIA Surf Camp

Perhaps we should all take the moral highground here, and choose not to laugh at drunks.  However, this is mildly amusing, so I hope we can all make an exception!

Brazilian surfers are definitely the most enthusiastic, passionate and surf-stoked. Adriano de Souza is no exception. The surfing is this video is pretty fun to watch – even just to see the spray off those fully-committed slashes.

The first question is whether he feels Brazil will ever give the surfing world a world champion and whether Adriano is the man for the job. Like his countrymen before him – Peterson Rosa, Flavio Padaratz, Fabio Gouveia, et al – all have all come so close. Adriano’s got a few things in his favour to break this trend. He’s still young, with potentially 8-10 years left on tour. He’s improved his ranking year on year. And his surfing is very rounded. He won Brazil this year and he’s a solid fixture in the world’s Top Five.

I just love the surfing in this video. Those high-fades around 0:52 as he sets-up for the next section. The effortless pumps to maintain speed through the flats. The lightening fast cutbacks and the powerful bottom turn.

Adriano de Souza is sponsored by Red Bull and Oakley

Music: Go get it by Colin Giles.

I filmed this interview with Andy Irons about two weeks before he sadly died. I don’t know if it was his last interview and it probably doesn’t matter. But, considering we’d never met before and I’d just stuck a camera in his face, I’d never met somebody who was more willing to do a short interview for me. Here’s the story of how it came about.

This was a lay-day during the WCT Portugal event in October 2010. I’d already filmed Dan Ross and Wilko, which was a good day’s filming for me, so anything else would be a bonus. It was lunchtime at Belgas (the back-up site for the contest) and I finished my coffee and took a stroll along the beach. I bumped into a photographer, a really sound American who’s name I forget, and he was travelling with Dusty Payne, Ace Buchan and Andy. The surf was a good 6ft and I captured some of Ace’s waves but I couldn’t spot Andy.

Some time passes and Andy walks down the beach and right up to his photographer friend… and me! I should mention at this point that, during his walk up the beach, he must have stopped and chatted to maybe five groups of fans, done photos, autographs, the whole lot. I tried to keep the whole cool exterior thing going, keeping the conversation away from the 2ft wind-chop waves I surf back home, whilst inside I was shouting “You’re Andy Irons and I’m talking to you!”. I ask if he’d be so generous as to shoot a quick interview for my Loose Films site. He was like “Yeah, let’s do it!” and proceeded to ask me loads of questions about my website. Still a little starstruck, I was more concerned that I didn’t goof it up by leaving the mic switched off or the battery dying. Ironically, it’s my worse quality interview ever, with wind-noise and the fluffy mic cover blowing into shot, top right.

After the interview, I told Andy how I’d interviewed Sunny Garcia recently. His eyes lit up and he couldn’t stop asking me about Sunny, how he was, what he was up to. He asked me to make sure I say Hi to Sunny if Andy didn’t see him first.

It’s not that often in life that you meet such big characters with such a warm heart.

Sunny Garcia is the only interview I’ve ever prepared questions for. Why? Because Sunny Garcia comes with a certain reputation. He had just got out of prison. A few years earlier, I stood on the beach at Pipeline, watching a rather unhappy Sunny Garcia chasing a rather worried Neco Padaratz up the beach. Over beers, you hear stories. I’m not taking chances. Well researched questions and stick to the script. That’s my plan.

Scotland. Not the most glamorous location on the World Surfing Tour. Especially not when your fingers are blue and stuck to your camera, as you hop from foot to foot, fighting off early signs of hypothermia, on a slab of rock at low tide Brimm’s Ness. Having been filming since first light, I’m ready for a hearty scottish breakfast and hot shower, when Sunny walks past with Corky Carroll. I politely ask the Hawaiian’s if I can interview them after their surf and they oblige.

An hour later, I’m stood by their rental car, obediently waiting, and feeling like a Michael Jackson fan hovering awkwardly outside the Neverland ranch. Sunny and Corky finally turn up and get changed. However, it quickly dawns on me that this isn’t the same mad man who’s got such a notorious reputation. In fact, I had more of a laugh with Sunny than most other guys I’ve filmed on tour. I don’t deny that those stories about him aren’t true and maybe he does have anger management issues.

I admired his honesty. He’s stuck to power surfing, emphatically stating in the interview that “tricks are for kids”. My experience with Sunny was a good one. Perhaps I’m naive but I left him and Corky in that field in Scotland, thinking just give the guy a break. Equally, however, I’m not in a rush to drop-in on him!

Sunny Garcia comes from Hawaii and is sponsored by Affliction Clothing, Rockstar and Versa Traction.

The standard of surfing in this video is pretty incredible, when you consider that Kolohe Andino and Luke Davis are surfing very mediocre waves on tiny boards. This was shot around 6:30am on Fistral Beach, Newquay, England. Jet-lagged, they had just landed in England from LA, where they’d been surfing in the US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach just days prior.

Like most of the Loose Films interviews, this one came about more by luck and persistence, than planning. As I stood alone on Fistral Beach at 6am with no-one in the water and, therefore, nothing to film, I started asking myself why I wasn’t nursing my hangover back in the comfort of my hotel room. Just then, two eager groms came running down the beach steps. As they ran passed me towards the lack-lustre, onshore slop, I called out asking if they didn’t mind me filming them. It was only when the blond-haired one shouted back “yeah, but no interviews!” that I suspected I’d probably just snagged an impromptu filmshoot with one of the world’s most talked about, up-and-coming surfers.

They were out there for hours. I grabbed some breakfast in the hotel with my friend, Chris. Kolohe and Luke walked past the window so I ran out to them. Despite Kolohe’s earlier well-rehearsed media flick-off, both he and Luke were cool to say a few words about their boards and what they were doing over here. They didn’t even know the name of the beach or where the contest site was, which I found endearing. I just hoped, for their mum’s sake, they were both eating properly and washing their socks!

Music: Livin’ this way by Johnnie Toney and he’s just formed a band called Sandgrain so please check them out.