Home Base / Coolangatta, Queensland, Australia
Activities / Surfing, Travel
When he was 17, Simon “Shagga” Saffigna took time off from surfing to earn some cash picking fruit. He used the earnings to go in on thirds on a Sony HandiCam with a couple friends. You’d think a grom growing up in Coolangatta, an idyllic beach community on Australia’s Gold Coast, would have bought a new board or maybe a wetsuit—but Shagga had reached a point in life where it was time for “big boy decisions.”
“Surfing was everything to me,” says Shagga, “but I wasn’t talented enough and I wasn’t delusional. I knew I wanted to be in surfing, but I wasn’t going to get paid.”
On the other hand, his friends Mick Fanning, Dean “Dingo” Morrison, and Joel Parkinson (aka “The Cooly Kids”) were winning world junior titles on their way to pro careers. “My best bet was documenting these guys, but I didn’t know fuck-all about filming, so I just went down to the beach and started shooting.”
Shagga assembled his footage into a video called “In the Meantime,” which he says “went pretty good” in Japan. His second film, “Stash,” also did well in that market.
Right around that time, Mick, Dingo, and Joel made the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Championship Tour. The Australian surf magazine Tracks asked Shagga to tag along for a year and record their progress with fellow filmer Matt Gye. Their collaboration, “3 Degrees,” won the Surfer Magazine Surf Video Awards’ Video of the Year.
Since then, Shagga’s projects include “Teahupoo Uncut,” shot in Tahiti 2011 when a massive swell shut down the pro tour (“That was some of the craziest shit I’ve ever filmed.”) and “A Day in the Life,” featuring a cameo by legendary metal band Metallica. (“I ended up going on tour with them in Australia and taking them surfing.”) His work has also crossed over into new media. He’s produced live streaming events for the ASP (now the World Surf League) and his Instagram account with its curated surf footage has a respectable 37.7k followers.
Regardless of his workload, when the conditions are right, you’ll find him in the line-up at Snapper Rocks, Kirra, or another one of Coolangatta’s better breaks. After all, he concedes, “I’m still a surfer who films.”
Shagga grew up with some of the best surfers of his generation—but that just opened the door. To keep it open, he maintained trust. “It’s all about relationships,” he says, “being able to go on trips and hang out with crews that trust you not to put something shoddy or that displays bad form out there.”
This trust leads to an increased sense of collaboration. “You want to encourage the surfer to get out of their comfort zone.” Shagga’s understanding of the sport allows him to find a great break and then push his subject to go for it. “Put in an effort to get really fun waves and document that. It’s not like, let’s just film something for the sake of filming it.”
Nothing is too hard for Shagga. He’ll do his best every time to get what is needed. And if he can’t do it, he’ll investigate how he can do it… He’s hard working and never leaves until the job is done. He’s funny too, always keeping the vibes high.
“I’ve been making films since I was 17. That’s 27 years. I’m almost a historian,” says the veteran filmmaker. With that revelation in mind, Shagga has spent the last four years backing up and digitizing his footage. At this writing, he’s at a hundred terabytes. His goal is to assemble a history of surfing through his eyes. “As I get older, I’ve been able to step back and try to have a bit more understanding of the stories that I have,” he explains. “Instead of rocking down to the beach where Mick’s still doing re-entries and cutbacks, it’s more like I’m documenting his life story.”
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