Dane Reynolds Would Be Proud Of This East Coaster’s Spunky Self-Edit

You’d be hard-pressed to find a teen more immediately charming than Simon Hetrick. 

Anyone who knows the Maryland grom will tell you: he’s congenial, handsome, funny, multi-talented, and no, his mom isn’t standing behind us with a tuned-up cattle prod. It’s just… true!

To back up these claims, we provide Exhibit A: Simon’s new film EXPOSED.  

It’s 11-minutes of mostly deep barrel riding, plus a few turns and airs, all tied together with a spunky aesthetic that is the product of Simon’s own creative genius.

Yes, the 17-year-old edited the whole thing himself, on top of creating two tracks for the film. In total it took him close to 100 hours.

Oh, and in further Reynoldsian fashion, Simon wrote a few words about the experience too. See below. 

Like some deranged bat, Simon prefers to dwell in moist, dark caves.

Photography

Matt Catalano

One of the first days of filming for EXPOSED was the day Slater rolled into Jersey, and sharing a session like that with him and all my friends was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.            

The next stop was Portugal with Wilem Banks, Noah Wegrich and Kevin Jansen, and we got lucky with good waves every single day. Ericiera holds a special place in my heart and we surfed Coxos and Crazy Left to no end, but our new favorite zone was southern Portugal. Sagres is one of the coolest places between the left wedges off of cliffs to the local seafood restaurants where the menu is in the freezer haha.

Simon, Willem, and Waggy enjoy the fruits of Portugal.

Photography

Kevin Jansen

After a quick stop in Hawaii (which was cut short by Winter Storm Riley) Schuyler Allen, Shane Borland, Hunter Martinez, and I trekked back east. We had to change our flights just to make it home before the blizzard, and our first session with Tommy Inken was freezing rain. Luckily he had a box truck for the week that we deemed the Tickle Box, and we ended up perching it at the Newmibia sandbar for three days straight and had the time of our lives. 

The charts were showing home to be all time a couple days after, and sure enough it was. Two swells came back to back in the same week, and both swells were the best I’ve seen in years. A couple days passed and my favorite beachbreak gave us an hour window which you can see at the end of the Power Trip section. We were all losing our minds over it and it was the perfect way to cap off filming. 

My super talented buddy Alex Oatman sat down with me and recorded a couple songs and the rest is history! Hope you enjoy ~ Simon.