Like the rest of us, Lucas Beaufort started out in skating as a kid who just dug skate mags. Growing up in a small town in the south east of France, he had a tight knit crew which grew and shrunk with skateboarding’s popularity. But while skating came and went from la mode, Lucas kept his eyes fixed on the pages of Thrasher, Big Brother and Transworld, all the while scribbling away – developing his unique illustration style which has since found its way onto decks, gallery walls and even the pages of the very publications that started it all. In 2017, Beaufort dropped his magnum opus: an hour-long documentary on skateboarding media. It was a lonely project which found Lucas trekking across the USA, talking with the likes of Lance Mountain, Marc Johnson and Chad Muska. Is print media dying, dead or is it, in fact, time for a total shift in our paradigm?
(From SKATEISM Magazine #1, January 2018)
Lucas, Devoted has just dropped, how’s it all going, man?
Man, I need somebody to teach me how to get bored. I’m so busy. For the last two days, it’s been crazy. I’ve received around 200-300 emails from people I’ve never met, all writing like 20 lines about the film. You know, it’s easy to say “good job.” But 20 lines! That means something, you know?
What kind of things are they saying?
A photographer from Canada said he wanted to create his own skate mag, but said it was hard because brands now seem to spend money on social media not magazines. He said he was going to use my documentary as a tool to get brands onboard!
I guess it speaks truth to power in that sense, particularly because it’s entirely based on answers. That must have been tough to edit.
It was really hard. I did it by myself in the end. I tried to work with a partner but – I dunno man – I know exactly what I want. When you’re with somebody and they’re telling you their opinion, it clashes. I don’t want anyone to tell me how to do it.
Even your sponsors?
Even though I had support from brands, I wasn’t going to show them shit until it was done. For me, if you believe in me, in my project, don’t tell me to change anything. Alot of people are at the mercy of brands, but I believe we need to tell brands that they aren’t gods, even if they hold the money. Artists are the artists, brands are brands. I explain to them respectfully that this is what I do, please respect me. I mean imagine if I called Nike and told them I didn’t like the way they designed shoes.
“Even though I had support from brands, I wasn’t going to show them shit until it was done.”
They wouldn’t give a fuck.
They wouldn’t give a fuck! They know what they’re doing. I know what I’m doing. The money shouldn’t change that.
This is a major theme in your film: print magazines nowadays are at the beck and call of brands, which means they have to play it safe to not piss them off. Is this a broken system, and if so, what’s the point in doing them at all?
Pat O’Dell and Marc Johnson both reference Jenkem as an example here. I feel like Jenkem is the website, you know? I met the founder Ian in New York, that guy is super smart. Back then they didn’t have any advertisers. They didn’t give a shit, it was just a passion project. He said that now he has loads of people messaging him asking him how they can advertise on Jenkem. He told me that he tells them: “you can advertise, but never tell us what to do.” Okay, so that’s a website, not a magazine, but they print a book now, you know? It’s crazy, it shows people that you can change that dynamic.
So if the product is good, advertisers will want to be involved?
Yeah, they play hard to get. You know, I had a goal: get an interview with Jenkem. But it wasn’t easy. I told them I would make them a special Devoted teaser just for Jenkem, with an interview to complement it. He agreed, but you know how he did it? Him and two of his partners sent like 20 questions, I answered, then they sent 20 more. It was like a 2 month long interview, but at the end it was the best interview ever! Because they care. They take their time. I don’t know if that comes across in the documentary, because my goal is not to destroy print. But I hope brands understand magazines must be allowed to do what they want, and magazines in turn must create good content.
And they don’t?
Take Transworld: they want to please their brands. If you go to their website you can see that they post everything! It used to be complicated. Now anybody can get on there. You need to curate content. You need a balance. And that’s the case with like 75% of skate magazines today, you open them and there is nothing inside.
Well, the internet takes care of the news now, so you don’t need to wait for skate magazines to find out what’s going on. How do you replace that amount of content lost to the internet?
Yeah, I think that’s true. But you can create a good online magazine, and then people will want to collect your print. Taking Jenkem as an example again – I don’t have shares in them, I’m just saying – go on Jenkem – they do like one article every three days. People think today that we have to post 10 times per day, but I think that’s a mistake. You need to do something relevant, even if it takes a week. We don’t need to feed people crap constantly.
So then people will want to buy Jenkem for their style?
Yes. But then, Thrasher, for example, is different. There’s nothing inside Thrasher either – except the crazy cover. But the website is really good. They create their own content, and so all the brands want to work with them. When they put a video on their website they can get 20,000 views in two days. You know SKATELINE? It’s super good. It’s so funny. Gary Rodgers is the funniest dude in the industry. We love funny stuff. Skateboarding is fun.
Yes, but then so Thrasher makes the news, as well as reports it. They don’t need to worry like the smaller magazines. How do the rest of us cope?
When you see Marc Johnson saying “if somebody came up with a new magazine like Big Brother, it would be a success.” I think small magazines should take that to heart. But it has to be different. I spoke to Dave Carnie, and he said it wasn’t easy for them even back then. When things got hot for Big Brother the brands bailed.
Yeah, in Dumb. he says that people ask him all the time to bring back Big Brother. He says “fuck you, you let us die.”
Exactly! We’re always nostalgic – “it was better before.” But no, we need to think about the now. We need to work to make skateboarding great right now.
“75% of skate magazines today, you open them and there is nothing inside.”
So how do we do Big Brother in the 21st Century. What would be the most shocking thing a print magazine could do today?
It’s a tough question, man. First of all, to be honest I love interviews. I love reading them. A text block is cool, but a conversation is great. If it was me, it would be only interviews, but I want to know the facts. I want people to push deeper and deeper, to find the real truth.
Like that Big Brother interview with Dio from Black Sabbath, when they kicked the interviewer out like five minutes in…
When I met Marc Johnson, I had to stop recording at one point when we got to talking about Lakai and Adidas. I think it’s hard, but maybe it’s necessary to have somebody who would not have stopped. But then again, it could kill skateboarding, knowing too much. It’s business at the end of the day. We love skateboarding, sure, but behind the scenes are investors, money. Somebody like that could go too far. It could backfire.
Can a magazine ever actually affect a brand in that way?
Maybe. To be honest, I think the Gary Rodgers thing is one of the best things out there, so maybe more of that? It would be cool to see Gary Rodgers interviewing people in the industry. Like Nine Club – I love that, but they don’t rock the boat. It’s really really safe. “Tell me your story.” “Okay, I was born in Oakland… bla bla”. I know the story of Marc Johnson, I don’t wanna hear it again. I’d love to do a show like that, which pushed the boundaries. Gary Rodgers has a recognised role, and he could get away with it if he were to come at brands with harder questions.
How do you do that in print?
Yeah, I mean with print I think one book a year is better. We don’t need stuff every month. I think a good website like Jenkem, a book a year, and a video thing with Gary Rodgers. That’s the perfect combination.
These are all American examples. Do you think we, in Europe, have as much chance to create that combo as they do?
Yeah! If they don’t do it, I will! I mean, in the ‘NEXT’ chapter in Devoted, all the US skaters talk about who they think will be the next big skaters. Most of them mention European names. That’s so fucking cool. We have the best skaters in the world, and we need to shout about it. Europe should do it, right now!
Europe needs to develop its media then. In Europe we know everything about the US scene, but the US don’t really know what’s going on over here in the same way.
Yeah! Why do we never think – at the tradeshows, for example – to have a radio station for people to talk about the new things over here. That would be amazing. Our scene is already way up there, but there is a long way to go still for Europe to get as good as the US at reporting that scene.
What was the first skate magazine you remember owning, Lucas?
Ah man! It was just a zine. A French zine from Toulouse. It was random, cheaply made. I’m not even sure it had a name. I saw a skater way above a rail, in the air. When I started to skate, I didn’t know you were able to jump over things. I saw this on the cover and was like “How is this possible?” So I went back home and I started to try and jump over little things. After a month I’d learned to Ollie.
It’s crazy to think that when you were coming up in skateboarding you were reading the same magazines as all of us. Seeing those same guys, the legends over in the US, the big names, and now look: you’ve interviewed them all for Devoted.
Yeah, and I’m a fan, you know? It’s not, “oh hey, I’m just interviewing Marc.” No, I was in awe. I remember when I first bought an MJ board. It was impossible to think that twenty years later I’d be in his house interviewing him. It was a dream. But my dream changed along the way Sometimes your heroes aren’t the same in real life.
How do you mean?
The whole project was amazing, it really was a dream. I met these amazing guys and the interviews were incredible, and every sentence was a banger. But then, when I left, it changed. It was so hard to chase them up, to get extra material, photos, clarifications – you know? I thought some of these guys might have died. But that’s the reality of something like this, I guess.
You were doing it alone…
You know, I’m never happy with everything. I want to remember the good things, and these guys gave amazing things in those interviews. But I didn’t make the best movie ever, it can always be better.
So will you do another one?
Yeah, I’m already working on a new one. The reason that last chapter was so crazy is because of one thing, it’s because I came with one question: “Why did you give your whole life to skateboarding?” And just that question hit them so hard, because it’s true. It’s their whole fucking life.
“I don’t know if skateboarding saves lives, in the end.”
How does that fit into the new film?
With this new film I want to hit those sentimental beats again, but this time not sitting on a couch. I want to do it outside, international. I want to go to Säo Paulo, Paris, New York, Melbourne, to Africa, Asia, and meet all the local kids. Kids all around the world, with different cultures, and put it all together to see what is common and what is different between their skateboarding communities.
Why?
I want to understand what they want. What do you hate? What do they love, you know?
So what about you? What do you love and what do you hate about skateboarding?
The best thing is the freedom. You know, Professor Schmitt says: “You can have all the money in the world, you could go into a shop and buy a Ferrari. But you drive out of the shop and you have all the same rules as the rest of the world. With skateboarding, you have no rules.” I love the freedom. The feeling to just be on your board. You’re a skater, you know what I’m talking about.
Just pushing…
Just pushing! Just cruising! I love to touch people when I skate. I high five people in the street, whatever. It’s cool to interact with people.
And the worst thing?
The worst thing? Well, I don’t know if… I don’t know if skateboarding saves lives, in the end.
How do you mean?
I don’t think it saves the planet. I don’t think it helps poverty. I don’t know if we can change the world with it. But it’s about perspective, it’s about the small things. I’ll skate, and if I see a plastic bottle, I’ll throw it in the trash. Or help old people with their shopping. Inside skateboarding, maybe we can’t save the world, but outside skateboarding, skateboarders can change lives.
It’s not all about us.
We need to interact with each other. That’s why print was so important. That’s why I touch people when I skate. Because skateboarding is open, but it should be more open. We have to love people more, whether they’re skaters or not.
What do you want people to come away with from this interview?
That if you have a goal, a project, go for it. Anything is possible. Nobody gave me tips or good contacts. I did this whole thing by myself. I went to America. I went to Thrasher. I didn’t even know the address, but I knew it was next to Double Rock Skatepark. So I Instagrammed the guy at Double Rock, I asked if I could go there. He said yes! So I got there, I waited two hours outside the building because he overslept. Then he arrived, a massive joint in his mouth, and he took me in. I asked him about Thrasher, and he gladly introduced me to them. Everything is fucking possible. Just be smart. Offer to help. Stick out your thumb. Who knows, you might meet the president.
Not sure that’s one of my goals, but I like the way you think, Lucas.
instagram: @lucas_beaufort
all images courtesy of Lucas Beaufort
