[MUSIC - SLAB CITY, "MILWAUKEE'S BEAST"]
KEVIN JONES: So here we are in this crazy
place, Red Rocks, Colorado.
And we're at the "TB20" premiere.
MIKE HATCHETT: TB is Totally Board, and
20 is our 20th film.
Feel like we accomplished something there, and feel like
that was a major, I guess, milestone.
Whatever-- sounds kind of cheesy or whatever, but to get
to 20 years, I'm happy to be able to actually work in the
snowboard industry for 20 years.
TRAVIS ROBB: When you hit a 20-year
thing, it's a big deal.
It's more about everybody at this point that's ever been
involved, ever put effort into it.
That's really what the movie's about.
DAVE HATCHETT: I honestly never envisioned that Standard
Films would last this long.
And we have definitely outlasted every other film
company out there.
We were before they all started, and
we're still there now.
JIM RIPPEY: Standard films is notorious for getting up
early, and getting onto those obstacles, and getting out
there and getting the shots.
And it takes a lot of hard work.
And that's a big part of their success.
KEVIN JONES: There wasn't 6,000 film crews
like there is today.
If you wanted to have any kind of living back then, you had
to make it in Standard Films, period.
[CHEERING]
MIKE HATCHETT: Yeah, so we're here at Alpine Meadows, and we
got a triple line built--
three jumps in a row.
Kind of like a rhythm section, like a moto section.
So we're lucking out, killer weather.
25 foot of snow base here still.
Record snow year here in Tahoe.
Could be sick.
GJERMUND BRATEN: This is the line I'd like
to pull a Four Loko.
I had a Four Loko at the after party last night.
-Did you?
Ooh.
GJERMUND BRATEN: Killed me.
MIKE HATCHETT: One person should shoot right here.
This is cool.
I like this.
GJERMUND BRATEN: I was so stoked to get invited to shoot
with Standard.
It's especially big because it's "TB20," and that's kind
of a big deal.
[MUSIC - MEAN JEANS, "STEVE DON'T PARTY NO MORE]
[CHEERING]
JEREMY JONES: I feel like Standard Films not only had a
huge influence on snowboarding but in action
sports movies in general.
DAVE HATCHETT: If it's snowboarding, we show it.
We're not a freestyle company.
We're not a big mountain film company.
We show rails, we show park, we show backcountry booters,
we show it all.
JEREMY JONES: Putting all their energy on getting the
best riders, filming them all season, and whittling down
their stuff to three-minute parts where you just show the
best stuff, and really letting the
snowboarding do the talking.
[MUSIC - MEAN JEANS, "STEVE DON'T PARTY NO MORE]
-Yeah!
MIKE HATCHETT: Yeah, Gulli!
Nice work.
That was sick.
When I got out of school, I imagined myself as a fashion
photographer or a commercial photographer, shooting fruit
and toothpaste or whatever-- cars.
I was going to be in the studio with a flash.
I wasn't thinking about shooting snowboarding.
And then Dave invited me out to go rock climbing.
And he takes me climbing for the day, and I'm kind of
checking their scene out.
I'm like, how long you guys staying here for?
Two months.
Two months?
In your car, living in your car?
That lifestyle never occurred to me.
Then he invites me out to go snowboarding,
which I'd never done.
Got hooked on that pretty much instantly.
DAVE HATCHETT: I just told him, man, you've got to come
up here and check this sport out.
This is going to be awesome.
It's really, really fun, and it's so
much funner than skiing.
And you're going to really dig it because it's like surfing.
MIKE HATCHETT: I think by the third weekend,
I'm like, fuck school.
I'm getting out of here.
I'm going to go live in my car for two years.
DAVE HATCHETT: Mike and I started this film company
called Fusion Films, which was kind of a precursor to
Standard Films.
And we really just--
we went in the backcountry, because we
needed to get footage.
And the ski resorts will just get chopped up so quick, and
it just wasn't aesthetically that rad to film.
So we were just looking across the street from Donner Ski
Ranch, and we just knew it was all virgin, untracked powder,
and it was a lot easier to work back there and get shots.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVE HATCHETT: It was is just the very first times that
anyone filmed snowboarding in the backcountry or anywhere.
So we kind of got this idea, I'll be the rider.
Mike will be the cinematographer.
We'll get some friends of ours, and we'll all just be
together, and we'll make this movie.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVE HATCHETT: The movie came out pretty good.
It was a pretty fun to watch movie.
At the time, it was cutting edge.
And financially, it just bombed.
We just didn't sell enough videos.
And then we tried to get sponsorship again the next
year, and it didn't happen.
MIKE HATCHETT: After we had made "Totally Board," I worked
for Fall Line Films for two years.
And Dave and I--
Dave was filming with Mack Dawg.
And Dave's like, dude, you and Mack Dawg should start your
own company.
Jerry and Artie aren't treating you very
good at Fall Line.
And it was his, actually, idea.
You guys should put the big mountain stuff in with the
freestyle, and we should make a movie.
JIM RIPPEY: So they basically said, hey, let's meet the
minds, and let's create something together that brings
both aspects of snowboarding.
You go to Alaska and get your big mountain riding.
We'll mix the best of that big mountain riding with all the
jibbing and freestyle park type stuff.
DAVE HATCHETT: We were just pretty much just sitting in
the house one day, and I said hey, let's send out a proposal
and see if we can kind of try and do what we did with Fusion
Films, but let's just do it in a new environment.
Maybe we can get sponsorship this time.
And within a week, we raised about $80,000 through Wave
Rave and Burton and several other sponsors.
And that was kind of when Standard Films was born.
That year, we made Standard Films' first movie, "TB2--A
New Way of Thinking."
This season at Lake Tahoe is the season I've been waiting
for all my life.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TOM BURT: It turned out that most of the areas that people
ride were developed by us.
Almost everything was new, besides for--
there's a handful of backcountry skiers who had
been skiing things, but not necessarily like what we were
looking for as far as steeper, more technical lines.
DAVE HATCHETT: Me and Tom Burt were some of the first guys to
ever jump the I-80 drop, which is a big famous drop that all
the film crews race to now.
It's a big 50-foot, pretty good sized drop.
And all throughout the Tahoe backcountry, we definitely did
several first descents, and we were certainly the first film
crews to go out there and work certain areas and certain
circs and ride certain lines, without a doubt.
JIM RIPPEY: The Hatchetts were basically filming the kind of
stuff that I wanted to ride anyway, so it fit perfectly.
I like to ride freestyle and ride in the parks, but I also
wanted to go to places like Alaska and get on the steep
stuff that really got my adrenaline going.
JEREMY JONES: They were really, at that time, defining
how to shoot skiing or snowboarding in Alaska.
And a lot of the stuff that they developed over those
years is just kind of second nature in that whole big
mountain scene.
DAVE DOWNING: I mean, I saw "TB2" when it came out, and it
blew me away.
The whole thing blew me away-- the Alaska footage.
Terry's whole part is, like, five minutes long and it's all
at Squaw Valley.
And it's just crazy.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TRAVIS ROBB: Along the way, all those guys did something
that stuck with the people and inspired them to pursue board
sport culture.
DAVE HATCHETT: We definitely became recognized as one of
the biggest film companies in the industry for quality of
cinematography and the quality of the writing.
So that's something that Standard Films will always be
known for, is just a really high-quality product.
JEREMY JONES: Part of me is pissed off at those guys
because they did hold such a high standard that it was like
you could do something amazing, but you let go of
your grab too early, and it's on the floor, because it
wasn't just perfect.
[MUSIC PLAYING]