JERRY DUGAN: My name is Jerry Dugan from FLF Films, formerly
Fall Line Films.
We're in Reno, Nevada, in our new space that we just got
settled into.
We're up in our edit bay.
"On the Western Front, Project Six, Snowboarders in Exile."
And I have a whole storage area that's
got even more tapes.
I got to say we've been doing this for a little while.
TOM BURT: Pretty much the first snowboard video that was
put out by anybody was from Jerry and Arty
and Fall Line films.
TODD RICHARDS: The very first movie that I ever got was
called "The Western Front," and it was completely
different than anything else I'd ever seen.
At that time, Fall Line made the movie that everyone wanted
to be in, everyone wanted to see it, you had to see it, and
it was just insane.
JERRY DUGAN: So here you go.
This is it.
Granted, this is like 1988 or something, '87, it
was a long time ago.
We had this section of paradise here, and that was
the idea, all is quiet on the western front.
There's all these screwed up things happening in the world,
the riots over the Ayatollah dying, China killing it's own
people for wanting freedom and basic democratic principles.
We were on the edge of nuclear war, but we had this little
pocket of pleasure that nothing really mattered
because we were snowboarding and we were
super happy about that.
-How about if all the soldiers in the world traded in their
weapons for snowboards?
-I'm all for it.
-Right on.
DAVE SEOANE: Well the western front was more like a frozen
discotheque.
STEVE GRAHAM: It was just like a day and a half of filming in
the late season in Squaw Valley.
There's a couple fun things.
TOM BURT: "Western Front" was the first video where it was
like I'd sit there and study.
Just watch it and watch it and watch it.
We were snowboarding the way we thought it was supposed to
be, and we were having a good time at it, but then we saw
this and it completely changed--
it spoke to me because it was way more like skating and
everything was really in slow motion.
When, back east, we were really herky-jerky with our
tweaks and grabs, and those guys were super slow, hold it.
We were slapping our boards, and those guys were holding
everything and really making it look like one fluid motion.
DAMIAN SANDERS: We would just go out there and jump jumps
and film with Jerry and Arty from Fall Line.
And those were way better than any competition because that
got your name out there everywhere.
It worked out great.
JERRY DUGAN: I thought what they were doing was cool.
I'd grown up skating, and snowboarding was a sport that
I thought was really cool, and just trying to get cool shots.
No idea what we were going to do with it and sold 3,000 or
4,000 copies in like 1988.
It was phenomenal, really.
And we used that, then, to go get sponsorship for the next
year's film, which was "Snowboarders in Exile."
PAT BRIDGES: Everybody says, ooh, "Western
Front" changed my life.
What, when you saw half of it at your buddy's place?
I don't know anybody--
I mean it was like a mythic video.
Ooh, did you see "Western Front"?
No, but I saw "Heavy Metal Parking Lot".
It's like, I don't know.
I think the video that really had an influence and changed
everybody was "Snowboarders in Exile".
That was a video that was huge, and it was
a much better video.
JERRY DUGAN: We'd only made "All's Quiet on the Western
Front" at this point, so this was like a real film for us.
[PUNK MUSIC PLAYING]
VIDEO NARRATOR: Up until now, snowboarders have never had
real movies to call their own.
Small segments in ski movies just weren't enough.
It was time for a real snowboard movie to be made.
If for nothing else, for those people who've watched the
sport grow from it's infancy.
Those people who still remember being exiled from
most major ski areas.
JERRY DUGAN: When we did "Snowboarders in Exile," we
tried to follow three guys and make it more about a story of
three guys.
And it was Seoane, Graham and Damian.
Other people played into the movie in different sections
and parts and how life happens--
we went here, we met this person and
rode with this person--
but we tried to make it about them and their life and their
experience.
VIDEO NARRATOR: A lot has changed
since those early days.
Snowboarders are allowed most everywhere now, because every
day, people like Damian Sanders, Steve Graham, Dave
Seoane, and Chris Roach push snowboarding to the limits.
The problem with taking something to the limits, is
that most people aren't ready for them.
New ideas are very rarely welcomed with open arms.
TODD RICHARDS: There was a story, and then we went to Val
d'Isere, and that sucked, and then we went to Tahoe--
and it was cheesy as hell.
You watch it now, you're like, oh my god, dude.
But at the same time, that was it.
You just wanted to see that.
You didn't care how stupid Jerry sounds
narrating his own movie.
It was just amazing because there was this one tight group
of people and it was like, and then Damian Sanders and we
went there, and Damian showed us big air.
It is cheesy, but it's just awesome.
People ate it up.
I ate it up.
I was like, holy shit, Damian Sanders.
Awesome.
DAMIAN SANDERS: Jumping is it.
Jumping is what it's all about.
If you can't jump, this isn't your sport.
I thank God I met those guys because I might not have ever
been in that video.
That was a huge career boost.
It was a popularity boost.
It made my whole future in snowboarding.
DAVE SEOANE: "Snowboarder in Exile" is a snowboarder who
gets kicked out of the local resort and having to travel
into the back country or half way around the world to push
their ability more.
There was a group of us from Tahoe, and Noah Salasnek, and
I think there was just--
we were all at the right place at the right time, and it just
worked out that we all kind of just knew each other.
So it wasn't like we had to audition or anything.
We kind of had our own little niche because of the fact that
we didn't really have anything involved with the contest, and
then we did the films.
And so, with all those films, that probably gave us a lot of
recognition that we couldn't get in contests, and it worked
out really well.
STEVE GRAHAM: "Snowboarders in Exile" is driving a car that
isn't legal, push starting it everywhere.
Living on the edge.
"Snowboarders in Exile."
None of us really knew where we could go, but that year,
they got us to places.
We stayed three weeks in Jackson Hole.
At that time, I remember, because it was unheard of, it
was almost a benefit to us.
It was good.
BRAD KREMER: I would get so much emotion
out of those movies.
I wanted to go to Whistler and hit the wind whip.
I wanted to go to Squaw, and I wanted to go up to Donner.
It's like, he would tell a story and just draw me into
it, and that was the amazing thing.
Most movies these days are all about people sections and
trick, trick, trick and all this stuff.
But back then it was about telling a story about what
snowboarding is and about what the lifestyle is.
And that's what really influenced me.
Old Fall Line movies, the first three or four that they
made, that was filmmaking.
That was really good stuff.
PAT BRIDGES: If you wanted to just see guys who are taking
chances and riding bigger mountains, doing bigger
cliffs, hitting bigger jumps, spinning more, you wanted to
check out Fall Line Films and "Snowboarders in Exile."
TOM BURT: Sometimes you're like, hey, come shoot this
because we found this cliff, we want to jump off of it.
Or it's good power.
And then sometimes they're like, hey, what do you think
about this?
Something that looks good to the camera.
[ROCK MUSIC PLAYING]
JERRY DUGAN: It's by far the best film ever
done at that point.
It's by far at least 22 minutes too long.
But the sport was progressing so fast that you'd put
something in one week, and the next week you're like, oh,
yeah, that kind of sucks.
This was the first of Graham.
This is the big back flip trick, and he goes a double.
That's the thing, back in 1989,
1990, that was a landing.
A year later it was like, oh, you butt checked.
In my ID, he landed.
Little butt check, whatever.
DAVE SEOANE: People were so happy with the film, and it
definitely pushed us to do something a little more
spectacular.
That just means going off something bigger and
a little more risk.
They had a premiere at ASR in San Diego for "Snowboarders in
Exile." And we had no idea what was going to happen, and
it was really nice that there was a lot of people that
showed up, and then it was something to be really proud
of being part of.
So after the film, people were like, no way!
That was a good feeling.
JERRY DUGAN: It was the first time there were like 500 of
the industry's top pros and industry people all in one
spot, and no one had ever really done a premiere like
this before.
And we had this, at the ASR trade show in the fall, it was
for sure highlight of everything, playing this film
for all those people.
DAMIAN SANDERS: And that was like the complete career
changing moment.
Everybody saw that video and saw what was really going on
in snowboarding outside of their little home resort.
And couldn't believe that people were jumping flips off
of cliffs and 360s off of 60 foot cliffs and things.
It made us all instant superstars.
It was killer.
JERRY DUGAN: Did the video make them, or did
they make the video?
Were those guys talented?
Absolutely.
Would they have gone on to what they had gone on to had
it not been for the video?
Possibly, possibly not.
Did it help?
For sure.
Did it make them?
No, they made themselves.
But it for sure was in conjunction to where
they all went to.
Yeah, maybe we did create the video pro.