STANDARD FILMS PT 1/4 | POWDER & RAILS | VICE

[MUSIC PLAYING]
KEVIN JONES: So here we are in this crazy place
of 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 milestone, whatever.
It sounds kind of cheesy or whatever.
But to get to 20 years, I'm just 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 get 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.

MIKE HATCHETT: So we're here at Alpine Meadows and we've
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 a line I'd like
to call Four Loko.
I had a Four Loko at the after party last night.
MALE SPEAKER: Did you?
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 shit
with Standard.
It's specially big because it's TB20.
And that's kind of a big deal.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JEREMY JONES: I feel like Standard Films not only had a
huge influence on snowboard 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 parks, 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 PLAYING]
MIKE HATCHETT: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE]!

Nice work.
That was sick.
MIKE HATCHETT: 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 a studio with a flash.
I wasn't thinking about shooting snowboarding.
And Dave invited me out to go rock climb.
And he takes me climbing for the day, and I'm checking
their scene out.
I'm like, dude, how long are 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, my man, you've got come
and check this sport out.
It's 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 went in the backcountry because we needed
to get footage, and the ski resorts 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 pattern.
It was a lot easier to work back there and get shots.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It was 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]
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 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 a company.
Gerry and Arty 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.
Within a week, we raised $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.
DAVE HATCHETT: 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, beside for--
There's a handful of backcountry skiers who'd been
skiing things, but not necessarily like what we are
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 ascents.
And we were certainly the first film crews to go out
there and work certain areas and certain [INAUDIBLE] 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 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.
It's like all of Squaw Valley.
It's just crazy.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TRAVIS ROBB: I love 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 riding.
So that's something that Standard Films will always be
known for, is just our really high quality product.
JEREMY JONES: Part of me's pissed off with those guys,
because they did hold such a high standard that it was like
you could do something amazing, but you're let go of
your grab too early and it's on the floor, because it
wasn't perfect.
[MUSIC PLAYING]