POWDER and RAILS Episode 3: Snowboarders in Exile

Snowboarders in Exile was the hit. FLF had made a small stir with The Western Front, but Exile actually created a movement. It solidified the video-pro as a legit career path, and made FLF the first legitimate snowboard filmmakers. In the years following, Jerry Dugan and Arthur Krehbiel helped both Standard Films and Mack Dawg Productions get off the ground and on their way to becoming two of the biggest snowboarding production companies going today. The main riders in the video, Damian Sanders, Steve Graham, Dave Seoane, and Chris Roach, became household names everywhere and not just in California.

Since Western Front had given FLF some industry credibility, the video actually had sponsors and they were able to leave their home mountain and go to places they had never been. All the riding is done as a group and it's easy to see them feeding off each other in every session and trying to outstyle one another. The music got a little better too, with tunes by HR, fIREHOSE, and Husker Du. There's even a glimpse of a certain Penthouse Pet in there. This video is a lot of fun.

TREVAR CUSHING

POWDER and RAILS Episode 2: Western Front

Watching FLF's "Western Front" nowadays, you may think this is some fruity shit. But if you've ever seen any other snowboarding videos from around the same time you understand that "Western Front" is the coolest thing going. It's the first snowboarding video ever made that wasn't like a promo or a team video. Freestyle riding was the main focus and it was more about doing tricks rather than winning races or trying to replicate the stuff that skiers did. Snowboarding was really small then and not many people even got to see the video, but it set the stage for what snowboarding was going to turn into.

TREVAR CUSHING

POWDER & RAILS Video 1

POWDER & RAILS
In the late 80s, a bunch of skaters who were bored in the wintertime inadvertently made snowboarding what it is today. They filmed each other not with any sort of historic legacy in mind, but just because that’s what you do when you’re a bunch of dudes who ride around on a piece of fiberglass in the snow all day. Then people saw these videos and started to realize the potential for tricks and big air on a snowboard, and everything else took off from there.

For whatever reason, most snowboarders have never embraced their forerunners with the same enthusiasm as skaters and surfers. That’s why I decided to make this show—as a way of giving credit to the people who took snowboarding from a fringe hobby to something people get paid stupid amounts of money to do. Or at least that’ll be the first few episodes. We’ll see where it goes from there.

Love,
Trevar.