Mack Dawg Productions was formed in 1988. 20 years later we are still going strong. With the help of a lot of amazingly talented rider, filmers, musicians, producers, and directors we have laid down some very special films. The current MDP lineup includes my favorite filmer Ross Steffey who has been with MDP for 14 years, my longtime producer Lory Vincent who started with me 12 years ago, our director Brad Kremer who has been with me 5 years, newcomer co-director Jaakko Itaaho, and new to the crew this year filmer Dominic Gauthier. This crew is working hard to bring you our 20th year anniversary film which is going to be called "Double Decade" There is an incredible amount of effort that goes into these films and without a crew of this calibler we would not be making such high quality entertainment. When I started MDP I just wanted to document the best riding in the world, 20 years later and that is still the MDP philosophy. We have another crew that just started working under the MDP wing. The are comprised of Directors Pierre Minhondo and Justin Eeles, filmer/motion graphic expert Gabe L'Heureux, and longtime MDP filmer Simon Turcotte. These guys are working on the latest People film and it is sure to satifsy. There are a lot of people who have worked for MDP over the years and without them the company would not be where it is now. Many thanks to you all. Ok now lets get to a little history of MDP.
The company's first production was the skate video, "Sick Boys". This video was shot in Super 8 film and documented the early street skating scene of San Francisco with a few road trips thrown in for good measure. Tommy Guerrero, Bryce Kanights, Mike Archimedes, Julian Stranger, Mikey Reyes, and Natas Kaupas were some of the featured skaters in this project. It was all shot by me and I pretty much lived in my VW bus so I could afford to buy the film for this project. I think around 500 copies of the film were sold so it became a bit of a cult classic because you just could not find it.
Soon after I was contacted to help produce the H-Street video "Hokus Pokus" with the late Mike Ternasky. This was a ground breaking skate video that featured Matt Hensley, Danny Way, and the rest of the H-Street crew. during the filming of "Hokus Pokus", one of the amateurs on the team wanted to have a snowboarding shot in his part. His name was Noah Salasnek, and besides winning the amateur national street skating contest that year, was on the way to becoming one of the best snowboarders in the history of the sport. I went up to Squaw Valley with Noah to get a shot of him in the pipe. I could not believe what I was seeing. There were alot of people in day glow gear doing the lamest attempt at copying skateboarding that I had ever seen. Noah however put on a clinic of style and actually made snowboarding look good. I owe a lot to Noah for getting me into snowboarding and putting me on this road.
At this point Mack Dawg Productions shifted its focus to the documentation of snowboarding where it has remained since 1990. Mack Dawg started filming a group of snowboarders including Noah Salasnek, Chris Roach, Monty Roach, and Jon Biaocchi to name a few. The first snowboard film was a joint release by Mack Dawg and Fall Line Films entitled, "New Kids on the Twock". This was the first skate style snowboarding video and introduced modern freestyle tricks to the masses. The riders were a bunch of dirt burgalers who were taking the sport to the next level. They for sure did not fit into the scene and pretty much made their own.
The next video was called "Pocahontas" and featured Noah Salasnek, Chris Roach, Nick Perata, Jon Biaocci, Jeff Brushie, a 15 year old from Auburn, WA. named Jamie Lynn, and a 15 year old from Norway named Terje Haakonsen. "Pocahontas" continued the freestyle snowboarding movement as well as included some huge drops by Perata and Shaun Farmer. On a trip to Mt Baker Mike Ranquet kept telling me about this kid named Jamie Lynn. He just kept bringing this kids name up over and over. On our last day of filming out of the corner of my eye I saw some kid hit the jump I was filming and he went way bigger then everyone else. He stomped a perfect BS 180 and charged away at top speed. Who the hell was that I wondered, Ranquet said thats Jamie Lynn.
Next on the list comes one of the classics, "The Hard, the Hungry, and the Homeless". The completion of this film was made possible by the generosity of Bob Hurley who gave MDP a sizable chunk of cash to get the 1988 Subaru running again and to continue the couch and Taco Bell tour. During the filming of H3 a scraggly critter from Big Bear named Bryan Iguchi was seen ripping the pipe to shreds. He was pulled into a road trip with Mack Dawg that landed him the final part in the film. Also featured in this film was the wonder crew: Roan Rogers, Dale Rehberg, Nate Cole, and Jake Blattner, who were living in the Breckenridge ghetto. The handrail and jib sessions that ensued in and around the Breckenridge area set the standard for modern jibbing to this day. By the way the car getting crushed into the cube at the end of the film was the 1988 Subaru known as "The Mountain Ferrari".
1993 was a busy year for MDP as "Upping the Ante" was created at the same time as Standard Films. I formed Standard Films with Mike Hatchett, Dave Hatchett, and Mike King. I worked on three projects with Standard Films. Those films were entitled, "TB2 A New Way of Thinking", "TB3 Coming Down the Mountain", and "TB4 Run to the Hills". These films were a mix of freestyle and big mountain riding that were shot in 16mm film. The film TB2 had the best Haakonsen footage to date, and TB3 ushered in the legacy of one Peter Line. For more information on these films visit the Standard Films website at www.standardfilms.com. By the way I came up with the name for Standard films while using a Standard brand toilet to let the dawgs out son. The MDP release for 1993, "Upping the Ante" continued the modern jibbing movement and featured some amazing riding by Salas, Guch, Terje, Jamie, Roan, Dale, Blattner, Chad Schacky, and Brian Thien. The highlights of the film were the mega air session with Todd Schlosser and Dave Lee and Roan Rogers' death rail in France. Todd's huge BS 180 at Mt. Hood Timberline, and Roan's rail defined going big for the next several years.
1994 saw Mack Dawg Productions produce a series of videos for Transworld SNOWboarding. Four videos were released in a video magazine format. These videos were distributed by TWS and may be hard to get at this point. There are some great moments in these videos if you get a chance to see them.
In April of 1995, MDP decided to make another snowboard film along with TB4. It was apparent that it would be a battle to get enough footage before all the snow was gone hence the name. "The Meltdown Project" was also the first snowboard movie to use snowmobiles to access the backcountry. An American Eagle coupe that dropped three drivetrains towed some pathetic 340cc snowmobiles around for the entire spring, and the film was created. Highlights included the incredible riding of Ingemar Backman and Daniel Franck as well as Peter Line, Guch, Joey McGuire, Jamie Lynn, and Dave Downing to name a few.
MDP decided to start the filming a littler earlier on the 1996 release of "Stomping Grounds". This film documented the next step in airs. This was the first year that all the tricks were perfectly landed or they did not make the film. Kevin Jones spinning over the Tioga Road Gap still stands up to this day. Carabeth Burnside had a great segment in this film with skating and snowboarding. Peter's corkscrew 900's off drops were truly revolutionary.
"Simple Pleasures" had a little more freeriding in it than the previous releases. Gabe Crane and Jason Brown mixed up their freestyle with some pow and sweet lines. Peter Line was the man once again in this film and led the charge of large and technical riding. New to the MDP projects was JP Walker who destroyed his way into the opening segment of the film. Terje, JF Pelchat, Downing, Daniel and Joey McGuire all had solid parts as well. A trip to Gidwood Alaska yielded some gargantuan spins, and JP started bringing the almost forgotten art of jibbing back from the dead.
Probably the most classic in all of the MDP films is "Decade". This film briefly documented the company's first 10 years as well as continued to show the relentless progression of the sport. Devun Walsh had huge technical tricks landed in powder that set the precedent for today's freestyle snowboarding. This was another big year for Peter and JP, as well as Chad Otterstrom, Wille Yli-Luoma, Brian Thien, Bjorn Leines, Jeremy Jones, and Joni Malmi. This was a very solid representation of the MDP crew.
"Technical Difficulties" saw pretty much the same crew as the previous year's wrecking shop. New to the MDP scene was Tara Dakides. Tara showed that she was not afraid to hit the big stuff and burly handrails as well. Mikey Leblanc also had a sick part in this film as well as the mainstays, Peter, Devun, JP, Thien, Otterstrom, and Malmi. The airs in this film got quite a bit bigger and more solid, and the filming quality is amazing.
The following year MDP produced two films. The first film was called "AMP" and it got its name before the video game Amped or the soft drink Amp. Anyway "Amp", the snowboard movie, featured the riding of Brian Thien, Jason Brown, Chad Otterstrom, Trevor Andrew, Kier Dillon, Tara, JF, Chris Brown, Jason Borgstede and many others. The highlights include Kurt Wastell ripping a 25 foot water tower with huge wallrides. Also there are some sick gap to rails and large backcountry airs. The film has some awesome pipe footage as well with Tom Gilles blasting one of the biggest airs ever landed in the U tube. The second film was called "The Resistance". The film was directed by Sean Kearns who did an excellent job in the making of this critically acclaimed project.
The 2003-2004 year was really amazing. We made two films this year. The first movie we made was called "Shakedown". Shakedown followed a long line of action packed straight throat punching MDP films. "Shakedown is among the best films we have ever made. We spent the most money ever on a soundtrack that included the Rolling Stones and Metallica and it really made the footage stand out.
The second film for 2003-2004 was called "Game Show". This film is a compilation of the best jam sessions that occurred at the following events. The Red Bull Heavy Metal, The Nixon Jibfest, The West Coast Invitational, The Artic Challenge, The US Open, and The TransWorld Team Challenge. This film features a lot of the top pros as well as up and coming ams in the heat of battle.
2004-2005 brought some big changes to MDP. First and most importantly Brad Kremer took over the directing duties for the main film. Our first film with Kremer at the helm was stellar. The film is called "Chulksmack" and it is so fresh and so clean. The movie has a totally different feel to it then previous MDP films as Kremer brings his superior editing skills to the arena. With the success of this film Brad cemented his position in the company. Chulksmack is a term that many people have asked the meaning of. For me the word Chulk is a do all word that actually was created in San Diego. We had been doing our edits down on the coast to get some much needed surfing time in between the long hours of the edit bay. At the time Kearns had a few extra pounds and was just learning how to do off the lips. He was referring to himself as the Chulk and when he started hitting the lip it was called a Chulksmack. Chulk after that was used to refer to basically anything from junk food, to lame people, to funny stuff, or just about anything. Throughout the course of the filming year I heard the word Chulk about a million times and so that was the logical choice for the movie title.
For the 2005-2006 year we are released two films. Our main project is called "From _____ with Love". This movie is unique in the fact that the DVD actually has two films on it. The first is a travel based film hence the name "From _______ with Love". The second film is a part based film that utilizes the riders best footage and cuts all the travel stuff out of the equation. We wanted to make a different film so the travel film is a much needed change. We also wanted to keep our loyal action only fans happy and so we also included a cut with rider parts only. This is the best of both worlds.
I can tell you this however, "From ______ with Love" is by far the best work that we have ever done. We were very lucky to have the winter that we did. With Brad Kremer handling the directing duties, the sickest crew ever assembled, and a winter that happens once in a hundred years we could not go wrong. This is a film that we are very proud of and I know it will bring a lot of stoke to all that see it.
We also teamed up with our great friend Jeremy Jones to bring you an instructional video called "Jibbing with Jeremy Jones." This film teaches you the basics of how to jib. Jeremy brings his skill one of the best jibbers of all time into full effect and lays down the best instructional piece ever put out to the snowboarding market.
The next year we put out one of my favorite MDP films. It is called "Follow me Around" The film starts off with a crazy cable cam shot that Ross Steffey shot. It sets the tone for the whole movie. It is a fun and inspiring film that just makes you want to get out and shred. Also we brought a new crew of filmers and riders to MDP. The former Neoproto film crew came under the MDP camp to produce "People". Directed by Pierre Minhondo and Justin Eeles it brought back the raw feeling of the early MDP releases. The last film for the year is another instructional film called "Jumping with Jussi". This film features Burton superstar Jussi Oksanen teaching the skills you need to hit jumps and learn the tricks the big dawgs are throwing down.
Our last films were released in 2007. This was the year we started to move to HD with the visually stunning "Picture This". This film has some next level filming and the production value is straight out of Hollywood. It sets a new standard for action sports films. We also released "We're People Too". This film saw the rise of a young rider named Austin Smith who put down one of the best parts of the year and landed himself last part of the film, and Video Part of the Year from TWS. Once again the People crew kept it raw and made a super dope film.
So that brings us to our projects that we are still working on. We will be releasing the 3rd People film and our 20th year anniversary film which will be called "Double Decade" later this year. It is really crazy to think that this whole MDP deal has been charging this long. Well I can tell you that we are still having fun and progessing our film making skills. Keeping it real for all of our Dawgs.
I would like to extend an ongoing thanks to all of the riders, filmers, musicians, employees, and friends who have made these films possible. The legacy of all your work lives on in these films which have become a history of the evolution of freestyle snowboarding. I have the greatest respect for all of the people that have helped make this whole deal possible.
Many Thanks,
Mike McEntire and the whole MDP Crew.
