Mike “Mack Dawg” McEntire.
Photo: Andy Wright

After a twenty year run of producing annual snowboard films, which began with the revolutionary “New Kids on the Twock” and will culminate with the release of this winter’s “Double Decade,” Mike McEntire shared with TWBiz that MDP will not film a traditional snow movie this winter, but will instead focus on other projects including a documentary on the life and times of Peter Line.

“It’s going to be a documentary about his whole life story,” says McEntire, who has also branched out into motocross videos over the last five years and is planning a history of distance jumping. “We’ll be doing a Jeremy Jones one too in a couple years when he gets ready to retire, and we’re going to do a history of snowboarding piece here in the next year or two. Obviously, we have a lot of footage of tons of people and we’re going to explore some online stuff and cut some ‘day in the life’ type pieces as well. We’re going to do some commercials and bigger feature stuff as well as 3-D and just move into some different avenues.”

McEntire has wanted to diversify into these types of projects for a while, but hasn’t been able to dedicate the necessary time. “The thing is when you’re in the zone as we are when we’re doing [an annual film] it’s pretty much all inclusive. It takes an incredible amount of time now to get shots and you’re out there all winter and then the winter ends, and then you’re editing, and then right after that it’s the premier, and then it snows early and you’re off on some rail trip and get it going again. It is pretty hard to do anything unless you just do it. Ross Steffey, my main camera guy for forever, he’s going to be working with me on the new projects and he’s really stoked.” MDP producer Lory Vincent will also be playing an integral role in the new projects.

In addition to allowing some renewed creative freedom and variety, McEntire believes these documentary type projects will appeal to a much larger audience and garner interest from riders and non-riders alike, and will therefore have more sponsorship appeal than a typical snow movie. “The snowboarding films that everyone’s making, if you don’t snowboard, you’re not even gonna be stoked on it. There’s not much to it that an average person can get out of it. When you’re talking about telling a story then you’re getting into a way bigger audience. Any time there’s human interest involved, then that opens the door for tons of people to be interested in it. Those types of projects have a lot of longevity and they’re more likely to get picked up on TV and go to film festivals and a lot of different people are going to see it and get stoked.”

McEntire insists that the change in strategy is primarily due to a desire to work on different projects and not a financial one. “We’ve obviously been doing it forever and have one of the better reputations. People knew that if they sponsored our movies, it’s money well spent. We still are making good money on it.” But while the current model is still profitable, he freely admits that there are disturbing changes afoot in the video market and believes that major transformations are on the horizon.

One key issue he sees affecting the business is Internet piracy of content. “Any industry that relies on a digital master and makes copies of it to make money dies by the Internet,” says McEntire. “It doesn’t matter what you do, if it’s a digital item that you can put on a computer and send it around then that’s exactly what they do.” McEntire agrees that this is not necessarily a bad thing for sponsors in the short term, as it allows more exposure for their brands, but he feels it will lead to decreasing video quality in the long haul. “People…don’t know how much effort all the riders and film companies put into this. In the end I would have to say that a lot of people [in the industry] will be getting over it fairly shortly too, and then what happens is all these kids that thought they were all stoked for getting this stuff for free are gonna get nothing, well nothing of super, crazy good quality. There’s a handful of people that have been making snowboard movies for a super long time and they’re skilled craftsmen at what they do, and when those guys start to go away then the kids are gonna see that there’s a big difference between that type of production and just some kid with a [camera].”

McEntire believes that the focus of future films will shift to team videos with a similar model to the skate industry. “I think that the economy is really gonna hurt a lot of the manufacturers to the point where they can’t afford to sponsor movies and then I think that the independent film companies are gonna have a really hard time.”

Another major problem he sees with the industry is the volume of films being distributed by unscrupulous, profit driven distribution companies. “There’s something like 300 plus videos that are being distributed this year. All that does is burn everyone out on snowboard videos. How can you get stoked if there are 300 of the same kind of film?”

Despite concerns over the state of the industry, McEntire still loves the sport and wants to stay firmly rooted in it. And although MDP will not be filming a traditional snow flick this upcoming winter, McEntire doesn’t rule out future projects. “Moving forward it remains to be seen. We’ll see how we’re feeling. We’ll keep our feet in the snowboarding thing and maybe we’re going to come back at some point. We’re just basically taking a break and it’s a good time for a break.”

Stay tuned to Transworld Business for an in-depth feature on the state of the snowboard video industry.

Here’s MDP’s Video Legacy to Date:

Tags: Mack Dawg, MDP

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm and is filed under FEATURES, NEWS. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.