My earliest memory of snowboarding is playing MTV Sports: Snowboarding on the PS1 in 1999. Back then, I didn't give too much thought as to how it became popular enough to be a PlayStation game, nor did I think I'd ever snowboard given the fact the closest mountain to me was in the arse-end of Scotland. Fast forward a few decades (uggh), and now snowboarding is all I really do, and I'm beyond thankful it exists.

Upon reflection, neither the hours I wasted on the PS1 nor my ability to trash myself on a snowboard would exist without Jake Carpenter's vision and tenacity to get us on the hill in the first place. Dear Rider, a feature-length documentary takes us on a rich historical journey through the highs and the lows of Burton Snowboards and offers an honest and unprecedented look into Jake's personal life and family, and how he managed to transform a fringe activity into the cultural phenomenon it is today.

Following a 4-stop EU movie tour, we caught up with Jake's son, George, and director Fernando Villena in Burton Euro HQ in Innsbruck to chat about the movie, Jake's legacy, and how his love of standing sideways has formed the community and culture that we're all so so hyped on day in, day out.

Thank you, Jake!

Interview: Caitlin Murray
Photos: @charlyschwarzphotos/@burtoneurope

Hey George and Fern. How's Europe been treating you so far?

Fern: For me, it's pretty exotic because I'm not familiar with this part of the world. But it's been great! We premiered Dear Rider in Zurich, in the city that Jake loved so much, and that was really special, and the response was great, you know. It's been really fun, except having to deal with the Covid situation, but I think we've all managed to make the most of it whilst being very, very careful. Laax was really cool, I think that's the closest I've ever been to the sun, but it was great seeing the competition and having another screening there.

You're on the Innsbruck leg of the tour now, how does it feel to be back in Burtons European Headquarters? Have you spent much time here in the past? 

George: Not recently. It's been about ten years for me. I used to live in Austria when I was super young, and we would come here as a family, but I haven't been around the European snowboard scene a lot. It was awesome to be in Laax and around the energy of a big snowboard contest again for the first time since the US Open. Looking forward to the premiere tonight in IBK and then onto Stockholm. It's been cool meeting people that have stories from the past. We met one guy who had this crazy snowboard collection like all the old boards and T-shirts at his house. There must have been like $100,000 worth of snowboards in there. To be able to share the history and the stories with everyone that came along has been really great.

You and your brothers feature quite heavily in the film. It must have been wild being raised around the epicentre of snowboarding culture

George: Yeah, you know it's interesting thinking about how I felt when I was younger. Everything seemed normal because you had nothing to compare it to. But looking back at it, we met thousands of people. I got to grow up around my idols. I think I wanted to be a pro snowboarder at one point and realised quite quickly it probably wasn't going to happen. But being able to go to whatever country and having friends and a community there automatically was quite amazing.

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Something that really stood out to me was when Jake was talking about the earliest days of Burton, he didn't have that community or camaraderie around to keep him motivated and support his ideas, which is one of the biggest reasons we all love snowboarding, it must have been difficult.

Fern: You make a good point. When he was first starting out, he was doing it alone, and it must have been, I don't know if depressing is the right word, but isolating. Being that isolated but not giving up on your dream and not giving up on your vision is quite a thing, and he wasn't going to stop until he made it work. What I can't wrap my head around is that it wasn't a sport back then, but he always believed it could be, and I think that vision and that tenacity, it's mind-boggling to me, and that's one of the things I respected the most when doing the research.
 

Have you been involved in any other snowboard projects before doing Dear Rider? 

Fern: I'm not a snowboarder, so I'm really thankful to the family for allowing me to film as an outsider to tell Jake's story. The first thing I learned about Jake was his battle with Miller Fisher Syndrome, and before I met him, I cut together a short film that was kinda rooted in that.
 

''It was a great experience, there were no egos or politics involved just this desire to get it right.''
 

How long was the whole filming process, and did it change much from the original plan?

Fern: About three years, Red Bull Media House, Brian, and Jake started in early 2018. Jake was instrumental in doing a lot of the background chronology, which is incredibly difficult. Figuring out how and when things happened and who was there, so without that chronology, it would have been super hard to make. George was involved from the very beginning, and I got on it late.

George: Just adding to the developmental aspects of it. When Ben (Brian), the producer, first met my dad, he said this was probably going to be a 3-year project. We spent time meeting with potential directors, writers, and some of the players that would make this work. We originally had a plan to follow my dad as he always rode for 100 days, and that was going to be part of the story, and we had this kind of treatment written and had a director picked. When my dad got sick, the director that we originally had pulled out of the project but, my dad and my family really loved Fern, so it was a no-brainer. My dad sadly passed away pretty quickly, and after a few months, Ben reached back out to us and asked if we wanna continue doing this thing. We knew my dad would have wanted us to do it, so we all went on a snowboarding trip to Breckenridge, and there was just really good energy, good chemistry, and we really trusted Fern and Ben and quickly became friends with both of them and really began developing this thing. We were really lucky that there was so much archival footage, he did so many old interviews and we really wanted it in my dad's voice. So, when Covid started it was fortunate in a way because we had a couple of months to really check through it all.

Fern: In January 2020 (pre-Covid) we said this film can take a lot of different directions but what we wanna do is have Jake tell the story as much as possible. We hadn't dug into the footage yet to see what was there, but there was so much great stuff, and luckily, we were able to craft that narration from those sources. Jake was quite the videographer. I can attest to the fact that George had a very unique childhood with him and Donna as parents because I've seen footage, like who does this stuff you know? It's just so fascinating to watch their lives. Jake was documenting his and Donna's life before the kids came along and that family bond, that culture that they have, it permeates the whole company. 

George, you were an Executive Producer on the project, was this the first time for you? 

George: Yeah, I think from the beginning we really trusted these guys and the whole crew that worked on it. For me it was quite easy, I would call my mom sometimes when we needed her opinion and show her every couple of cuts and just kind of being the voice for the family. We didn't actually own a lot of the footage, and that was an interesting part of this process, trying to figure out who owns what. I don't think I'll ever be an EP on a film, but it did make me realise the importance of these vast archives that we have. It's historical and we need to digitise and preserve it.

Fern: He did good, I've worked with EPs before, he knew when to be involved and when to give us space. It was really important to have him as kind of the middleman for the family. It was a great experience, there were no egos or politics involved just this desire to get it right.

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Having not been involved in any snowboard projects before, is there anything that particularly stuck out to you when making Dear Rider?

Fern: I've never been around a sport that feels so much like a community. There's a desire for you to join, like come and have as much fun as we're having! You don't get that in other sports. I found it really inspiring, and on a personal level, I wanted it to come through in the film, and I think it goes back to what we're talking about earlier about Jake creating this culture, and it's in the DNA of the sport.

You've created a really rich history of snowboarding and Burton. I particularly liked how honest and open Jake was to talking about the mistakes he made in the past. How did you decide what to include?

Fern: Jake wasn't around when we made the film, but he left a plan and pretty much detailed how he wanted the movie to be. First of all, he didn't want it to be boring, and I never had that fear, but the family at any time could have easily said, you know we don't really need to tell the patent story or go into the Big B or we don't need to talk about Tom Sims, but they never said that. Donna and George always told us that we had complete autonomy to tell a story as long as we were factually accurate, so usually we went off what Jake said. We cross-referenced that, but it's hard to make a movie that also involves a company. I think our first pass before we started dialling it in was more of, I wouldn't say a commercial, but it wasn't as specific as it got with the 3rd or 4th pass. I think it's a testament to the family more than anything else that those things are in the film. It was a challenge as we didn't have Jake to tell the story, but he was telling those stories all along. We just had the good fortune of making it into a film. I think that if he'd been here, and this is all just speculation, it probably would have ended up being about three hours long. He spoke about his mom and brother's passing in interviews, but he didn't speak in depth like I probably would have encouraged. So, in that regard, how do you tell a story where you don't have that much material so that it doesn't feel surface level? We originally wanted to travel, but due to Covid, this didn't happen, so it became a 100% archive film except for the US Open segments.
 

Jake's heart and soul went into snowboarding, and he just wanted everyone to have the freedom to do whatever the fuck they wanted and to have as much fun whilst doing it. How will Burton continue his legacy?

George: There's a lot of people that have been around Burton for a long time and that knew my dad. He just set this culture of excellence and having fun and doing the right thing, and I think there are enough people around that can kind of carry his spirit into the future. I think it's up to all of us, the whole snowboard community, to keep that vibe going. Being a family-owned company really allows us to not focus on profits and quarterly reports all the time. We're passionate about climate change, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and about having fun and inviting more people into this sport. Plus, being a family-owned company, we can also do whatever the fuck we want.

Fern: I think what's most important for me to take away from the film is this opportunity, in a lot of ways, to really meet Jake for the first time. To understand his impact on not just the sport but how people enjoy winter. For young riders to understand the sacrifices he made, the resilience to see it all through, and how it's not all about being right and always being on top because he wasn't. He learned from his mistakes and corrected them. I think the legacy of 'have as much fun as possible' is everything. He's no longer with us, but that legacy is more powerful now than ever. So, if the film can help people understand how Jake was as a person, that for me would be a great result.

Word. Do you have anything else you'd like to add?

George: Method Mag is awesome, keep it going.

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You can watch the movie HERE and browse the full digital archives HERE