As each rider brought a different level of technicality and vison for expression on a wakeskate, they also rode with the intent to redefine accepted boundaries. Leatherman recalls, "I think during that time in the sport, we were all looking for unique things to try, whether they were natural or fabricated. For Sfumato, we consciously stayed away from shooting anything that was seen or built before. Some of it worked and some of them didn't." Specific examples include the hand dug step down land gap, which was conceptualized by Aaron Reed. Reed recalls, "It was at a friend's place in Groveland. We dug down and made a berm with the excavated dirt to create the pool. We towed it behind my friend's bronco at first, and then Thomas brought the Sea Doo over."
Leatherman and Myles Vickers drew upon their skate influence by conceptualizing the towable pink fun box. It was simple, creative and versatile because it was also mounted in hubba fashion over Metrowest for Horrell to log a noseslide as one of his closing clips. However, the box's limitations did not go unrecognized by Leatherman: "The pink box was fun, but the reality of try to do something like that consistently was a novelty."
Sea Doo ad contest featuring Thomas hitting the pink box. Somehow these guys were able to get a pretty risque caption through, and published in the most conservative/family oriented magazine in the industry. The caption says "Thomas hittin the pink box from the back side."
Conversely, one familiar spot with skate aesthetics they didn't have to build is the iconic Mizell boxes, which first appeared in Linear and became a staple location for all films featuring the Cassette team. Many years back, Horrell recalled, "The wooden ledges in the vid were actually built by the city when they re-dug those canals; perfect square wooden ledges. We were pretty excited."
Sfumato Premieres
In 2003, videos were sparse and usually a multi year project. It was a ritual to have a premiere party to launch the film to the public once it was complete. The Cassette team matched the scale of the film itself and went went big with two premieres. The first took place in conjunction with a tour stop in Portland (Horrell happened to win this event, and a young Silas Thurman also made an appearance in the pro wakeskate division), on June 26, 2003. The Second premiere was on September 13, 2003 at a bar in Orlando, and coincided with Surf expo weekend.
“I remember the very first premier we had in Portland, Oregon, at the tour stop. We had it in a huge theater with a couple other vids at the same time. The wake vibe was huge, and I think we may have got some sort of standing ovation. Reed’s part still gives me the chills when I watch it. It was MV's [Myles Vickers’] birthday that night, so we were having a good time. He got a little out of control, and Zane Schwenk ended up getting hit in the head with a pitcher. It was honestly an accident. The owner of the bar said she could throw him out the easy way or the hard way. We all started chanting “The hard way,” so they threw him head first through the front door. MV then showed up to the pro tour the next day wearing his LT jersey and was immediately cut off from the beer garden after bringing his own 18 pack. He didn't like that very much, so he threw some water on the guy, who ended up being some sort of a black belt and gave MV a nice shiner. The moral of the story is there is no more beer garden on tour. You can thank Myles for that.
The Premier we had in O town was great. We had a bar tab for free, which never happens for us. We played the alternate soundtrack for the actual premiere. I think people really enjoyed it until X-Tina hit the surround sound. (Ed note: Jim rode to infatuation by Christina Aguilera in the alternate soundtrack edit.) Other than that, I can’t remember too much else. Those were the glory days and I’m still holding on to them.” -Jim Leatherman
I'm not VIP, but I know someone who was. VIP card courtesy of FDLT.
The impact created by the ground breaking footage in Sfumato can be credited to the approach of Horrell. If any discussions about the moves witnessed were had, those discussions were shrouded by the Sfu Code. This was an understanding that if you were lucky enough to be on the inside of what had gone down, anything you knew did not leave the group. That understanding resulted in one of the most highly anticipated, impressive, and influential films in wakeskating history. (Ed note: the sfu code term and the release of the Da Vinci code, also released in 2003, are completely unrelated, but absolutely wild conicidences.)
“The WBM booth was right next to Cassette’s and the buzz was heavy all weekend long. I remember whenever I’d hear that song by the Faint, I would run over to get another peek at Danny Hampson’s breakthrough section, and there would be a crowd of people watching in amazement saying “Who is this kid? Where did he come from?” The Cassette team already had the limelight in wakeskating, but some how they managed to keep everything about this film under wraps until its release. From first-time tricks to new gaps to the first-ever winch riding, Sfumato took the entire wake industry by storm that weekend. And they followed up with the Best Video award at the First Annual Wake Awards at the following Expo.
The ‘Sfu Code’ was just a light-hearted term that Horrell and Aaron Reed came up with to note the secrecy of certain info we would share with others during the Sfumato era. That film took so many people by surprise and really proved the value of keeping things under a lid until the right time. That was something Horrell always had a good vision and instinct for how, when and why.” -Kevin Michael
Said booth, featuring said tv screen playing Sfumato on loop. Surf expo 2003, photo by FDLT.
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