Pat Fenelon has quietly made a name for himself as one of the best new filmers in snowboarding. Traveling and filming with some of the best riders in our sport today while at the same time staying up on and using the newest in technology has made Pat a filmer that brands like Monster, Park City and even SNOWBOARDER Magazine have turned to to document what’s going on now. With years as a sponsored rider under his belt, Pat brings a rider’s eye to capturing progression as well as his surroundings and lifestyle. With a new project about to get underway the future is only looking brighter, and there’s no doubt you will be seeing a lot from Pat’s lens.
-John Cavan

Name: Patrick Dylan Fenelon
Age: 29
Home Mountain: Yawgoo Valley, RI/Park City, UT
Brands Worked For: Park City, Monster, Nike, Videograss, SNOWBOARDER, WESC, L1, Yobeat, TransWorld, Alli, Snow Rev, Future Snowboarding, The Canyons, The North Face, EMS, Team Thunder
Gear: Panasonic HPX 170 with Century Extreme Fisheye, Canon 60d with L series Glass, Go Pro, Nizo 801, F-Stop Bags, Apple 17” laptop and Mac Pro Tower.
Video Resume: Good for Nothin’, Team Thunder’s Remember When, Gold Country, and Beauville, Commotion, The Canyons Webisodes 2010, Yobeat: Terrible Tuesdays, L1 series and WESC series, Camp 4 Collective: EMS product and trip stories, The Northface 30-second TV spot, athlete bios and trip stories. I Ride Park City: 2010-2012, Skeleton Crew 3, Jed Anderson Real Street, Nike Chapter 1, VG: Shoot The Moon, Retrospect, Darkside, and Enlighten.

You came up on the east coast, it’s a tight knit society back there, tell me some stories about coming up there.
It’s the best and the worst all at once really. If you can thrive and have fun riding and filming out there you can basically do it anywhere. I grew up snowboarding at Yawgoo Valley in Rhode Island. There were two double chairs and two rope tows and you have to drive down from the top to get to the parking lot at the base. I remember when I first got out of High School in RI and moved up to Killington, VT for college. Meeting guys like you, [Shane] Flood, and [Tim Kar]Pinski who were all super involved in snowboarding/doing cool shit and feeling like, “Damn, I want to do that!”

How did you end up moving behind the lens as opposed to performing in front of it?
Well, riding a board was pretty much my first love and the ability to work a camera was passed down from my mom who was an awesome photographer. In college I studied film, photography, and snowboarded a ton. My last couple of years in Vermont for school I started getting some sponsors and I was also spending my summers out at Mt. Hood digging which was where I made some buddies who lived in Utah. When I graduated from school I moved out there and a group of my friends were working on the Team Thunder video “Remember When.” I immediately started to help out however I could with filming, promoting, and riding. The sponsors I had at the time seemed hyped and started helping me a bit more so I decided to go with it and see how far I could push my riding. I was able to accomplish some awesome stuff riding a snowboard that I never thought I would. I continued working with the Team Thunder crew for a few more years but eventually companies with more money started grabbing up riders and filmers from our crew and at that point I decided to get a bit more serious behind the lens.

How was it working on the IRPC series?
So awesome! Working alongside guys like Rob Mathis and Jeremy Cooper is really cool. They’re bad ass and the crew of riders up there on any given day is insane! So much talent on the hill and the resort really understands the value in having us up there and are willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

How difficult is it to constantly try to make the same park look different?
Well it’s pretty easy with how often they are switching stuff up at Park City. Sometimes it blows my mind when I show up twenty-four hours later and everything is different! In general I think that’s what I like about shooting up there the most. The challenge of trying to do something a bit different to spice things up.

What snowboard videos have inspired you over the years, and what non-snowboard movies have inspired you?
I burned out my VCR with “The Garden,” “Decade,” and “Technical Difficulties.” After that all the Robot Food flicks of course, and the Iron Curtain movies for obvious east coast reasons. “Love/Hate” and “Burning Bridges” also kind of blew my mind. I think everything people are doing now is great, too. The movies are all pretty insane. The bar is high these days! In terms on non-snowboarding movies, “The Art of Flight” was pretty sick! Haha, there is a mountain biking movie called “Life Cycles” that I’m really hyped on made by some skilled dudes in Canada. Animal Planet is always a good watch, Michel Gondry stuff, Wes Anderson.

What was the most random thing to happen this season filming at the mountain for the web series?
Slowdy! Cody Rosenthal came up and threw down!

You are someone who is up on a lot of new camera technologies. What are some new things people should be aware of and what has you excited the most in the camera world?
Oh man, yeah I’m a gear nerd, it’s true. It’s a crazy time for video. I feel like camera companies are releasing so many new cameras almost every week. It’s tough to stay up on it. I’d say what excites me most is the inevitable release of more video cameras which shoot 4 or 5k RAW images and much higher frame rates. This will be similar to the whole “HD” video craze of 2006 with the release of the HVX and other cams like it. The game will be changed once again soon! Haha.

How important is music to your edits and how do you go about choosing songs?
Very important. I do a lot of searching online and asking around when I’m looking for a song. I think whenever you make an edit it’s the first thing that people are apt to either love or hate about it but in the end it’s pretty subjective so I usually try to switch it up as much as I can.

Speaking of music, tell me a little bit about the karaoke night in Tokyo during the Holy Bowly.
OMG! One of the greatest nights of my life. It’s a bit foggy, but one thing is for sure. You, Bridges, Harrison, Blum, Yoshida, Kohei, Teddy, Hironakasan, Liam, Seth, Wes Makpeace, Jamie Lynn and I all definitely sang “Heart of Gold.”

Okay, deep question here: In this current “immediate media world” do you think there is still a future for snowboard films and what kinds of changes can be made to how things are done?<
Yes I do. I think things will take a natural course really, and I think what is happening now is good. In a way I think it’s going to help weed things out a bit. I try to remember what I was like as a kid watching snowboarding videos. I just wanted to watch as much stuff as I could and I was broke. So videos for free on the internet work. Why make a kid that already can barely pay for a lift ticket or a pair of boots spend thirty dollars on a DVD that’s only made to market the boots and lift ticket he can’t afford? Plus, I think this format helps to free riders and filmmakers to do what they want to a lot more. I think next season we will see a lot more online full parts that are powerful and are reaching more people than a DVD sitting on a shop could. Stuff like this has been happening in skateboarding for a long time now but for some reason it always takes snowboarding a few years to catch up. That being said, I think the full movie thing should definitely continue on but I see things shifting along more towards team movies and higher quality downloads because the DVD much like the VHS, Betamax, floppy disks, laser disks, et cetera, has died.