There is one thing for sure about Finn: the term "Swiss Army knife" was invented for him. I don’t need to tell you this, because I’m sure you already know. This man knows a lot about a lot. When it comes to snowboarding, it really shows. I’ve had the honor of going on many different trips with this legend, and there is always something new I learn from him. From whipping around the camera to building transitions on the wall ride, he knows what’s good. I think a lot of this is attributed to the video parts that inspired Finn while growing up. I don’t know his picks yet, but I do know there must be something from Videograss and the Deja Vu/Encore era. I can draw so many parallels between those videos and the way Finn approaches snowboarding, both in front of and behind the camera. From good crew vibes to work ethic to 8mm self-expression, he has been able to draw inspiration from these sources and turn himself into one of the most well-versed snowboarders I know.
– Kennedi Deck
Chris Grenier - Videograss' Bon Voyage (2010)
I was 14 when this video came out. I was just starting to get into snowboarding, and my older stepbrother had coincidentally just introduced JJ and me to rap music. He put us on some dirty South shit like Slim Thug, Bun B, Jeezy, and Young Buck. Therefore, when "Get Buck" started playing, it was all over. The track, paired with all the hijinx and the wide variety of tricks, in this part made snowboarding look so cool. I was always a fan of the personality conveyed in Chris' parts, and I think Meyer is really good at bringing that out while editing. Videograss as a whole was so impactful for me because they made filming look really fun.
P.S. — I abused crail grabs during my early teens because of this part. Although I grew out of that eventually, I didn’t grow out of my appreciation for switch frontboards and switch backlips.
Jake Kuzyk - Videograss' Mayday! (2014)
Jake's Part: 10:54
This was released the fall after I graduated high school. I was working on the road, living in a hotel an hour north of Edmonton, Alberta, working 12-14 hours a day making a hazardous waste landfill. I think I had 3 or 4 days off that entire fall season. JJ was working making landfills too, but on another crew, so this would mark the longest time we’d spent apart. It was grueling at best, and there was a lot of doubt if suffering through such an isolating experience just for money to go snowboarding was worth it.
By this point, I was a certified VG head, so I bought Mayday! on the Apple store the day it was released and sat down after work to get into it. I vividly remember having to pause the video after Jake’s part. I needed to take a couple minutes to collect myself. The song, the tricks, the filming, the editing… any doubt on my current situation dissipated in that moment. JJ and I pooled together the money we earned that fall and bought an HVX, an Xtreme fisheye, and a truck; the things we felt like we had to have to film a “real” video part.
I still watch this part all the time, and what makes it even more impactful is that I recently heard Jake doesn’t like the song. I had this part on a pedestal - I couldn’t believe there was anything about the part to not like. It’s reassuring to know that your video part might be revered by some, regardless if you like the song or not.
Louif Paradis - Déjà Vu (2013)
Louif's Part: 30:24
I don’t actually recall the very first time I watched Déjà Vu, but I wish I did. I would love to know exactly what I thought then - all I know is that it floored me. This video was life changing in some ways. I feel like it was the cumulation of all the videos I had watched up until that point; it felt like the perfect video. Déjà Vu executed the classic full-part formula flawlessly. Everyone had amazing footage, the soundtrack was spot-on, there was a nice balance of street and pow, and it was all Canadian. It felt like they had just set the bar of what a street snowboarding video could, and should, look like. It was so inspiring - I wanted to chase that feeling that I got from watching this video. Louif’s part is just so dialed. I love his spot and trick selection.
Also, I feel like Hayden hit his stride here—and that shows. The impact of this video, and Lou’s video part, is as much from the filming and editing as it is from the riding. The soundtrack is clean, and the editing allowed everyone to really flourish. Louif’s song is a big factor in what makes his part so memorable; the vocals are really unique but as a whole, it works great with the footage. I think you gotta be freaking it on the snowboard and on the editing to use a song like that, and these guys handled biz.
P.S. — The fact that they followed this video up with Encore is absolutely legendary. Set the bar, and then jump over it.
JJ Westbury - Snowboarder Mag's Everybody, Everybody (2019)
My brother has always been my greatest influence. Having an identical twin is so cool, and growing up snowboarding together was a really special experience. We always have someone to snowboard with - snowboarding alone simply wasn’t an option. There was always an element of competition, but in a healthy way. Whenever one of us learned a trick, the other would probably learn it shortly after. JJ was goofy, and I was regular, and as we grew up a bit, we developed our own styles. There were some rather devious advantages that we inherently got to benefit from, such as the ability to watch “yourself” do something switch in real-time. I felt like I was always trying to catch up to JJ - I still believe he’s the better snowboarder out of the two of us.
This was JJ’s last real part and he went out as fucking proper as ever. Notably, this is JJ’s only part that I didn’t edit. The two clips in Edmonton with the Twins jacket on, his boardslide double close-out ender, and the fs 5050 on the St Albert down flat flat down, were the first two clips he filmed after taking a year off. JJ showed up, and to walk away from it all after this is something that I have the utmost respect for. Growing up, filming video parts or whatever was always an “us” thing and despite not getting out there with JJ nearly enough in recent years, it still really does feel like an “us” thing to me. Depending on where I am filming, if JJ is awake, I’ll send him a clip in real-time, filmed off the LCD at the spot, to see if he thinks it’s good enough. In the end, his opinion matters more to me than anything else.
Dillon Ojo - Déjà Vu: Encore (2015)
It was really hard choosing which Dillon part I would pick for this, but I picked this one because it taught me a valuable lesson about quality over quantity. This part has 11 tricks in it; it changed the way I approached filming. Growing up, we would count tricks in every video part. I thought that you needed 20+ clips for a “good” part, and this totally flipped that upside down.
Dillon is one of my greatest influences, hands down. Being a bit older, JJ and I studied his approach closely. I idolized him as someone who was paving the way for young Canadians to “make it” in snowboarding. When Pat called me to film for Snowboarder Mag, all I could really think was the last Canadian who had that opportunity was Dillon - deep down, I hope I made him proud that year. I didn’t know Dillon well, but I wish I had the opportunity to thank him for being such a positive influence. Ojo forever!
Note; the runner up choice was Dillon's segment in Nowamean’s Bangarang (2009). This part, and this crew, definitely set the tone for my VG obsession. Def worth a rewatch. Two enders!
Honorable Mention: Jed Anderson
I’m from Calgary, come on now. I could pick 5 Jed parts for this shit. If you grew up riding at COP the same time that I did, the Jed influence was overbearing. Hoodie over helmet, skinny-ass pants, and a coaches jacket that was way too light for the frigid temps was a classic Calgary fit for years. Jed is seriously one of the goats and every part is better than the last. I know that he recognizes that pressure, and it’s fuckin awesome how he continues to knock it out of the park time and time again. His influence on street snowboarding as a whole is basically impossible to put into words.
I owe a lot to the Anderson family - his brother Jared was the first person to take JJ and me on a snowboarding trip, with the snowboard club Riders On Board. Jed’s mom, Beth, also deserves a serious shoutout, she gave JJ and me some of Jed's old boards to use for filming early on, before we were getting flowed boards. Because of Jed, there was always the idea that filming snowboarding was something that you could actually go and do. Without Jed’s influence, I don’t think we would have ever formed SRD and started to film videos.