Videos: Patchwork Patterns!

Okay, I’ve been thinking about Patchwork Patterns, the latest film from Think Thank for almost a week now. The images and ideas have been vividly resonating since the premiere.

Jesse Burtner and Sean Genovese have made a Brilliant conceptual snowboard movie. You will not see another like this, not just this year, but maybe ever. During the viewing I was thinking. No, that’s it, just thinking. Thinking and thinking how wickedly ass-hauling the video was! How often can you say you think when you watch shred films? Uhhh, what?

I believe Johnny Miller, Scott Stevens and Gus Engle add up to equal the future of snowboarding, and after your first viewing you will be yessing in agreement. Johnny opens up the equation with a picnic table session progressing into bed time, then goes on to jib everything from kinky cornered rails to rows of tires. His jumping is equally as impressive, sure to make anyone who hasn’t seen Johnny miller ride go, “oh damn, so that’s what people will be shredding like in a couple years.”

When observing Scott Stevens on a skateboard, his fancy-free footwork on a snowboard will make sense. Patchwork showcases a bit of both, so you can see him do his best Rodney Mullen impression followed by his Michael Jackson on a box. If you don’t’ know, you will have to see the video to find out what the Michael Jackson is, sorry folks. You will know it when you see it though. And Scott’s front flip to front flip pulled cheers from the entire crowd.

Oh holy crap. Don’t let me forget another favorite part of mine. Jesse Burtner hippie hops a black lab. The dog looks so damn confused. Jesse rolls up with some speed and jumps over that cowering jib-with-a-pulse, sending his board underneath it. The thing yelps and runs off. I’m sure the noise was more out of shock than anything else, but man oh man, will it make you laugh.

The whole film was a fuse burning away closer to the powder keg of shred-ability known as Gus Engle, so when his part came up, it truly blew everyone away. Few riders have touted the two-song closer, and maybe none as worthy as Gus Engle. Ween set the first half, which was filled with silly jibs and tough fastplants, but when the second beat-driven jam kicked in, Gus kicked up the charge and incinerated any preconceptions of what was feasible on a snowboard. He has a double rail line with a flatground backflip in the middle. WTF! Seriously.

Tricks I can’t name, and 99% of snowboarders can’t do, frolic about throughout Gus Engle’s segment. He really approaches snowboarding with the mind of a brilliant physicist stuffed into the unwashed body of a 7-year old, then stretched to 5-foot something. You must must must watch it to believe and appreciate it.

I mentioned only a few names in being the future of snowboarding, but this entire camp is important to the present and inevitably they will forge the face of our sport in the seasons to come. They haven’t necessarily been under the radar, but the Think Thank films MUST be seen by more people. Viewers get a taste of what it may be like in the crazily brilliant minds of Jesse Burtner and Sean Genovese. Every year that they make films that refresh the feel from the year previous, without losing scope on what the most important parts of snowboarding are.