Interview by Jeff Schmuck

How's it hanging gentlemen?

Pat King: Not bad at all.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Pretty good. It's finally getting nice out.

How about we kick things off by having you state your names, area of expertise, relationship status and favorite adult beverage.

Graeme Meiklejohn: My name is Graeme Meiklejohn, I film and edit, I'm currently in a relationship...

Well that's a bummer for all the ladies out there.

Graeme Meiklejohn: I know, sorry chicks. And my favorite adult beverage is definitely the new Palm Bay flavor.

I second that. I'm a fan, and I'm not afraid to admit it on a website of this size.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Me neither. You wouldn't expect those two flavors to mesh so well, but it's a really delicious combination.

Pat King: And I'm Pat King. I also film and edit, I am single and ready to mingle, and my favorite adult beverage would have to be the Black Caribou.

Pat King

Nice. So you're two of the masterminds behind the infamous film crew PYP, who in addition to being really, really good at partying make pretty damn good ski and snowboard films. Give us the storied history of the project/company/crew.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Well we have to take it back a few years then. We were both living in Whistler, and were both filming some of the same people, and then near the end of one season we decided that we should combine forces and do something together under one name. We wanted to try to do something more than just park edits, so we decided to make a short film…

Pat King: …but we actually started off by doing party edits (laughs).

Where are you guys based out of, and where do you spend most of your time filming?

Pat King: I'm based out of Whistler, so I mainly film up there and in and around Vancouver.

Graeme Meiklejohn: And I live in Kelowna for most of the year because I'm going to school there, and then I live in Vancouver in the summer. So I shoot all around BC, but like Pat said we mainly film around Whistler, because their park is always awesome and there's so much backcountry terrain you can access with a sled.

Colin 'Chaz' Vaykovich at Whistler-Blackcomb.

What does PYP stand for? I heard a rumor you guys won't tell.

Pat King: It depends on who's asking. To some it stands for Party Yee Patrón, and to some it stands for Progressive Youth Productions, which is a little more serious.

Like your fellow Whistler/Vancouver pals Voleurz, you're one of the few yet growing number of crews out there that has both skiing and snowboarding in your films. What prompted you to be so un-racist, and has it helped or hindered your ability to get your name out there and score you sponsor scrilla?

Graeme Meiklejohn: (laughs) Well we mainly just wanted to make movies of our friends, and many of them ski and snowboard, so it wasn't really a conscience decision or anything.

Pat King: And having both has definitely helped us get exposure, although I think we get a bit more hate from the snowboard community for it than the ski community.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Yeah the ski community has been super supportive of what we're doing, because skiers are super down with snowboarding of course, but for whatever reason there's still a bunch of snowboarders out there who don't like skiers that much.

That shit is so 1998.

Graeme Meiklejohn: (laughs) Totally. All I can picture when you say 1998 is really short and tall rails though (laughs).

Dan Jonas in Summerland, BC. Photo by Scotty Titterington

Where's your favorite place to get shots and drink shots while frightening the general public?

Pat King: The Longhorn Saloon in Whistler.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Yeah definitely The Longhorn.

(laughs) Yeah guys but the first part of the question was where do you like to get shots, as in shoot your films?

Pat King: The Longhorn! (laughs) I'd actually say I'm most pumped on shooting urban. I love filming on the mountain when it snows, but I really enjoy the creativity of shooting in cities, because there's so many different things you can do.

Graeme Meiklejohn: And I'd have to say that my favorite place to shoot is definitely Rogers Pass in Interior BC. I got to spend some time up there this year and that place is unreal.

Laurent O Martin in Vancouver.

How many films have you released, what were they called, and if you had to rank how cool were they were by comparing them to a hot celebrity, who would they be?

Graeme Meiklejohn: Damn, that's a tough question (laughs). Okay well we've made two films so far, with the third one coming out this fall. The first one was called Sorry For Partying, which was probably like Drew Barrymore, because she's kind of hot and kind of famous, but she hasn't really done shit since Charlie's Angels.

Pat King: And the second one was called Too Much Fun, which was kind of our Destiny's Child. Because we had a good thing going on at the start, but now we're trying to break out like Beyoncé with our third film by moving on from the other two and stepping it up (laughs).

And on that note, tell us about this year's movie...name, concept, release date, etc.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Oh man, I don't know if we can answer all of those questions right now (laughs).

Pat King: Nah we got this (laughs). The name of the movie is Amateur Hour, which we came up with because we don't like to take ourselves too seriously, and it's reflective of the fact that we shoot a lot of really good skiers and snowboarders who should probably be getting paid a bit better for what they do.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Yeah it's all guys who are still on the come up for sure, but definitely deserve more exposure. And we're going to try to release it just before the winter, so around late fall. We want to have it done in time for IF3, and then we'll have have some premieres in Whistler and Vancouver.

Liam Casey at Grouse Mountain in Vancouver.

And then are you planning on releasing it for free online after that like you've done in years past?

Graeme Meiklejohn: Yeah we're going to continue to do that for sure.

Then how about you give everyone out there the top three reasons why they should check out Amateur Hour online this fall instead of watching videos of cuddly kittens on YouTube.

Graeme Meiklejohn: (laughs) I dunno man, cuddly kittens are pretty sweet.

Pat King: I'll give you five. Sweet skiing, snowboarding, shenanigans, bros and tons of helicopter shots (laughs).

So what you're saying is Pat, you hate cuddly kittens? Because that's not really making me want to watch your movie (laughs).

Pat King: Well what can I say? I'm more of a dog person (laughs).

Laurent O Martin

Anything you want to add before you drop the trailer? This is the part where people usually shout-out their sponsors and pimp their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Graeme Meiklejohn: Well I definitely want to thank Banshee Bunshee and Camtrol, because they hooked us up with some product this year and that really helped us out. So shout-out to them.

Pat King: And enjoy the trailer!

Amateur Hour Teaser - PYP © 2011 from PYP on Vimeo.