Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
My name is Seamus Foster, I’m 32 years old and I’m from New Hope, Pennsylvania currently residing in Salt Lake City, Utah. I like to use cameras, mostly video cameras but sometime still cameras, and I like to make videos. I’ve been a full-time freelance videographer and editor for about 7 years now, before that it was just a hobby while I went to school and worked service jobs. Right now I mostly work in the outdoor world, specifically snowboarding, but I like to create work in my free time as well.

Is there a moment you look back on as being formative to your identity as a filmmaker?
Moving to Utah when I was 18 and going up to the mountain and making snowboard videos with my friends was probably the most formative time for me as a videographer, editor and as a person. I think that was just a time where I started to figure out what worked and what didn’t work, as well as how to actually use cameras.

Are there any influences that are core to your work?
I think I am someone who is constantly influenced and inspired by a lot. It’s hard to pick anything specific, I think I just enjoy absorbing all sorts of different things and ideas and places and I think my work can sometimes be influenced by a combination of all these things. Music and sound influence my edits a lot.

What kind of imagery are you drawn to?
Lately I’ve been very drawn to Western imagery, and landscapes. I’m also drawn to imperfection and things that look weathered, worn or abandoned.

When needed, where do you look for inspiration?
I have my go-to’s when I need to feel inspired before doing some editing work. If it’s paid work for a client, that I need to get done but I’m not in the mood to edit at all, I’ll sit down in the morning and drink coffee and watch certain things, or look at a book. Any Hockey Skateboards video or older Alien Workshop stuff can get the juices flowing. I’m a big fan of anything Benny Maglinao makes. Also Jerry Hsu’s photo books are great to get my brain working and have a laugh. I also watch Paul Thomas Anderson movies a lot.

How was working on Barking at the Knot? What was the process like & were there any ideas you wanted to explore during that process? Are there any particular moments during the filming process that linger with you?
Barking at the Knot is a skateboard video I made with my friends during my free time from 2022-2025. Most of the people in the video are my close friends here in Utah, and I feel grateful to have had a project to work on with some of my best friends. Everyone in the video has very different careers and lifestyles, but we all just really enjoy the process of finding spots, and filming skateboarding on them. It’s a funned collaborative effort for that part of the process, but as far as how the spot gets filmed and how the footage gets edited, everyone was pretty hands off with that. They all trusted me with the filming and editing which was really cool because I like to not show anyone anything during the editing process so that everyone is surprised at the video premiere. All of the skateboarders get to watch it for the first time with everyone else in attendance. I think it’s more special that way, but only really works if the skaters have their full trust in me which I feel very thankful for.

For this video, and I think a lot of my skateboard and snowboard videos, I want to make my friends look like heroes. In the skateboard and snowboard videos I watched as a kid, before social media, you didn’t know anything about the skater or snowboarder other than their video parts and to me they felt like these larger than life superheroes. I enjoy trying to do that in my videos, and especially enjoyed trying to do that for Barking at the Knot while also striving for authenticity. Also, for my snowboard work, I shoot a lot of 16mm film. I really enjoy shooting 16mm but only ever did it for work stuff because it’s expensive and the client always pays for the film and processing. For Barking at the Knot I decided to buy 5 rolls of film specifically for the video and shot them throughout the last year and a half.

It’s hard to pick any particular moment from the filming process that lingers with me. Any time someone finally lands a trick, and they do the trick how they wanted and I film it exactly how I wanted, it’s like this crazy wave of relief and feeling of victory. I also have so much time sitting by myself filming people try tricks that I often think about how it will get edited if they land it. I’ll film it in a way to fit in a specific spot in the video. Like, When he lands it I’ll let him roll out of the right side of the frame, then that will cut great with this other clip where he enters from the right side of the frame from behind a building… or something like that. It’s just really fun and cool when those random thoughts and ideas become reality.

Documentation of Place feels like a pretty present dynamic in your work. Is this an active consideration or is it something that arises naturally?
I think it is both an active consideration while also something that feels natural to me, if that makes sense. For example, in Barking at the Knot, I tried to make it feel like a bit of a love letter to Utah. I really like classic east coast skate videos that would sort of set the scene with gritty 16mm of the city. I wanted to do the same thing but for Utah, and what makes Utah so unique to me is its vast landscapes and weird dusty strip malls and industrial business park wastelands. And then for my snowboard work, we usually travel to some cool places and I enjoy documenting these places. When I’m on these snowboard trips, I make it a point to constantly have a camera in my hands ready to shoot. Even at breakfast or dinner. I hate the feeling of “oh that would have been awesome to film if I had my camera on me”. I’ve had that feeling enough times to where now, I make sure to always have a camera on me.

How have you seen the snowboard media landscape shift since you’ve been working?
Growing up it was almost exclusively people making full length films. Usually it was a snowboard media production company making it, and they would have the riders’ sponsors buy into the movie, and they would make huge profits from DVD sales and premiere ticket sales. I heard that these production companies would even give the riders bonuses after selling so many DVDs. This obviously isn’t the case at all anymore, and I think right around the time I started filming snowboarding as a job it shifted pretty drastically to web content and short-form brand specific content. It definitely took me few years to figure it out and get my bearings but now I enjoy the process a lot, making content specific for brands like K2 and Mountain Hardwear.

How does filming skating and snowboarding compare to each other?
For me, filming snowboarding is always a job. I’m lucky to have a lot of creative freedom with the brands I work for but at the end of the day I have to think about being consistent with the brand’s image, and sometimes someone who works for the brand might watch a rough cut and ask me to change a song or take a shot out because it’s on dated product, or something like that. I still have so much fun doing it and feel lucky to get paid to do it, and I always strive to make something authentic… but at the end of the day I’m making the work to make a brand look cool so people buy their stuff.

Filming skating on the other hand is something I do with my friends for fun. I can do it however I want, and for that reason I cherish it a lot.

Your shorter-form projects like “a visual diary of west Ireland”, “little temple” and “drink more water”reflect a contemplative tone that can be felt in your longer-form projects. Is there something in particular you want to explore with these works?
I just enjoy making projects like that because it’s one of the few times I get to make something entirely by myself. Filming skating and snowboarding is always a collaboration, with either the skater, snowboarder, or brand. I like to make those shorter-form projects as a way to explore creatively and make something by myself.

What’s your workspace like? Do you have any rituals when you settle in there?
Right now I live in a one bedroom house with my girlfriend and there’s a corner of a room that is my workspace for computer stuff and editing. I built a desk specifically for the corner. I like to start early, make coffee, and watch something or look at a book to get the juices flowing. I’ve been here for about 5 years and it’s been working great but lately I’ve had the urge to have my workspace be completely separate from my living space. I recently bought the house from the landlord and I’m going to renovate the detached garage into my office/studio and I’m really looking forward to having that.

What’s your experience like living and working in Salt Lake?
I like Salt Lake a lot mostly because of my community of friends here. It’s a tight-knit community with tons of creative people that are always making and doing cool stuff. The film scene here is pretty big, too. Lots of movies are shot here. Also the quick and easy access to incredible and remote natural areas are a huge reason I live here for both work and recreation.

How does your creative community now compare to your creative community when you were younger?
I grew up using my parents’ handycam to make funny weird videos with my friends, and sometimes I feel like 20 years later I’m basically still doing the same thing, and it’s awesome.

How do you manage tending to the variety of responsibilities in the work you do? How do you mitigate burnout or exhaustion?
I have a lot of sticky notes on my desk. That’s basically how I manage all of my work responsibilities. I’ve always been pretty good at getting things done on time. And then to mitigate burnout, that ties back to those shorter-form projects you brought up. Making stuff for myself for fun helps keep it fresh and exciting. Also, when I finish a few weeks of non-stop computer days, I go down to the desert and camp and hike. That’s the best way for me to recover from burnout and reset the noggin.

Are there any travel experiences that are formative to you as an artist or an individual?
In 2023 I got asked by my friend Sean Pettit to be involved in a really interesting project. He had this idea to get a handful of artists and friends to climb to the top of this mountain in Whistler BC and camp and build a stone shelter, and he wanted me to make a short film about it. Then, after building the shelter, each artist went home and made a piece to be involved in an art show in Milan that following spring. The film I made, with Diego Meek co-editing and Jeremy Wallace Maclean doing the sound and score, got played on loop at the exhibition. The film is called Half Keep. That whole experience, climbing the mountain a few times and sleeping up there and documenting the whole thing was just really special and completely unlike anything I had done before. And then traveling to Milan and being a part of the exhibition and meeting a bunch of people in that world was just an amazing experience. I think that project just made me more confident to say yes to things I’ve never done before.

What do you collect?
I don’t really collect many physical objects in particular. I guess I have a lot of books, mostly photo books or books about the American southwest. The first thing I thought of when I read this question, was that I think I collect areas. I’ve mentioned it a few times but I just really enjoy going to the southern Utah desert, and each time I try to explore a new area, hike down a new canyon, camp in a new spot. I really respect and admire the ancient people of the area and really enjoy hiking to different rock art panels. I could stare at a petroglyph or pictograph panel for hours. So yeah, I think that’s what I mostly “collect” if that makes sense.

 

Portrait photographed by Paul Curtis.
Interviewed by Luca Lotruglio.