Sony Alpha Awards 2018

I originally got connected with Sony Australia through my good friend KC. He was doing event production work for Sony at the time and remembered I could drive a truck (a skill from a previous life). They needed someone to help with brand activation bump-ins—picking up and delivering gear across the city—so he hit me up. That’s how it all started, eventually leading to me producing the skateboarding content for several major Sony events, including the 2018 Sony Alpha Awards (video below).

Working with Sony was always a creative dream. I’d pitch wild ideas and, more often than not, they were into it. For the Alpha Awards, I even got to buy a car—a ‘94 Corolla—just so we could destroy it on film while skating. As long as I stayed within the (very generous) budget, I pretty much had the freedom to create whatever I wanted. The car actually held up well, and I ended up driving it for a year after the shoot. It got thoroughly beat up, of course, but it still ran. I only got pulled over once, and even then the cops just wanted to know what the story was.

The Sony Alpha Awards are more than just an awards ceremony—they’re also a hands-on camera demo experience. Guests and photographers get to try out Sony’s latest Alpha series cameras and lenses. That’s where my skate crew came in: to give photographers fast-moving subjects to test gear on—aka: live-action skateboarding.

Every project I did with Sony was super fun. The whole team was amazing to work with, and I made some great friends along the way. It was a perfect blend of creative freedom, content production, and brand storytelling—all tied to skateboarding and camera tech.