From the horse’s mouth, the ASC Awards were founded in 1986 to “recognize exceptional work in feature films and television, as well as acknowledge cinematographers and other filmmakers — including directors, producers and actors — for their exemplary careers or contributions to the art and craft of filmmaking”. Over the decades the event has grown into one of the motion-picture industry’s most-watched annual events, regularly hosting +1000 guests for a beloved experience of pre-show cocktail party, awards ceremony, and after party at the ASC Clubhouse.

For the 35th Awards Show, which took place during the COVID lockdown, it was very important to creator/director Dana Gonzales, ASC the event be safe and in the established spirit ASC Awards without compromise. To compliment the ceremony production taking place at the Clubhouse with a small group under strict COVID protocols, Dana and I created a digital event for the shows guests to attend and celebrate together.

Using cutting edge video room technology, I developed and carried out a strategy that included working with a talented team of video event professionals at Filmocracy (who I later went on to work with as their Director of Partnerships) and an exceptionally talented graphic designer Aleksander Buksza who made our beautiful 3D Event Overmap to design and produce the digital event, and worked directly with our sponsors, members, and guests pre-show to onboard them into the platform and answer any questions so day-of they could show up and enjoy the show (shout out to my OG industry mentor Tom Fletcher at Fujifilm who enthusiastically assisted me with running multiple weekly sessions helping hundreds of people over 1 1/2 months with this leading up to the event).

Our hard work paid off with a digital awards show featuring 800 accounts (many with multiple guests holding their own isolated mini events) each spending on average 3+ hours on our event platform together enjoying the familiar cocktail party, ceremony, and after party experience.

Along with maintaining the yearly show for members, sponsors, and nominees (including the yearly pre-show awards dinner), and their guests, our team was able to carry out business as usual at a time where that was nearly impossible and greatly needed, providing a unique and rewarding experience to our sponsors and guests while carrying out an incredibly successful event experientially and financially which included people who would have never otherwise been able to attend the show. It was extremely rewarding to be a part of providing a little bit of Hollywood magic and escapism to people safely isolating at home in a pandemic and helping them get through a tough time together.