Sean Ryan – Issue 44 Interview

With the release of Aerosol’s banging video, we deemed it necessary to publish Sean Ryan’s Issue 44 interview conducted impeccably by Josh Sabini and photographed wonderfully by Riely Walker & Sam Coady. Read and appreciate with media below, ya dig?!

Introduction & Interview by: Josh Sabini

Photography by: Riely Walker & Sam Coady

Portrait by: Josh Sabini

Sean Ryan has a level of determination that is something to only admire, whether it’s skateboarding, fixing spots, or with his work as a biomechanical engineer, he is always giving it every last bit he’s got. He is one of the best skateboarders I’ve ever watched skate in person, but in saying that… I beat him in a game of S.K.A.T.E. once. 

Sean also lost his right eye in a surfing incident when he was a teen, meaning he has a fake eye he can take in and out, and is completely blind when turning frontside, making his already unfathomable skateboarding even more unfathomable. Over the last year, he’s been working on a new part with Cameron Fraser, to coincide with the upcoming launch of their new company Aerosol. 

Sean and I have been friends for quite some time, I’ve slept in a tent in his lounge room, he looked after me after I had a seizure, has driven me around Sydney to not even film a trick, 3D printed me a lens cap and has been nothing but a great, hospitable friend. We’ve done two “interviews” prior to this one and in each one actively tried to avoid the traditional interview format, however, after years of friendship it’s time to do the official Sean Ryan interview.

This is our third opportunity to do an interview and we are finally settling on the traditional interview format. I know you’re not hyped on doing this, why have you been so against doing an interview?

What do I have to say?

Okay, perfect way to start this [laughs]. I have to ask you about your job, can you talk about what you do for work?

I am a biomedical engineer and I work in product development and research for a small medical device company who specialises in products for amputees. The company makes an implant for this procedure called Osseointegration. The implant we make, allows a lot of patients who are wheelchair bound to walk again.  

How did you get into it?

I studied biomedical engineering. For so long I would say I studied it because I was in hospital a lot when I was a kid but looking back, I’m not too sure how much that had an impact. I just saw biomedical engineering on the sheet and that looks cool.

Damn, so your eye didn’t have anything to do with it?

I feel like it did peak my interest in medicine, but I don’t think it was the main reason I went into it. Engineering in this field is great, because you get to help people from a distance. It is a lot less stressful than being a doctor.

Do you think you’d ever be able to make yourself a new working eye?

I don’t think so because there are two ways that people have been making artificial eyes that work and the one that has gotten the furthest requires your retina to be intact and I don’t have an intact retina. It is more for patients who have lost their vision for other reasons, not from traumatic incidents. I am happy with my situation at the moment, it doesn’t seem to impact me in any way and the prosthesis I have is really good. 

Yeah, how does getting the prosthesis work?

They take a mould of your eye socket, and you go in another time and the guy paints it using your other eye as a reference point.

Through that you have access to a 3D printer can we talk about some of the things you’ve made?

Some of the awesome things you’ve tried on?

Do you ever think about getting a crazy looking eye? 

I’ve asked him so many times for him to make me something crazy, but it is a funding problem, the government will pay for you to get an eye every so often, so he is like “I can make you a crazy eye, but you’ll have to pay the full price,” the full price is $3,500 (£1,700) which is so ruthless. I have the eyes he made me and I’ve thought about making my own ones using his as a mould. It is a big time investment that I haven’t had time to do. It would be great for Halloween and I fucking love Halloween.

Yeah that one is pretty awesome [laughs].

I made a full suit of armour for Halloween, I went as Joan of Arc, that was epic. That is up there with one of my favourite things I’ve made. Now, I’m making Cameron [Fraser] an adaptor for his Bolex so he can shoot time lapses easier. I’ve made lamps, an MK1 fisheye adaptor so you can put it on HPX’s and NX80’s. 

Something I have always noticed is that you didn’t have a video part come out until you were 25, which is quite late. Can we talk about that?

I had filmed a little part with my friend Nathan – that isn’t on the internet – when I was a teenager. University was really hard for me, so I was really focused on that, and I was working too, so trying to balance everything was a challenge. The stuff in Gazette had been filmed over such a long period of time because I’d only get the chance to go out skating with [Cameron] Sparkes once a fortnight and every now and then we’d go out to get a trick, but I was too locked in with uni to focus on skating.

Do you feel like because uni was so intense, that’s why you have been so hyped on skating since you finished? 

Yeah, definitely, I feel like once uni was over, I was like I can focus on skating more. It was so nice and something that I had always wanted to do but I wasn’t in the situation to do it. When I was finishing uni and Gazette was wrapping up, that’s when I met Cameron Fraser, we became good friends and started filming together a lot on Arcadia. I really like working on projects with Cameron, he gets a lot of good stuff out of me. Arcadia was pretty special to work on, we all got pretty obsessed with it. The filming process for that video was so long, we had the premiere in 2023 and the first footage in the video is of Dean [Palmer] from 2020.

How do you find balancing skating and work? 

It is good. I feel comfortable at work, they’re so accommodating and supportive with skating. With work being so stable I can put all my effort into skating, especially only working four days a week. I find it good to be working as well as when you have the opportunities to skate you feel more motivated, because you have less of them.

The Gazette part was your first “real” part but even when we’ve spoken about it you’ve said it never really felt like you were filming a part and just filming tricks.

Yeah, for sure. 80 percent of that footage was before I knew we were filming for a New Balance video really.

How was it being more hands on and learning how to film a part through Arcadia?

I got really obsessive with filming a part in the same way that I was so obsessive with uni. I was always thinking about it. We had such a long period of time to film for it and I wanted to diversify the part as much as I could. I would be like “I feel like I’m not tech, I want to try to do some tech stuff for this video part, a rail clip too and all these other things.” Cameron was so down, and we had time to be able to be like “The next few months I’m going to focus on filming tech tricks.” I’d be happy with all those tricks then I would go on to skating rails. That was how we filmed the video; a lot of thought went into it. 

For sure, you can tell when you watch it. 

Also, knowing what it was going to look like was great, there was such a focus on the spots we skated making sense in the context of the video. There are a whole lot of spots in Sydney that we could film these tricks at but they could look like shit, so it was a matter of being like where in New South Wales, Canberra, or Melbourne could we go and film a ledge line. 

 How did you approach High Noon, being a video you had a lot less time to film for?

That was a lot more sporadic, happening upon a spot and filming the trick on the day. After Arcadia I didn’t want to overthink it. I am really happy with how that video came out. Cameron and I did the big trip to Canada and The States, which was really fun too. 

Now, you guys are working on the video for Aerosol. This will be your fourth part and in as many years. You’ve taken both the sporadic route with High Noon and the super planned out with Arcadia. What has your approach been working on this video?

After High Noon I was enjoying the way I was skating, not planning it out and I’ve been enjoying keeping that going with this part. Now, however, I’m at the point where we are near the end of filming and there are these tricks I want to do but I need to find the right spots to do them at. Corey [Young] and I have been focused on skating spots that haven’t been skated, that has been what we’ve been most excited about, we want the video to be well-rounded and showcase new spots. We are both stoked on how much footage in the video has been at spots that haven’t been skated before.

Corey’s footage is amazing. He’s been so focused on filming for this part; I haven’t seen him this focused on skating in a long time. It has been really fun, we’ve just been skating with our friends.

As you said you’ve been skating spots that haven’t been skated which also means you’re fixing spots that are nowhere near skateable. What’s the biggest mission you’ve had trying to make something skateable?

I bought a whole bunch of pavers to extend the landing of this spot because half the landing is mud and the other half is concrete. That was probably one of the weirder ones I’ve done, but I haven’t even landed it yet, so I need to go back [laughs].

For the last year you’ve been working on something quite big, can we talk about Aerosol, who is involved? 

Corey Young and I are skating for it and it’s Cameron Fraser, Cameron Sparkes, Riwaz Kazi, Noah Fuzi and I, all working on it behind the scenes. 

How did the idea come up?

One day Cameron Sparkes one day was like, “Why don’t we just start a company?” He went on pointing out all of the strengths our friends have that if we work together could make a great company – Riwaz is an amazing artist, Cameron Fraser is an incredible filmmaker, Sparkes has worked in the industry for twenty years and Corey wasn’t sponsored and I wasn’t hyped on where I was at. It took a while from Sparkes bringing it up to us doing it, it was daunting and I was unsure if it was a good idea. Riwaz and I spoke about it a lot. Riwaz’s art and graphic style isn’t represented in skateboarding which felt like a positive thing that he would be making graphics that aren’t really in the skate world. I also was like I’d rather be working on videos with Cameron than just filming with him and sending the footage somewhere else. Being so far away from the industry in America and Europe, there is such a big disconnect. Having a company with your friends sounds so great and being small and able to do whatever you want is perfect too. After realising all of that, I was like this is a great idea and I think it’ll be fun more than anything. I’m really excited, it is really daunting but I think it is going to be epic.

When is it set to release?

We are aiming for June, Australian winter.

To wrap this up, what is the story with Mark Suciu being in your group chat?

When Mark won SOTY Corey put him in the Arcadia group chat and said “Congrats Mark. You finally did it.” Mark just replied with “Thanks Corey” and nothing else, but he didn’t leave the group chat. Over the next six months you’d go into the group chat after someone messaged and you’ll just see that Mark had seen it. It was this weird ominous presence in the group chat, Mark would always be watching. One day Corey quit his job and messaged the group chat about it and Mark replied saying “Congrats Corey.” For the next year he stayed in the group chat, and he was just keeping tabs on everything without ever saying anything [laughs]. It was a long time of that and one day randomly he just left; I guess we got boring to him.