Video Game High School (often abbreviated VGHS) is an American action comedy web series from RocketJump Studios. It was written by Matthew Arnold, Will Campos and Brian Firenzi and directed by Matthew Arnold, Brandon Laatsch, and Freddie Wong. RocketJump Studios describes the series as "a show about best friends, first loves, and landing that perfect head shot". The team at RocketJump chose to make a web series because they "strongly believe the foundations for the future of digitally distributed content will be laid by web series".
Since its release in 2012, the series has acquired a cult following and has been viewed over 150 million times on various online platforms.
Premise
Video Game High School (VGHS) - S1: Ep. 1 - The first episode for our feature-length webseries "Video Game High School!" Here's how the release is going to work: We will be putting all new VGHS episodes on our site, rocketjump.com,...
The series is set in the near future where video gaming elevates its best players to stardom by its position as the world's most popular competitive sport. Video Game High School (VGHS) is an elite and prestigious facility that teaches a curriculum of video games of all genres.
The show's protagonist, BrianD, gains entry to the school after unwittingly defeating "The Law", an international first-person shooter star, on live television. The show follows BrianD and the friends and enemies he makes at the school, playing on standard tropes of school dramas with a video game background.
The show uses live-action scenes with the characters to show action within the games. The games depicted are inventions of the show, with the first-person shooter depicted named Field of Fire.
Cast
Main
- Josh Blaylock as Brian Doheny (commonly referred to as BrianD), an FPS player and the main protagonist of the series.
- Johanna Braddy as Jennifer Matthews (commonly referred to as Jenny Matrix), sophomore Junior Varsity team captain. She is The Law's girlfriend in season 1, and Brian's love interest and later girlfriend.
- Brian Firenzi as Lawrence Pemberton (commonly referred to as The Law), the world's #1 amateur gamer. He is Jenny Matrix's boyfriend in season 1 and the principal antagonist of the season. In seasons 2 and 3 he becomes a recurring character and takes the role of an antihero.
- Ellary Porterfield as Kimberly Swan (commonly referred to as Ki Swan), a video game developer and fighting game specialist who goes to the school to learn more about players. She is Ted's girlfriend and one of Brian's friends.
- Cynthia Watros as Mary Matrix, coach for the FPS Varsity team and Jenny's mother. (Seasons 2 & 3)
- Jimmy Wong as Theodore Wong (commonly referred to as Ted, and occasionally the gamertag Gr8fulTed), Brian's best friend and the son of Rhythm Gaming teacher Freddie Wong. Ted wants to pursue rhythm gaming to impress his father, despite being more talented at racing games.
Supporting
Guests and cameos
Production and release
Video Game High School is co-created by Freddie Wong, Will Campos, Brian Firenzi and Matt Arnold. In addition to acting as showrunner, Arnold is also a writer, as are Campos and Firenzi (founder of 5secondfilms.com). The series is based on a concept by Campos and Chris Pappavaselio.
The team was able to fund the series through Kickstarter, where they set a funding goal for $75,000 to be raised in a 30-day period. That amount was quickly pledged in less than 24 hours and continued to climb from there. On October 22, 2011, pledging came to a close, with $273,725 raised for the project from 5,661 backers.
Principal photography began on October 25, and ended in late November. The final four days of shooting took place at the Eagle Mountain iron mine and Mojave Desert. Post-production started shortly after and ended in early 2012. The trailer for the series premiered on YouTube on May 11, 2012, on the "Freddiew" channel.
Later, the first season of the show was edited into a two-hour movie and released on DVD, blu-ray, and online.
Episodes
Season 1 episodes were released in May, June, and July 2012, first on the RocketJump website, and a week later on YouTube channel "freddiew". People who pledged to the project's fundraiser received HD digital downloads and DVDs. The Kickstarter fundraiser for season 2 ended in February 2013 with the project more than sufficiently funded. The second season was released in July and August 2013.
In July 2013, Freddie Wong said that a third season was being worked on, and filming began in March 2014. Season 3 episodes were being released once per week starting on October 13, or could be purchased for immediate viewing through Vimeo On Demand, which includes 4K HD, HD, and SD downloads of the episode(s) purchased. RocketJump announced on October 30 that season 3 would be the last of the series.
Netflix currently streams all three seasons of the show, but only season 3 is in 4K UHD, with most episodes doubled up to make individual 30-minute episodes.
References
External links
- www
.rocketjump .com /vghs - vimeo
.com /ondemand /vghs3 - Video Game High School on IMDb