
Video Game High School

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 more than 150 million times on various online platforms.
Premise.
The series is set in the near future where video games elevate their best players to stardom by their 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 most prominent being a first-person shooter named "Field of Fire".
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 previously streamed all three seasons of the show, but only season 3 was available in 4K UHD, with most episodes doubled up to make individual 30-minute episodes.