By Shibby
Hey everyone! Welcome to the Behind the Scenes blog for Episode 1 of the 2011 Dr Pepper Ultimate Gaming House, where you can get an inside look at how everything went down. Through these photos, I’ll show you what it’s like from my perspective—without giving away too much of the show before it comes out on June 10. For this Season’s first episode, the UGH crew and I went to Columbia, Missouri to hook up Ryan Pliske and the University of Missouri Gaming Club.
Awesome weather made for a great flight!
After a 3 hour flight we then had to drive a couple hours to Columbia, MO. This shot right here is of Kansas City.
We always try to find a symbolic landmark to do the intro for the show—for this one, the Tiger Plaza on the Missouri University campus was the perfect spot. The campus is gorgeous! On a side note, that waterfall is loud; you’ll see in the intro that I’m actually standing pretty far away from it so the sound doesn’t reach my mic.
Dr Pepper and karate moves all day! We decided to replace the intro from last year with something new and a little more energy. I’m pretty excited to see how it will turn out!
Jon – the master of improv! It’s always a good time when he’s around; you can always count on him for some good one-liners.
Jokr – Definitely adds a unique dynamic to the crew and will always do whatever it takes to get the job done…even if he runs into some problems from time to time!
Lenox – Specializes in the technology department but can pretty much do it all. As you can see here, it’s a good thing we put down the plastic!
Here’s an awesome shot of Luke, the Director of Video here at MLG. He’s a great boss and a blast to work with. He always carries a good vibe with him and that goes a long way when doing a shoot – that’s what it’s all about!
This superhero is Adam, the Director of Photography for the shoot. Another great guy to work with, he’s hilarious and definitely keeps the laughs going. He has years of experience and just recently won an Emmy, so the cape is well-deserved.
Our sound guy, Alex. Some serious equipment there—costs enough to buy a nice car! All our wireless mics get mixed and recorded into that interesting little contraption there. In this particular shot, we are about to meet the winner for the first time; we’re about 200 yards from his front door at this point.
For this shoot we brought in the “1 ton lighting truck.” This truck is a game-changer—it really takes the look of the show on camera to another level.
It’s not always a constant-go operation during a shoot. Whenever the lighting crew has to set up a new shot, it gives us some downtime. And after an 8am flight and a couple hours of driving, Jon needed a 20 minute power nap. Jokr approves.
After meeting Ryan, we had some downtime to throw around the football and get to know him – great dude!
So normally we take the winner out and show them a good time, but this time around that wasn’t the case. Ryan actually had to spend his time preparing for his final exams, since they were coming up in a couple of days – he takes his education very seriously, and props to that.
Joe, one of the coolest camera guys ever, setting up the GoPro camera. Jon and I had to travel to a couple of different Best Buys to pick up more prizing and the footage that you’ll see in the show during this part will be this man’s work. He’s also rockin the G-Shock: nice.
Joe also mounted a GoPro to the top of the van to setup a time lapse sequence of the Best Buy journey.
Never have I signed so many receipts. Of course I had to sign them all “SHIBBY!”
Yeahhh buddy! One Best Buy down, three to go!
Jon and I finally made it back to Ryan’s with a fully loaded van of ultimate prizing.
A sneak peak of the prizing we got for the winner(s) – you’ll have to wait for the show to see how we set it up, though. Special thanks and much love to Astro! Just look at all the goods they provided.
The mighty Dr Pepper pyramid. A whole lot of goodness right there!
Always gotta show a past teammate some love! Look at my man Neighbor on the back of the Gunnar Gaming Glasses packaging. Nice work, Mason! Special thanks to Gunnar for hooking up the Ultimate Gaming House crew with their line of sunglasses and the University of Missouri Gaming Club with their MLG gaming glasses.
Jon and Luke battling it out in some foosball while we wait for the lighting crew to set up another shot.
TJ, our final camera man, working with the lighting crew to set up the confessional set.
These are awesome! We show up to hook people up, not to get hooked up, so this was definitely a sweet surprise. Thank you Ryan and the rest of the Missouri Gaming Club!
And then to wrap it all up after a successful trip, a great flight back to NYC. Can’t ask for much more than that.
The episodes this year will be broken up into three eight-minute segments – be sure to catch Act 1, launching on www.majorleaguegaming.com on June 10! I hope you enjoyed the blog and I hope you enjoy the show even more. Don’t forget to enter your submissions; there are still two winners yet to be selected!
