Players

Don’t Hate the Players

or the game.

Players (all episodes streaming on Paramount+) is a mockumentary following the fictional pro e-sports team Fugitive gaming from the same guys who created American Vandal. It is also the first show I ever keyed. To say it was a learning experience is like saying COVID is a cold. True, but an obscene understatement. Keying any show is a complex job but keying a show with 48 cameras is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. But it’s something I would do over and over again for my ride or die Alan “Gwiz” Gwizdowski. Gwiz and I have worked together for over a decade, brought together by Emerson College and George Watsky. We’ve come up together and gone to all corners of the world for jobs that made me cry way more than Players and I will always say yes to any job he has. If that wasn’t enough, director Tony Yacenda is another OG homie. The first time I worked with him was on one of the first spoofs he ever made, a 30 for 30 style investigation of the film Space Jam for Funny or Die.

If I was about to learn how to swim by jumping into the ocean, at least it was with my friends.

But I was so lucky that while I was out treading water in the middle of the Pacific I was surrounded by the best camera team a person could ask for. My boys, as I called them, were kind, funny, and the hardest workers local 600 is lucky enough to call members. I know there were more times than I can count where I was overwhelmed or stressed or having a quick breakdown in a honey wagon, but when I think back to the whirlwind 8 weeks we were filming, I feel nothing but pride for the work we did. In the middle of strike negotiations we made a show that is funny and heartfelt and even with 48 cameras, I’d sign on to season 2 without a second thought.

As you can imagine, with so much to manage and such a quick timeline, there wasn’t much time for BTS shots but here you can find the few gnarly, grainy, shots I got.