Riot Games Seattle Office Video Series

The Riot Games Seattle Office Video Series was a collection of 3 videos showcasing the employees working at the local office and the video gaming culture of the Seattle area. The videos were relased on Life@Riot LinkedIn and Twitter. 

I took on many tasks in the creation of this video series, including renting camera gear to bring while traveling, location scouting, production development, camera operation (gimbal stabilizer operator, tripod), gaffer/grip, editor, and colorist.

Riot Games’s primary goal is to be the most player-focused video game company. “Player experience first” was a goal for every video I worked on. For this video series to be as engaging as possible to players and accurately depict Seattle, I cold-called multiple Seattle venues (barcades, museums, restaurants, parks) asking if we could film at their locations. I was able to secure 3 locations with owners excited to have Riot Games filming at their venues: the MoPOP Museum, Gameworks Barcade, and Mox Boarding House.

Photo in front of the Riot Games corp comms team in front of the upcoming Mercer Island Seattle Riot Games office (from left to right) Mitch Reams, Lindsey Chu, Justin Cafiero, Zachary Dripps

As producer on this series of videos, I developed them from the ground up. I formulated a plan for each teammate's assistance based on their specialization. My team has a depth of talent that I could reach out to for help. This talent amplified the project and ensured stellar results while we thrived together. 

I created the briefs with revision notes from a fellow Riot Games producer on his visual filmmaker eye and coworkers from the PR team for overarching knowledge of what would best benefit Riot's comms direction. 

  • Mitch Reams is a writer who created the RG office pages, so I asked if he could help write the interview questions. This way, the questions could match his office pages' goals and key messaging.

  • For the Seattle videos, we contracted an assistant editor, Robbie Salisbury, to work alongside me and producer/editor Ben Boas on this project to ensure we could release all 3 videos within the same one-week window. 

  • I coordinated with legal clearances throughout to ensure I completed location paperwork, music rights, release forms, and filming footage compliantly. 

VALORANT Artists Visit MoPOP Museum

At the Museum of Pop Culture (formerly the Jimmy Hendrix Museum), I interviewed 3 VALORANT artist Rioters about their craft and video games as art while they explored the MoPOP museum and commented on what they saw. The museum had fascinating historical cultural pieces from famous movies and video games.

Walking around the museum helped prompt conversations that would not have happened in a standard sit-down interview had I chosen in early development to go that route for the video. I followed them throughout the museum filming on a Panasonic BS1H and my Ronin RS2 gimbal. 

For the aerial shots of the museum and other skyline B-roll shots, I went on a 1-hour skyplane trip around the city.

Zachary Dripps posing with his camera before takeoff to capture aerial footage alongside Ashley Vasquez, Marlee the dachshund, and the Kenmore Air pilot

Project L Team At Gameworks Barcade

I interviewed the Seattle office's Project L engineers as they unwound after work at a barcade playing fighting games. For this video, I pre-lit the sit-down interview portion with magnetic quasar LED lights I hid around the room. For the portions of the video where they’re playing games, I filmed them using the same Panasonic BS1H with my Ronin RS2 gimbal.

Marlee the dachshund came along to Seattle. Here she is enjoying a ferry ride to Whidbey Island

Zachary Dripps filming an interview with Riot employees who work on the game VALORANT: Integration Artist Catalina Faerman, Weapons Artist Raquel Garcia, and VFX Artist Valeria Yang at the Museum of Pop Culture. Interview questions being read by Mitch Reams. Photo by Lindsey Chu.

Riot Team at Mox Boarding House

A primary intention of the video series was to show Seattle as another great option where prospective employees could live while also working at Riot Games. In my pre-interview questions, a number of interviewees expressed their fondness for the hiking trails around the Seattle Area. Based on this, I went and captured B-Roll footage to use in the videos. 

Zachary Dripps capturing B-Roll footage along Coal Creek Canyon

The majority of each video's comments reflected a better understanding of Seattle, noted a new learning, and expressed an aspiration to work for Riot. The videos boosted morale amongst Rioters in the Seattle office. Many Rioters expressed their happiness to have been in the video and commented on the videos. The video series also increased followers on LinkedIn (now over 1 million) and Life@Riot Twitter/X.

This film series was shot on the Panasonic BS1H with Blackmagic Video Assist in 6k BRAW, edited on Adobe Premiere Pro, and color graded in DaVinci Resolve. The brief, shooting schedule, and other production docs were created collaboratively in Google Docs and Sheets.

Zachary Dripps camera operating his Ronin RS 2 and the Panasonic BS1H with Zeiss CP2 lens alongside Mitch Reams.

Zachary Dripps and Marlee on Whidbey Island