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Posting Web Series RocketJump Studios shot the in-game action featured in Video Game High School at 48fps. 20 Internet," says Desmond Dolly, the show's executive producer/lead editor, and cofounder of RocketJump. "We've always felt like the first kids on the block trying to push the limits of narrative storytelling online — sometimes the only kids." The episodes at the school are live action, and while actual game play looks stylistically different from the rest of the show, most of the game footage is shot live action with CGI supplementing where needed. "We touch upon a different style game in every episode — a Sega Genesis-type game, a first-person shooter, tabletop role-playing," Dolly explains. "They're all congruent with the story." In season two, however, all the in-game action was shot 48fps. "We were all fascinated by The Hobbit and heard many critiques that it looked too much like a video game," says Dolly. "We thought we'd use that to our advantage and apply a mix of frame rates to achieve a hyper-realistic look that fit our narrative. I don't think anyone has mixed frame rates in a Web series before?" Season two's live action was shot with Red Epic and Scarlet cameras to make the most of a tight production schedule. "For ingame action, we used every camera at our disposal: Red Epic, GoPro, DSLRs, Sony EX1," says Dolly. "In some cases, 24fps footage had to be interpolated to 48fps." Season two was cut at The Sweatshop, RocketJump's in-house post house, which also does commercials, independent films, music videos and other Web projects for Post • September 2013 hire. "Due to the nature of the HFR workflow, we couldn't afford to outsource this work," Dolly notes. "We spent months in R&D to find something repeatable from episode to episode and decided on [Adobe] Premiere Pro, for its ability to work in 48fps, and other off-the-shelf software. "The writers put a lot of time and care into the scripts so, for the most part, editorial adheres to what's on the page; episodes rarely require a great deal of sculpting in post," says Dolly. "It's more about balancing the mix of tones. Multiple assistant editors work on each show; everything's housed on a custom-built 40TB server with 44TB offsite back up." Season two had fewer but longer episodes than the debut season, so editors have had about an hour more content to cut. "Going to 30 minutes per episode this season has allowed us to explore more characters and subplots," Dolly points out. "Last year we weren't even sure if 10- to 12-minute episodes would work on the Internet. But we got feedback that audiences wanted more. Now, with 30 minutes, the fans still can't get enough!" The Sweatshop has a Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, but given the scope of season two, it farmed out color correction to Blacklist Productions in Hollywood, which boasts its www.postmagazine.com Tiffany Ariany, who stars in LA Girls, also created, wrote and co-edited the series. She uses Final Cut Pro. own Resolve. VFX can be extensive and are typically done in-house with tools such as Adobe After Effects, Imagineer Systems' Mocha AE, The Foundry's Nuke and Autodesk Maya and 3DS Max. "Season two's episode four had over 230 VFX shots in 30 minutes, so that's more than some summer movie blockbusters," says Dolly. "We do standard compositing in-house, but use Play Fight in Toronto for the more complex shots." The first nine-episode season of Video Game High School was edited into a feature film and distributed on Amazon, iTunes and Netflix. Season three for the Web has just been announced, so fans stay tuned! LA GIRLS If you've speculated on what the characters from HBO's hit Girls might be like if they moved to Los Angeles, you need to check out LA Girls, a raunchy Web series that follows the misadventures of four 20-somethings in "a city made for bad decisions." Season one comprises five episodes running from 3.5 to five minutes each. It launched on YouTube in August. Tiffany Ariany, the creator, co-writer and one of the stars of LA Girls also co-edited