Freddie Wong

Freddie Wong

Wong in 2012
Born (1985-09-13) September 13, 1985
Hometown Seattle, Washington
Nationality American
League World Series of Video Games
Freddie Wong
Simplified Chinese 黄谷子
Traditional Chinese 黃穀子
Hanyu Pinyin Huáng Gǔzi

Freddie Wong (born September 13, 1985) is an American filmmaker, musician, VFX artist and competitive gamer.[1] Wong participates in at least three YouTube channels, with RocketJump, his production company's main channel, supporting over 7 million subscribers,[2] BrandonJLa, a secondary channel with behind the scenes videos and other content, which holds over 1.2 million subscribers,[3] and Node, a gaming channel with over 1.7 million subscribers.[4]

Early life

Wong attended Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington.[5] He then attended and graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.[5] Wong owns and manages Overcrank Media, a Los Angeles-based media production company specializing in feature film and online video content, having produced an independent film titled Bear. Wong met his future collaborator Brandon Laatsch in college.

Career

2007–2010: Competitive Gaming, YouTube breakthrough

Wong competed in the World Series of Video Games in Dallas in July 2007. He won first prize in the Guitar Hero 2 competition, playing the song "Less Talk More Rokk" by Freezepop.[6][7] It was around this time that he began uploading videos to YouTube and finding popularity with his comedic or video game-related content.

During MTV's "Gamer's Week" celebration in November 2007, Freddie appeared as a guest on Total Request Live.[8] Participating in the program with his newly formed band Hellanor Brozevelt, Wong was part of a country-wide search to find the best Rock Band ensemble. After receiving tutelage from well-known rockers Good Charlotte, Brozevelt performed at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York against Chicago-based Carrie Me Home.[9]

Wong has attracted mainstream attention as well, with Jimmy Kimmel in a bathroom tie battle, Andy Whitfield appearing in a Time Crisis tribute video, Kevin Pollak appearing in a Hypnotism stunt, Shenae Grimes in a romantic gun action scene, Ray William Johnson in a troll infestation video, Eliza Dushku appearing in an action scene, Jon Favreau featuring in his video based on Cowboys & Aliens, the glam metal band Steel Panther appearing in his video based on the Crossfire board game, and Smosh appearing in his video "Huge Guns (with Smosh)".[10]

Wong at VidCon 2014

In 2010, Wong helped Joe Penna, known as MysteryGuitarMan on YouTube, shoot a commercial for McDonald's,[11] and assisted Wong Fu Productions in actions scenes of Agents of Secret Stuff.[12] In 2011 Wong produced, co-directed, and acted in a TV commercial for Battlefield 3 at the request of Electronic Arts.[13][14]

2011–present: Video Game High School, RocketJump

In 2011, along with his partners Matt Arnold and Desmond "Dez" Dolly, Wong formed the production company RocketJump. Since then, they have worked on the web series Video Game High School,[15] which began releasing episodes on May 11, 2012 and has since developed a cult following, amassing over 100 million views across various online platforms. The series is based on a concept by Campos and Chris Pappavaselio.

The team was able to raise funding for 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.[16]

The final episode of the series was released November 17, 2014, on the RocketJump website and YouTube.

In late 2013, Wong's channel, 'freddiew' was renamed to "Rocketjump", and 'freddiew2' was renamed to 'BrandonJLa.' Laatsch also announced that he and Wong would no longer work together on projects, and any short videos or "shorts" would be posted on either NODE (a gaming channel run by Laatsch, Niko Pueringer, and Sam Gorski) or BrandonJLa. This was done because they wanted to work on different projects, as Wong was busy with Video Game High School.[17]

Personal life

Wong is the older brother of actor and YouTuber Jimmy Wong, who co-stars in his web series Video Game High School.[18][19]

Filmography

Year Title Role Other notes
2010 Bear Film; producer
2011 Chuck Freddie TV Series; guest appearance in "Chuck Versus the Hack Off"
2012–2014 Video Game High School Himself Web series; also co-creator, co-director, story writer, executive producer
2013 MyMusic DJ Elephant TV Series; episode: "Ghosts!!!"
2013 Key & Peele Ping TV Series; guest appearance in episode 3.07
2013–present The Gauntlet Himself Web series; season 2 regular
2014 Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory Himself TV Series; episode: "Fully Uploaded"
2015 The Strongest Man Jimmy Yoon Film
2015 RocketJump: The Show Himself Also co-creator, co-director, writer, executive producer, editor

References

  1. ↑ Wong, Freddie (September 13, 2012). "Hitting 27 today – thanks everyone!". Twitter. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  2. ↑ Statistics retrieved on March 18, 2016, at RocketJump on YouTube.
  3. ↑ Statistics retrieved on March 18, 2016, at BrandonJLa on YouTube.
  4. ↑ Statistics retrieved on October 16, 2016, at Node on YouTube.
  5. 1 2 Rolph, Amy (July 16, 2007). "Seattle's 'Hero' struts into rock stardom". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved July 23, 2010.
  6. ↑ Freddie Wong 10 on STYLE -Less Talk More Rokk on YouTube video of the second half of Freddie's winning performance
  7. ↑ World Series of Video Games- Freddiew's blog post dated July 16, 2007.
  8. ↑ http://www.freddiew.com/2007/11/13/the-going-thing/
  9. ↑ "'Rock Band' Rock Off | Video | MTV". MTV. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  10. ↑ FreddieW (January 13, 2011). "Huge Guns (with Smosh!)". YouTube. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  11. ↑ Freddie Wong Twitter Update – Twitter, 2011.
  12. ↑ Nigahiga (November 24, 2010). "Agents of Secret Stuff". YouTube. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  13. ↑ Battlefield 3 – FreddieW TV Commercial on YouTube, 2011
  14. ↑ 10 Days to Air – -BF3 TV commercial Behind the Scenes on YouTube, 2011.
  15. ↑ http://www.rocketjump.com/category/vghs#.VGtHAlfF-0w
  16. ↑ "Video Game High School". Kickstarter. October 21, 2011. Retrieved May 13, 2012.
  17. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diVBqGBKtBs&list=UUDsO-0Yo5zpJk575nKXgMVA
  18. ↑ Roderick, Kevin (March 24, 2011). "Jimmy Wong as Internet savior". LA Observed. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
  19. ↑ "Never stop working. If you're doing something you love, then it shouldn't be a problem.". The Other Asians. July 7, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2012.

Further reading

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