multi-purpose showrunning
SERIES
SHOWRUNNer
For five years, I served as Showrunner for “UFC Countdown,” a one-hour documentary series on ESPN and YouTube that takes viewers inside the lives and training camps of the UFC’s top fighters as they prepare for upcoming pay-per-view events. As Showrunner, I would oversee every facet of a production that conducted shoots with athletes all over the world, then wrote voice over and strung out interviews to craft stories into a one-hour TV program for ESPN. Depending on the UFC pay-per-view schedule, we would produce anywhere from 12 to 14 episodes per year.
While producing a one-hour show filmed all across the planet every 3-4 weeks is innately challenging, doing so for the UFC comes with additional hurdles. Fights get booked on short notice, fights get cancelled, athletes pull out of shows due to injury, and other unforeseen circumstances… it is a constant moving target, but no matter what happened, “UFC Countdown” was due to ESPN the week before each pay-per-view. I served as Showrunner for more than 60 episodes, and the unpredictable series forced me to work at a lightning pace, be resourceful when things didn’t go according to plan, and not allow stressful situations to hinder production value or execution.
brand integration
promo directing
The UFC’s marketing and live production departments would repurpose much of what we filmed for “UFC Countdown.” For for the biggest fights, we would scale up production to capture specific promo elements that supported other company initiatives. Shot sheets, mood boards, and everything in between, I integrated a variety of promo and commercial content capture during our shoots to elevate the wider marketing efforts for some of the biggest pay-per-view events in combat sports history. Additional company-wide requests would regularly be made during our shoots, like capturing interviews in other languages, posing elements for sponsorship spots, dialogue for cold opens, and more. Fielding requests while trying to navigate production was a necessary component of fulfilling the UFC’s overall objective - promoting fights.
The UFC has many partners and sponsors. In some cases, we wanted to find opportunities to seamlessly integrate exposure for these partners within the acts of “UFC Countdown.” Most notably, we would partner with Departments of Culture and Tourism in certain international markets like Abu Dhabi, UAE and Melbourne, Australia. To generate more recognition for these destinations, we would find ways to highlight them within the show without seeming like we placed advertisements, writing voiceover or using interview dialogue to showcase the best of each city, but in a way that felt continuous within the body of the program.