Let's Go to Colorado

Hey, RHOBH fans, its Dave Rupel, one of the Executive Producers and Showrunner back for a second season of blogging! Last week, Douglas Ross, the President and CEO of Evolution Media, as well as one of the Executive Producers of RHOBH, wrote the initial blog for the premiere that dealt with cast member Russell Armstrong's suicide. I thought Doug wrote a lovely blog, so there's really nothing more for me to add, other than all of us on the show continue to send our sympathies and support to Taylor, Kennedy, and Russell's family and friends.

For anyone who didn't read my blog in the first season, the ladies will be blogging about their experiences while filming. The purpose of my blog is to answer questions and give you some behind-the-scenes glimpses. Last year I explained what a Showrunner was, so for those uninitiated, I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. There are eight Executive Producers on RHOBH. Four are executives at Evolution Media and three are executives at Bravo. They are all covering multiple shows at once. I am the only EP that is dedicated solely to RHOBH. So basically I am the day-to-day boss who still has to answer to all the other EPs.

Now, let's talk about Episode 2, entitled "Blame It On The Altitude," in which the ladies travel to Vail, CO, for a ski weekend. A lot of people ask me if we script the events of the show. No, we don't. We're just in constant contact with the ladies asking them what's going on in their lives, and when we hear something that sounds interesting, we shoot it. And that's how we wound up in Beaver Creek. Due to Camille and Kelsey's divorce, they had agreed to sell their beautiful Beaver Creek home. Camille wanted to visit one last time and thought it would be a fun trip for the ladies. That's all I had to hear. Let’s go to Colorado!

We have a really great crew and staff on our show, and we were very fortunate to have nearly 100 percent of them return for Season 2. We traveled a lot in Season 1 and when you work together that long, you develop a shorthand with people and you get the traveling down to a science. The nice thing about that is it allowed us to try and up our game. What could we do to make the show look even better? We did it by experimenting with several technical "toys" as our Line Producer Dave Patry would call them.

Calvin Callaway, one of our camera operators, shot most of the spectacular time lapse you see on a Canon 5D, which actually instead of shooting video shoots individual pictures -- one every second. The end effect is gorgeous. Just take a look at the beautiful time lapses in Colorado. To cover the skiing, it was a full on team effort. We used two Go Pro cameras, which are tiny cameras about the size of a tennis ball that people use to film extreme sports. One of our Directors of Photography, Beth Kochendorfer, and our Production Manager, Mark Grzesiuk, attached one Go Pro to Camille's ski and the other to instructor J.J.'s helmet. Finally, Camera Operator Yavir Ramawtar snowboarded backwards, believe it or not to shoot the ladies coming down the hill.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. I am so incredibly proud of the massively talented and tirelessly hardworking crew and staff of RHOBH! It was (and still is for those of us in post-production) an extraordinary group of people to work with! Thanks, team!

See below for some of the crew, waiting to shoot the ladies at the bottom of the mountain.

I hope you enjoyed the episode. Please feel free to comment or ask questions, and I'll answer as many as I can in next week's blog.