Year: 2025
Role: Camera operator
Studio or network: The Pokémon Company
Type: Live and unscripted
Links: IMDb
The Pokémon World Championships is The Pokémon Company International's esports event, streamed live on Pokémon's official Twitch and YouTube channels. The 2025 edition ran August 15 to 17 at the Anaheim Convention Center, with competition across four games: Pokémon VGC, Pokémon TCG, Pokémon GO and Pokémon UNITE. In 2026 it moved to the Moscone Center in San Francisco, August 28 to 30, and the Sunday finals were played in an arena for the first time, a sold-out Chase Center. The VGC final there peaked above 215,000 concurrent viewers, a record for Pokémon esports.
Michael-Ryan Fletchall worked both editions as a camera operator. He brings three decades on films, series and live broadcasts to the job.
Esports asks something particular of a crew. The game itself lives on a screen, so the cameras carry everything around it: the players' faces, their hands, the reaction when a match turns, the crowd in the hall. An operator follows the director's calls while reading the room, because the moment that matters often comes a second after the play. Over three days of streams, steady framing and quick, quiet repositioning keep the human side of the competition in the picture.