WEBVTT - Techstuff Classic: Techstuff Talks to Rooster Teeth 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.840 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.079 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.279 hell Stuff Works in a love of all things tech, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.280 and it's time for another Friday classic episode of tech Stuff. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:28.080 This episode is the first interview we ever did for 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.680 tech Stuff. Chris Pallette and I got the opportunity to 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.600 speak with Mr Bernie Burns of Rooster Teeth Productions, and uh, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.160 I had been a huge fan of Rooster Teeth leading 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.800 up to this interview, so my objectivity was probably at 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.280 an all time low, but I thought it would be 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.600 nice to revisit this classic episode, give you guys a 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.279 chance to hear it in case you had not heard 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:52.840 it back then, and I'll have more to say about 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.280 it toward the end, but for now, enjoy. So, guys, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.880 this is a very special episode of tech Stuff, something 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:00.680 that we hope to do more of in the future. 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.160 We've got a special interview lined up with Mr Bernie 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.600 Burns of Rooster Teeth Productions. They are the company that 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.679 make Red versus Blue. So we've got the interview ready 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.280 to go and we're going to insert it right here, 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.440 We've got Bernie Burns on the line. Bernie is the 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:22.039 founder of Rooster Teeth Productions, the producers of the popular 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.759 web series Red Versus Blue, among other things. Bernie, how 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.160 are you. I'm doing find Jonathan, how are you doing? 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.400 I am I'm okay. Chris, how are you doing? Great? 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.280 Thanks for asking. You're welcome, Chris, and I want you 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.200 to be left out. So Bernie, I wanted to talk 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.959 to you. Really, you're a pioneer in web content, especially 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.640 when it comes to web videos and something beyond just 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.120 the the one hit wonder web videos that that we're 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.440 sort of the the earmark of internet video when it 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.240 first started to take off, And I kind of wanted 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.320 to talk to you about how you got into that 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.960 and the development of Rooster Teeth produce actions over time, 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:05.120 and where you're at today. So to start, you were 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.880 actually involved in creating content for the web before there 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.520 was even a Rooster Teeth, right, that's right, I mean 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.200 really back before video was even trually possible on the Internet. Um, 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.600 I mean you can download a I think one of 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:20.400 the first things video I was I ever downloaded from 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.880 the net was the first episode of South Park or 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.919 what became South Park, and that was ten minutes short 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.160 that I think was eighty meigs and it was the 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.480 size of a postage stamp on the screen. But yeah, 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.120 I started off writing for video game sites. I started 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.880 writing off for writing for what we're called everything Nothing 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.560 sites where they were sort of like blogs, but there 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.160 were more articles. You know, A modern day equivalent would 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.320 be almost like Slate or The Escapist, where their articles 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.480 that are kind of thematic, but they could really be 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:57.440 about anything. So what led you into starting the whole 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:02.600 red versus Blue video phenomen non. Well, I was a 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.360 filmmaker and I live in Austin, Texas, and so in 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.400 college I built a non linear editor video capture device 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.800 that could capture. Back then it was VHS tapes, so 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.000 we transfer film to VHS and then we would capture 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.960 the VHS and edited online. So then after making a 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.239 couple of movies with some friends in Austin, uh, they 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.520 moved out to l A to start their entertainment careers. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:27.200 I stayed in Austin because I had a very good 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.679 tech job, and I was always just trying to find 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.200 ways to make uh, you know, films or make short 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:36.520 little videos. And I had all this equipment laying around, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:37.800 and I thought, well, why don't I just take some 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.160 of these videos I'm producing and start putting them online. 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.840 Forget a way to do that, and so started encoding 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.640 them in quick time and dive x back then, and 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.400 we'll just upload them to a site. And I did 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.320 a few of those before I made the first episode 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.160 of Red Versus Blue and that immediately caught on. So 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.320 for for our listeners who may not be familiar with 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.800 Red Versus Blue, can you can you get sort of 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.480 a bird's eye view of what the series is and 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.000 and uh, you know the vehicle you use to create 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:12.160 the series? Sure, So what we do in a nutshell, uh, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:17.040 is we use the video game Halo uh to produce 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.280 short comedic cartoons essentially, um, and we use the graphics 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.760 engine that's in Halo to do all of our animation. 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.239 And probably the best way to describe it for something 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:29.920 for someone who's never seen anything like it before, it's 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:35.760 almost like using the video game characters as virtual puppets. Um. 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.080 You know, we're not doing animation cell by cell or 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.240 you know, sitting down and plotting on all the character moves. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.000 We're actually controlling them in real time. So it's a 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.760 little bit like animation, and it's a little bit like 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.440 live action shooting, and that we do takes, we do rehearsals, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.080 and the performance that you're seeing is actually a recorded 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.800 live performance by someone controlling the character in real time. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:01.360 That's that's really a very clever way of creating films. 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.720 And of course we now call this mashinima, but back 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.040 then that term probably wasn't very much in use at 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.520 the time you guys were first getting into Red versus Blue, Right, Yeah, 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.720 it's funny, we didn't know what it was called. We 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.680 didn't know this was the movement that people were doing 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.360 this kind of thing. So we thought we were brilliant 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.160 and we had been invented this new technique of shooting, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.520 and we were actually wondering what we're gonna call it, 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.560 and uh, we we got a phone call from Paul Marino, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.880 who was the head of the Academy of Machinima, Arts 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.240 and Sciencests in New York, and you know, they said 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:34.760 they wanted us to come out and do a presentation 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.560 about Reversus Blue, and um, there was an awards ceremony 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.800 that they had been nominated for and yeah, that's how 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.920 we first found out about the word mishinima. Yeah, so 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.240 and you said that you were It took off almost immediately. 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.320 Was that like from episode one you immediately saw a 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.480 real interest in this or did it take a few 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.320 before it started looking like you really had a hit 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.880 on your hands. No, it was pretty idiot. We put 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.800 up the we put up the first episode and we 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.120 along with it, we put up a p s A 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.159 which was just the characters looking into the screen and 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.840 talking and um, we were doing jokes about it. Was 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.680 it was so long ago as weapons of mass destruction. Uh, 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.159 this was back in two thousand and three, very very 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.760 timely at the time, was very very topical. Um and uh. 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.919 We were linked. The first episode of the series was 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:30.920 linked on farc and slash dot and Penny Arcade, and 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.719 so it went from three thousand views the first day 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.360 that we put up the episode to the next day 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.520 we had about fifteen thousand views on it. By the 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.680 time we put out the second video. Quarter of a 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.120 million people showed up the day of the first day 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.960 to watch the second video. And Yeah, by the end 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.119 of the month, we were up to about seven hundred 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.040 and fifty thousand viewers a week within within four weeks. 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.040 That's that's meteor. It was, it was, it was the 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.680 biggest problem for us was figuring out how to get 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.359 it out there. Yeah, the bandwidth is shoes. Yeah, I 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.800 mean we were we were paying tons of money to 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.680 deliver it because I mean, I'm sure you remember back 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.560 in the day, people would get banned with bills when 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.160 they would put up, you know, things on servers and 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.000 then get a popular site. Um, And so we were 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:20.800 trying to figure out how to host what we're at 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.600 the time pretty massive files. I mean these were, you know, 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.440 seventy megabyte files people were downloading in you know, two 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.880 thousand and to two thousand and three. It was it 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.240 was hard to figure out how to stir all that. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.480 And YouTube didn't exist at the time, so we couldn't 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:34.000 just throw it up on YouTube and hope for the best, 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.280 you know. I have I have a question, um about 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:40.880 what's your recording schedule? Look like, I mean, how many 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.800 of these how fast can you do one of these videos? 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.440 And and about how long does it take to uh, 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.320 you know, from beginning to end. When you're talking about 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.840 scripting and going through rehearsals and things like that how 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.400 long does that take. Well, we're a lot faster than 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:54.480 we used to be, just soon as we've been doing 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.680 it for nine seasons that we're we're just going into 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.600 season ten right now. But if you look at like 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.600 a pick Star movie and the Machinima what we produced 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.480 is not on the fidelity of of a picture movie. 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.280 We do more custom animation now. But um, the big 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.720 thing about machiniam is how efficient it is. So a 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.440 pictar movie might take a team of three to people 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.600 the course of three years. Um, we can produce five 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.480 minutes a week with about this is now just a 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.440 glacting voice actors who you have to have a different 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.920 actor for every character. But we can produce five minutes 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.480 a week with about three people. Uh, and that'll take 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:30.840 us about you know, thirty four hours to do that. 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.440 So every year we put out of a full feature 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.160 on DVD and we can do that with production crew 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:41.240 of anywhere between you know, three to five people. Now 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.640 now that in later seasons we've been adding more custom 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.920 animation just because of Sinima got more popular, we found 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.160 we had to do more to stand out. And you know, 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.880 like anything, it's like if it stays the same it'll 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.760 it'll get stale. So we had to kind of evolved 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.000 the series while it was in place, and so now 0:08:58.040 --> 0:08:59.360 we have a much bigger team. Now we have a 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.640 team of about twenty people that work on it, uh 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.560 and they do a lot of custom animations, some really 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.280 fun action scenes, fighting scenes, that kind of thing. So 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.120 when you guys were first exploring motion capture, UH, when 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.840 did you guys actually sit down and consciously make that decision? 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.520 And was that a huge challenge? Was it that or what? 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.960 Was it surprisingly easy compared to everything else he had 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.640 been doing. Well, we we made one higher that made 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.640 it a lot easier, and that was Monty Home. I'm 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:32.120 a big consumer of all things internet as well, so 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.600 I'm always online, always like looking at you know, online video. 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.520 I just I love it, and um, it's it's fun 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.240 to spot people who are doing cool new stuff. And 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:46.280 Montyon put up a video where he custom animated master 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:52.120 Chief from Halo fighting Sammy's from Metroid and it was 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.080 the models were okay, in the texture okay, but the 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:59.040 animation was outrageously sophisticated and the choreography of what he 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.120 was doing. And so we can't acted him, and we 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.320 tried to work with them like two or three years 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.800 before we were finally able to hire him, and that 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.719 was in season eight, and so we essentially built an 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.200 animation pipeline. That's he's the centerpiece of it. We built 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.640 it around him, essentially cool. Well, jumping back again back 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:19.920 to the early days, about how long did it did 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.320 it take before you realize that you actually had a 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.160 viable company on your hands? I mean, the show was 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.360 a hit, but there's a big difference between something that 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.480 ends up getting really viral on the internet and then 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.400 turning that into something that can actually sustain itself as 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.679 a business. Did that happen right away as well? Well, 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.199 I mean it came in the sense that we all 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.920 of a sudden had these major expenses for That's what 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.920 a great way to start a business, right Well, if 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.320 you know, if there's a massive expense side of this, 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.920 then they're they're they're theoretically should be some kind of 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.520 revenue help service that I mean, there's there's obviously a 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.160 demand for this, so if you sit the demand will 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.120 generate bills. Uh, we kind of see a little proactive 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:05.880 and figure a way to generate some revenue from it, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.080 and um, you know, I think there's a big opinion 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.160 that a common opinion. I should say that if you 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.120 make something on the Internet and you get a ton 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.240 of views, um, that the ad companies just show up 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.280 like the ad trucks shows up in your driveway. It does. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.000 It doesn't work that way. Getting advertisers for content is 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:27.560 very hard, and it's always been hard. It was never 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.200 it was never easy to do it on the internet. UM. 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.920 And there's a lot of places that will abstract that 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.080 for you now, a lot of a lot of video 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.640 services that will do that for you. But it's a 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:39.559 very difficult process, and so we had to go through 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.040 and figure out a way to build a business model. UM. 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.199 We actually built one that was based not on advertising, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.199 and we reran on that for five years. UM. We 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:53.600 just in merchandise, UM, premium memberships and DVD sales, and 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.439 that's how we funded the company for the first five years. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.200 We never we never ran a single ad on anything. Uh. 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.360 For the first round of the show actually rings me 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.920 to the question about the sponsorship the premium memberships that 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.040 you rant. I've been a fan of Red versus Blue 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.960 since season one. Well, I've been following it since season one, 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.199 and so I'm familiar with the idea of you became 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.560 a premium member and you would get access to certain videos. 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.880 Sometimes you get access early, sometimes you get exclusive access, 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.160 and also for the first few seasons, I remember, you 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.319 would even get the DVD at the end of the season, 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:31.440 which our premium member. Yeah. Yeah, so, uh so clearly 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.160 building a community was an important part of your business 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.760 model as well, right, and we built a community site 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:41.600 to that. We knew that eventually the popularity of the 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.360 show would wane, or at the very least that people 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.480 watching the show, you know, the individuals would you know, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.960 say well, I can't watch something for you know, ten years. Um, 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.520 you know, people just naturally fall out, and so we 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.640 wanted to have something in place to hold people as 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.360 like our portion of the Internet, so the Peple would 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.240 always know where they can find us. And when we 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:03.480 put new things out, it would be great to be 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.240 able to show it to people, to get that initial 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.839 seed of a of a new project. And that's that 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.120 was probably one of the smartest things we did, was 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.240 making sure that we carved out our own portion of 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:17.000 the Internet. Yeah, it's it's still a very popular portal. 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.120 I mean, if people want to go and check out 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.040 the you have several different your l's that all lead 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.839 into this kind of uh hub really of all the 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.040 different products Rooster Teeth does, because it's not just Red 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.560 Versus Blue, although we'll get into that in a little bit. 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.560 I did have another question about the tone of Red 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.680 Versus Blue and the early seasons the Blood Gulch Chronicles 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:40.839 in particular, which is the first five seasons of Red 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.360 Versus Blue. Uh, it was it was almost exclusively comedic, 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.600 and then you began to experiment by inserting some more 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:52.640 dramatic elements into the storyline, sometimes with uh tertiary characters 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.600 who were not playing directly with your main cast. What time, 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.280 at what point did you decide to do that? Was 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:00.000 that something you had wanted to do from the big 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.840 getting or as you were going, were you thinking, hey, 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.240 you know what, we could actually try something new here 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.880 and try and do almost like an action movie type 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.120 script parallel to the comedic stuff we're doing on this 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:17.160 other side. Yeah, So it was essentially when it first started, essentially, 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.840 like somebody described it as stripes in Space, which I 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:21.480 think is a great way to describe it. It's just 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.800 just it's very lighthearted. It's a it's a military comedy 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.280 which which focuses on a lot of bureaucracy humor, which 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.720 I think crosses over a lot of industries, not just 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.080 you know, the military, but also business and school and 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.640 everything else. UM. I was always as a as a writer, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:45.160 I was always writing though background threads so that the 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.080 story could stay consistent. If you base it in a universe, 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.520 you know, then it seems more honest. And I was 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:53.400 doing all of that. And when we got towards the 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.840 end of the fifth season, UM, I was talking with 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:58.800 people about stories in the background that we're going that 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.440 audience members had picked up on. But I had this 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.960 whole fleshed out uh universe kind of behind the scenes, 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.520 and I was talking with somebody here about it, and 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.720 I strive it all. Was writing on the white board 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.840 about all these things, and they said, maybe you should 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.320 show this to the audience, you know, I mean, maybe 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.400 you should, Maybe you should put this out there. And 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.880 I thought, yeah, maybe, maybe, you know, maybe we should. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.640 It's it's it's interesting to us. And you know, our 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.800 philosophy here is, um if we make things that we like, 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:27.840 we just have faith that there's enough people on the 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.520 internet that are like us that they'll like it too. 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.360 So yeah, it's just a natural evolution. Like I said, 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:35.360 it's you know, we started off the very first episode 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.840 of the very first season saying, all these guys, do 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.600 we stand around and talk? That's what they were doing 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.360 last week. That's what let't me doing five minutes from 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:44.760 now and for five seasons. You know, it's it works 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.160 very well standing around and talking, but you really do 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.400 run the risk of becoming sale five years on the 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.600 internet is is like a it's like a glacier, you know, 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.920 it's it's like an eon. It seems like, um, so 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.440 that's the rise and fall of my space. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:01.920 and you know we talked about that to you, like 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.520 the when I was talking earlier about the carving out 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.120 your own space on the internet. It's like a lot 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.440 of people that today, you know, they don't do that. 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.760 There's a big opinion that the the web is dead 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.480 and that you should just go all in on Facebook 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.640 or all in on YouTube or what you know, whatever 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.560 the darling uh site of the moment happens to be. 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.760 But I mean, we've been doing this for so long. 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:23.840 I remember when if we just spend all of our 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.800 time building up our Facebook or assuming are MySpace friends 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.520 in two thousand three and two thousand four, we would 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.760 I think, you know, um, you know, we're dealing with 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.000 rever or something like that. You know, it's just it's 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:41.200 it's it's Twitter, Twitter follower accounts, and you know, Facebook 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.560 like seemed very important right now, but five years from 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.280 now they probably won't seem all that important. You have. 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.920 The biggest shifts that I see right now are really 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:53.200 more platform shifts. So it's more like the emphasis now 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.360 is on mobile as opposed to the desktop and laptop models, 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.240 which that makes more sense. I mean, that's an access thing, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.120 not a not a you know, this is the particular 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:07.880 website that's in vogue right now. Well, oh no, go ahead, 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.600 I'm sorry. No, it's crazy. It's crazy how much mobile 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.680 has taken off. I mean, it's just it's just insane. Yes, yeah, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:15.760 we we talk about that all the time here at 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.720 how Stuff works as well. I mean, it's it's completely 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.880 changed the way that we create certain types of content. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.679 Because there are some kinds that are perfect for the 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.800 mobile platform, and that's just people love them. There are 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.800 other types that just don't quite fit as well. It's 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.600 a real challenge to try and find the balance there. Fortunately, 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.600 I think web video is one of those that it 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.639 transcends the platform you don't have, you don't have to 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.639 worry about that as much. UM. Let me ask you 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.640 also about some of the tricks you guys did working 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:55.920 within the confines of a video game universe and actually 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:00.000 within the actual physics engine of the video game itself. Uh, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.720 watching some of the behind the scenes stuff, I love 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.520 the idea that you guys got really creative were the 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.840 ways you shot the series, especially early on when there 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.240 weren't as many tools for you to use, tools that 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.119 I think have been built into games like Halo because 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.719 of the work you've done when they didn't exist back then. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.520 You found really creative ways of getting around it. The 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:22.560 one I think of off the top of my head 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:29.080 is using a tank as a crane for crane shots, right. 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:30.680 I mean that's goes back to how it's a lot 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:32.720 like live action. It's like, we want to get a 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.159 shot where we raised up, how do we do how 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.080 do we do that? Um? There wasn't any ability within 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.760 the retail game to raise the camera above eye level. 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.359 I mean the entire first three seasons of the show. 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.240 You're seeing the entire show through another character's eyes that 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.959 never appeared on screen. It's it's literally a camera man um. 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.080 And so we would walk him around in order to 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.719 set up shots and to meet a camera. And so 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:56.440 we thought, well, how can we do this? I thought, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.159 why don't we just put him on the end of 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.600 the barrel of the tank. Can just slowly raise the 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:03.560 tank barrel up, and sure enough, that allowed us to 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.640 get a crane shot with it. Likewise, we would put 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.520 people on the tops of banshees and fly them around 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.320 if we wanted to get a really high view of 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.320 the cannon or something like that. Yeah, we had to 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.600 be really creative. In a later season, one of the 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.159 things we would also just employ like some of the 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.679 oldest trips that there are in filmmaking. Um, we had 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.280 a character, a baby alien, so we need a small alien. Well, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.760 you can't shrink a character in the game, so we 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.840 would just do forced perspective where we would set the 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.239 alien far back in the shot and because there's no 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.919 depth of field in the game, it's an infinite focus. Um, 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:41.719 we would just set up the scene so that one 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:43.359 character is really far away and they just happened to 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.680 look a lot smaller, and it worked perfectly. I mean 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:47.760 it it's it's the illusion was great. It's see you know, 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:49.119 just like old things that used to do back in 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.240 the days when they would you know, shoot King Kong 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.080 and voyage the Moon. I imagine getting eyelines in this 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.600 series is a bit of a challenge. It definitely is. 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:00.320 I mean there's nothing in the game where it's like 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.040 everyone looks in the same direction, you know, And so 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.320 we're we're probably the best people in the world at 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.720 playing Halo in a very specific way. Like ever, if 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.400 you ever point us in a matchmaking game where all 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.199 the players on the team have to look in the 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.640 same direction or all run in the same line while 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.320 looking at their feet, we would we would kill at that. 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.080