WEBVTT - The Rooster Teeth Story: The Beginning 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.160 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.479 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts. And how the 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.800 tech are you? Maybe this following exchange will sound familiar 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:29.320 to some of you out there. Hey yeah, do you 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.320 ever wonder why we're here? That's how the very first 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.000 episode of Red Versus Blue, an animated web series that 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.199 launched nearly twenty one years ago. As I record this 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.520 in March of twenty twenty four, and it's a series 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:50.760 that spans nineteen seasons and multiple mini series offshoots. This 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.560 year that series will conclude, which was planned. They had 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.720 planned to finally wrap up Red Versus Blue. Also, the 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.600 company that produces that series, Rooster Teeth, is going to 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:08.400 shut down. That was not planned, or at least it 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:13.280 wasn't anticipated to be this particular year. I thought I 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.800 would do a pair of episodes. It turns out as 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:21.240 a retrospective on Rooster Teeth. By necessity, this is going 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.800 to be a cliffs notes version of that company's history 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:29.479 because it packed in an awful lot during those twenty 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.039 one years of existence. But I felt it was important 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.000 to acknowledge Rooster Teeth because it was one of those 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.440 forces that helped shape Internet culture and how online media 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.920 can work. Rooster Teeth was one of those early web 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:49.840 based media companies that would fuel memes and fuel merchandise sales. 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.200 It would help shape the sense of humor for a 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.520 generation of fans, and I actually put it up there 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.880 with a lot of other early web based comedy shows 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.680 off like Aska Ninja and Homestar Runner. These were things 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.920 that sort of defined Internet culture and Internet humor in 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.520 those early days. You could also point to other groups 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.840 like Lonely Island. You know, the trio of Lonely Island. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:21.560 We're finding amazing success online, but would find even greater 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.760 success in mainstream media as they would go on to 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.200 work with Saturday Night Live and then other projects. Also, 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.120 way back in twenty twelve, I actually had Rooster Teeth 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.120 co founder Bernie Burns on this show. We did an 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.080 interview with Bernie way back in twenty twelve. So if 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.200 you want to crawl through the tech Stuff archives, you 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.200 can actually find that episode. It's titled tech Stuff Talks 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.280 to Rooster Teeth. We actually have done classic reruns of 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.600 that show, so you should be able to find it 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.840 through the archives. It originally published on February twenty second, 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.160 twenty twelve, while I've been doing the show a long time, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.280 or you can check out the sod How the Great 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:06.440 Movie Ride Worked. That published on September two, twenty twenty two, 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.160 a decade later, and that featured special guest Jack Battillo, 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.160 who also worked at Rooster Teeth. He was a founding 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.440 member of their Achievement Hunter channel, which I'll talk about 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.440 more in a little bit. However, to tell the story 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.360 of Rooster Teeth, we actually need to go way back 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.600 to the early two thousands, before there was a Rooster 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.360 Teeth company to speak of. There were a group of 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.959 friends and co workers who lived in Austin, Texas, and 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:39.040 they decided to collaborate and to launch a website. And 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.400 some of them had had a little bit of experience 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.800 doing this. All of them had had some interest in 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.480 creating content of one form or another. Some of the 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.160 group had actually even attended film school and had the 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.360 actual education to go into things like production. One of 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.840 the founding members had served in the military as a photojournalist. 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.840 It also launched magazines or zines, as they would say 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.960 in the old school fandom days for the punk rock scene. 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.560 Most of the founding members had at one time or 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.040 another worked for a tech help call center, and so 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.679 they were familiar with each other and they loved video games. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.880 Oh also they loved to drink as an alcohol. They 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.520 loved drinking, though for the record, most of the guys 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.719 have seriously cut back or stopped drinking alcohol these days, 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.920 and they decided to make a comedy and culture website 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.880 called drunk Gamers. So on this site they did everything 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.920 from game reviews to commenting on culture to razzing each 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:48.000 other and their audience, usually while inebriated. The joke more 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.320 or less ran its course, and they decided to sunset 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:54.880 the website after a while, but it gave them a 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.760 taste of creating content for the web. And one of 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.640 the things that they produced during the drunk Gamers era 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:06.720 was a trailer for a proposed series. This series would 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.599 make use of the Xbox video game Halo as a 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:15.120 sort of engine for their show. The Drunk Gamers would 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.640 use controllers in a multiplayer mode to make the characters 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:24.839 bob their heads in time, with lines being spoken in voiceover, 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:27.440 and then they would also you know, move the characters 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.000 to specific locations in view of one character that acted 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.880 as the camera, so it was like they were hitting 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.960 their marks on a soundstage and they would act out 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:40.560 a script. They would record the voiceover to go with 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.440 the action, and it was akin to digital puppetry, and 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:49.040 this relatively new art form had the name machinema. Rooster 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.320 Teeth did not coin that term, nor were they the 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.640 first to do this, but they were an early example 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:00.440 of machinima. The trailer they produced featured a narrative and 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:07.960 an increasingly combative subtitle editor who would squabble as the 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.960 editor would paraphrase what the narrator was saying. And meanwhile, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.360 you're watching these clips of video game characters doing stuff. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.040 And it was all supposed to take place in the 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.760 era immediately following the events of the video game Halo, 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.400 and the story was there erupted a civil war back 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.400 on Earth, and the two sides of the civil war 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.320 divided into Red armies and Blue armies, so Red versus Blue. 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.800 It gave a hint at what the irreverence style of 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.919 the series would feature, but at the time it didn't 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:47.240 get that much attention. As drunk gamers wound down, the 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:50.039 team had the opportunity to give the Red Versus Blue 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.080 series another go, and they jotted down a list of 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.240 ideas and jokes sort of scenarios that they could incorporate 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.080 into the episodes, and each episode was only going to 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.839 be a few minutes long, as the founders have explained subsequently, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.800 the original idea was to create a limited mini series 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:09.760 of just a few episodes, so it wasn't meant to 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.800 be an ongoing thing. But it turned out the show, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.600 which launched on April first, two thousand and three, would 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.920 receive much more attention than they anticipated. Plus they still 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.240 had plenty of jokes and ideas left from the brainstorming session, 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.200 and gradually they started to get the feeling that they 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:33.080 could perhaps do something larger and more ambitious with this 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:38.160 recipe of materials and ingredients. So the show largely lampooned 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.320 military life and bureaucracy, as well as tropes you would 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:46.080 find in video games and science fiction action films. The 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.560 first season was pretty low fi, but it also had 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.480 to be because it was limited to the original Xbox 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.440 Halo title, and this was also in an era before YouTube, 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.560 so YouTube didn't launch till two thousand and five, two 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.120 years after Red Versus Blue started coming out, which meant 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:07.480 the team had to host the video files on a website, 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.960 so they had to put the files on a server 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.040 and make that available to the audience, and the audience 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.360 would actually have to go to the website, click on 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.680 a link, and download episodes, and they had a choice. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.640 They could download in quick time, or they could download 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:26.160 in Windows media file formats and then watch the videos 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.200 once you've downloaded them. I was actually one of these people. 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.400 I didn't discover Red Versus Blue on day one. I 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:37.160 was not like an OG fan from the very beginning 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.240 of the launch. But when I discovered Red Versus Blue, 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.600 they were only maybe four or five episodes into season 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:45.800 one when I found out about it, and I got 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.960 hooked right away, so I would end up downloading episodes 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.880 the day they published, and ultimately I even burned the 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.440 episodes of season one to a CD because back then 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.520 PCs had optical drives. But anyway, the humor in those 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:06.480 early episodes is frequently juvenile and vulgar. I think saying 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:08.880 that not all the jokes have aged well is a 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.080 more than fair assessment, and I suspect that if the 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.240 creators were to put out the series today, they would 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.800 make very different choices in some instances, but the spirit 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.560 of Red versus Blue shares commonalities with literary classics like 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.920 Catch twenty two. That novel highlights the absurdities and contradictions 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:34.439 of military, particularly during wartime, So Rooster Teeth lampooned conventions 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.240 found in bureaucracies in general, not just the military. And 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.400 while there was never a guarantee that they would succeed, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.120 the show did find an audience, and it was a 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.160 large enough audience to actually create challenges for the team 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.640 because again, the audience had to go to a website 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.080 and download a file, and internet traffic isn't free, right. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.360 If you are hosting files on a server and there 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.800 are a lot of people going to that server to 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.800 download those files, it can start to rake up a 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.600 pretty substantial bill. So hosting the files would actually require 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:13.120 better servers. Fairly early on in Rooster Teeth's history, so 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.760 the group actually formed the company called Rooster Teeth. Rooster 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.560 Teeth takes its name from a sanitized version of a 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.040 vulgar insult used in the original series trailer, an insult 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.600 that I will not repeat here, but it's easily found. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.040 The company traces its origins to April first, two thousand 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.560 and three, and the founding members, depending upon which version 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.120 of the company's history you're reading, would include Bernie Burns, 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:46.400 Matt Hollum, Gustavo Sorola, Jeff Ramsey, Jason Seldanya, and Joel Hayman. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.200 And the group started on a journey that would lead 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.040 to a lot of really interesting opportunities for those folks, 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.800 as well as others who would join the company. Now, 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.840 the early days weren't exactly glamorous. The company's headquarters was 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.520 even an office space. It was a relatively small spare 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.280 room in Bernie Burns's home, and some of the folks 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:09.800 meant that, you know, they were crammed into spaces like 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.120 a closet where they would work, and they were working 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.560 in a perpetual crunch time. They also, at this point 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.560 they also had separate jobs. Not everyone could just work 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.480 on this full time. In fact, I don't think anyone 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:24.920 was working on it full time. Early on. They were 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.400 maintaining a normal job as well as trying to produce 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:34.000 a technically complicated web series. Because getting this right was 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.080 not easy. You know, it's hard to tell when you 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.120 are performing one of these episodes, if you're in the 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.199 right spot, if you're looking in the right direction, if 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.080 you're all your settings are correct. It's tricky to do, 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.959 and so they were constantly working in Crunch and they 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.480 were trying to stick as close to a weekly publication 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.000 schedule as they possibly could despite all the technical challenge, 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.000 some of which were more server side. Right, if your 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.560 server happens to be down for whatever reason, it's not 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.000 like you can upload your file. And uploading took a 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.520 long time because this is the early days of internet connectivity. 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:17.000 Bandwidth was limited, and some shots that they made would 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.199 call for special circumstances that were not easy to generate 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.479 or to replicate within the game. Like they were possible obviously, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.920 but they weren't easy. So it could take an hour 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.240 or more just to set up a site gag, and 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.560 if you messed something up, then you had to do 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.480 it all over again. Also, you've got to remember these 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.000 are guys who were mostly in their early twenties at 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.520 this point, early to mid twenties, and sometimes they would 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.439 get up to shenanigans and purposefully do things that would 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.240 sabotage a shot and force everyone to set everything up 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.800 all over again because that was funny. Yeah, that's the 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.880 kind of activity that will get you thrown off of 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.680 any normal production set, and I'm sure there were times 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.280 where the creators were considering throwing people out of the 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.880 Bernie's house. Anyway. There were also the technical issue of 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.120 just making sure that the files were available for folks 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.880 to download, because as the show grew in popularity, this 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.800 became a bigger concern. One way the company generated revenue 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.360 was to offer viewers the chance to become what they 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.719 called sponsors, and in return, the sponsors would receive a 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.240 DVD copy of the episodes at the end of the season. 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.719 Then Rooster Teeth also began to produce merchandise like T 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.680 shirts and other items featuring characters and catchphrases. I used 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.000 to have a couple of red versus Blue T shirts 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.480 way back in the day. I got them pretty early on. 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.480 I remember having a T shirt from the character Caboose 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.920 that said I like me, which you know, it's a 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:50.920 good thing to remember once in a while. Now. In 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.040 those early days, this small team handled everything themselves, and 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.760 by small, I mean there were fewer than ten people 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:03.000 working at Rooster Teeth. Everything that they did included fostering 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:08.000 their growing community, managing merchandise orders, keeping track of inventory, 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.600 responding to technical issues, plus you know, just creating the show. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.679 So people wore many hats figuratively. I don't think they 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.560 literally wore a lot of hats. Okay, this is a 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.640 good place for us to take a quick break to 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.240 thank our sponsors. We'll be right back with lots more 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:36.480 about the early days of Rooster Teeth. Okay, we're back. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.680 So Rooster Teeth would launch the first season of Red 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.000 Versus Blue on April first, two thousand and three, and 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.360 the first five seasons of Red Versus Blue are collectively 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.280 called the Blood Gulch Chronicles, named after a map in 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:58.160 the Halo multiplayer game. These episodes are just largely comedic 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.200 in tone. They're also just a few minutes each. They 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.280 get longer as the series went on, and later seasons 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.040 would introduce much more dramatic elements, though it never strayed 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.000 too far away from comedy. Some episodes have very little 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.600 comedy in them, but most of them still have at 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.600 least elements and references, and the series would also begin 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.200 to incorporate original animation using techniques like motion capture technology 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.160 to achieve effects that would be impossible if they relied 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.560 solely on the various Halo game engines. And yes, they 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:35.080 did upgrade to later versions of Halo as those versions 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.160 came out in order to produce subsequent seasons of Red 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.800 Versus Blue, and they would find reasons within the narrative 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.440 to explain the changes, often as a way that was 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.160 just a joke, but you know, they would still acknowledge it. 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.240 They would at least hang a lampshade on it, as 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.000 they might say. Now. As I mentioned at the top 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.360 of this episode, this year twenty twenty four marks the 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.520 final season of Red Versus Blue, and the series has 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:03.920 taken a break here and there over the last twenty 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.200 plus years by spinning off mini series which adds more 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.160 lore and intrigue to the story. Some of those mini 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.760 series are far more action oriented than comedy oriented, but 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.440 Rooster Teeth would end up being much more about a 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.880 single web series. While that was what got the company 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.520 off the ground, it wasn't the only thing they did. 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.800 For one thing, Rooster Teeth would end up doing a 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.240 lot of commercial work. They would help companies, primarily video 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:39.040 game companies and retail establishments, they would help them produce commercials, 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.280 and this was another healthy source of revenue for them, 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.040 like they had already shown that they could produce cinematic 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:51.040 quality content using video game engines, so they would end 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.680 up doing this work on behalf of advertising agencies for 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.800 their clients. But this would mean that members of the 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.400 team would often have to travel as part of their 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.760 jobs to do this work, and that would cause disruptions 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:08.000 and production. The company did grow, but very slowly at first. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.240 In fact, they wouldn't hire on employee number eight until 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.120 two thousand and eight, five years after they got started, 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:20.480 and they still didn't even have eight employees. So they did, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.880 over time start to hire additional staff to help take 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.480 over some of the duties so that this one small 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.000 team wasn't constantly on the verge of working themselves to death. 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:35.280 In October of two thousand and four, however, jumping back 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.320 a little bit, the company launched a second machinema series. 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.320 This one was called The Strangerhood, and it was a 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.600 comedy featuring characters waking up in a strange suburban neighborhood 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.800 and had a silly kind of Twilight Zone sort of 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.520 vibe to it. This show used the SIMS two for 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.679 that first season. There was a small gap between season 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:02.720 one and season two, eleven years between the two. The 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:06.000 second season would actually use the SIMS four game engine 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.040 in order to create the story. They did have a 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.000 couple of other specials and related sort of the mini 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.880 series between those two seasons, so it's not just two 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.080 seasons of material. There's some other supplemental material as well. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.879 And season two only exists because it was a stretch 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.640 goal for a fundraising campaign that Roster Teeth held for 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.240 a feature film, which we will talk more about later 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.320 in this episode. So the Strangerhood did not see the 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.600 same success as Red Versus Blue. This might explain why 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.119 Rooster Teeth migrated away from the property. It didn't try 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.879 to create numerous seasons of that. It just felt like 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.439 they had a limited amount of assets, largely in the 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.720 time department, and so it didn't make sense to dedicate 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.760 a ton of their effort towards something that was just 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.120 not taking off at the same level as Red Versus Blue. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.520 And in late two thousand and four, Rooster Teeth launched 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.919 a new project called RT Sponsor Cut and as that 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.080 name implies, that project presented exclusive content for folks who 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.280 signed up for a sponsorship, so the company would embrace 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.200 this model more and more in the future. This idea 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.680 that if you subscribe, you get extra content. You don't 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.200 have to subscribe, and you can get all the free content, 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.840 but there will be stuff that you won't have access to. Eventually, 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:34.520 sponsors would transform into first members, so called because these 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.440 folks would get access to the normal content a little 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.240 earlier than the general public, and they would also get 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.200 access to exclusive content just for first members. Now, I'm 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.200 not going to go through every single production Rooster Teeth 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:52.120 ever created, because this company has been around for more 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.920 than two decades and it has tried a lot of stuff, 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.399 and it would just get to be a laundry list 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.000 of projects, many of which I only saw a few 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.760 episodes before the company decided it wasn't working or just 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:10.520 found a new direction. But as for mashinema style content, 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.439 since that's where they got their start, they did a 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:18.600 few series using different games. There was Panics, which was 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.119 a comedy set in the first person shooter horror game Fear. 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.000 There was one eight hundred Magic, which used the computer 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.360 game Shadow Run as the engine for its Machinema. There 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:35.120 was Stroyant that lampooned infomercials and used the Quake engine 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.399 to do it. And there was Supreme Surrender, which is 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.480 a comedy that used the game's Supreme Commander. There was 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.760 also a series later on called Minimations. This would take 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:50.040 excerpts from Achievement Hunter Let's Play video sessions and would 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:55.920 animate these excerpts using the game Minecraft. So it would 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.920 be repurposing material that they had already produced for one 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.760 style video and doing it for another. That would also 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.000 be the method for one of the other series that 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.920 Rooster Teeth would produce, one that used traditional style animation 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:17.960 called RTAA Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures that would take excerpts 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.320 largely from the Rooster Teeth podcast and then animate according 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.920 to that stuff. Now beyond Mashinima, Rooster Teeth would branch 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.200 out into lots of other forms of content, so as 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:34.200 I mentioned that would include traditional animation, it also included 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:38.639 live action shorts, a social prank show. There were various 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.600 game shows. There was a ridiculous reality show that would 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:45.280 recreate video game tropes in the real world. That one 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.200 was called Immersion. There were podcasts they did a few 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.640 feature length films, they had a comic book series, and 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.760 they even produced a couple of video games. By two 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.800 thousand and five, using a spare room in Bernie's home 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.240 just wasn't cutting it for the company's HQ. The team 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:06.040 would relocate to an office in Austin, Texas. This would 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.600 be the first of several moves for the group as 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.320 they would grow and they would pursue increasingly ambitious goals. 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.399 So they moved in two thousand and five, but they 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:19.119 would relocate again in two thousand and seven, then again 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.440 in twenty ten, and then yet again in twenty fourteen, 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.800 so they kept on outgrowing their environment and moving into 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.040 a new one, kind of like a hermit crab. In 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:34.200 two thousand and eight, Jeff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo, who 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.960 had been doing some work with Rooster Teeth on a 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:42.399 contract basis, would found the Achievement Hunter branch of Rooster Teeth. 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.920 So Jack would become employee either nine or ten. There's 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:50.440 some disagreement in the company history, but in one video 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:55.480 Jack famously proclaims himself as employee number nine. The division 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.480 Achievement Hunter would take its name from Xbox Achievements, So 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.720 if you're not familiar with achievements. These are goals that 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:06.359 game developers set inside their own games, and when you 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:09.000 complete one of these goals, you get a notification that 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.440 you acquired an achievement. So each game has a certain 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:16.640 number of achievements. They've been capped at different levels throughout 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:19.680 the history of Xbox, and in turn, these achievements are 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:25.320 associated with a point value, so when you make an achievement, 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.360 the point value of that achievement gets added to your 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:31.800 total score. And some gamers put a lot of emphasis 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.159 on their achievement scores, like a lot, a lot, And 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.840 there are even gamers who will seek out specific Xbox 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:43.399 titles not because they're good games that these folks want 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:48.160 to play, but instead because these games are notoriously easy 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.119 to rack up achievements. Likewise, there are some gamers who 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:55.200 will avoid titles that are known to have really tough 0:23:55.280 --> 0:24:00.560 achievements associated with them, particularly games that include online play achievements, 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.080 because those tend to be the hardest to get. And 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:05.680 this was a terrible idea. I think there are a 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.719 few games out there where the developers created an achievement 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:12.479 that required you to essentially become the best player in 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.680 the world in order to secure this achievement, and by 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:18.760 definition that meant that it was a really hard achievement 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:21.240 to get and that most people would never be able 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:23.520 to get that, which means they would never be able 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:26.719 to complete their list of achievements for that game, and 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:30.720 for some folks that can drive them crazy anyway. Achievement 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:33.640 Hunters started off with videos that explained how to secure 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:37.640 various achievements in different games, but it quickly evolved into 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.439 a channel that would feature things like let's play style 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:45.800 videos as well as office shenanigans among the growing staff 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:49.280 of the department. Some of their most infamous videos were 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:53.320 live action videos where they would pull pranks on each 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:58.040 other or just do wild stuff in the office, frequently 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:02.919 resulting in massive dam image to company property. It was 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:07.080 almost like Jackass for the corporate world. Also in two 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:11.159 thousand and eight, the Rooster Teeth podcast launched. Now, originally 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:13.480