WEBVTT - TechStuff Talks to Rooster Teeth 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:09.000 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.840 tex Stuff from how stuff looks dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.320 and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.920 and I'm an editor and how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.720 Sitting across from me, as usual is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.200 The man in black fled across the desert and the 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.879 gun Slinger followed. It's interesting that you would pick black 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.360 Well also, that kind of gives a suggestion of maybe 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.560 like a desert. And uh, we have a special guest 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:47.280 on today's episode who is from well calling us from Austin, Texas, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.040 which is not just a desert, but that's what came 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.760 to mind, right. So, guys, this is a very special 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.080 episode of tech Stuff, something that we hope to do 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.880 more of in the future. We've got a special interview 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.560 lined up with this, the Bernie Burns of Rooster Teeth Productions. 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.720 They are the company that make Red versus Blue. So 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:07.880 we've got the interview ready to go and we're going 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.360 to insert it right here. We've got Bernie Burns on 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.200 the line. Bernie is the founder of Rooster Teeth Productions, 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.720 the producers of the popular web series Red Versus Blue, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.880 among other things. Bernie, how are you I'm doing find Jonathan, 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.600 how are you doing? I am I'm okay. Chris, how 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.880 are you doing great? Thanks for asking. You're welcome, Chris. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.560 I don't want you to be left out. So Bernie, 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.920 I wanted to talk to you. Really, you're a pioneer 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.760 in web content, especially when it comes to web videos 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.880 and something beyond just the the one hit wonder web 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.440 videos that that we're sort of the the earmark of 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.040 internet video when it first started to take off, and 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:52.560 I kind of wanted to talk to you about how 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.120 you got into that and the development of Rooster Teeth 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.880 Productions over time and where you're at today. So to start, 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.640 you were actually involved in creating content for the web 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.400 before there was even a Rooster Teeth, right, that's right, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.000 I mean really back before video was even really possible 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.040 on the Internet. Um, I mean you can download a 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.079 I think one of the first things video wise ever 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.560 downloaded from the net was the first episode of south 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.560 Park or what became south Park, and that was ten 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.320 minutes short that I think was eighty megs and it 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.840 was the size of a postage stamp on the screen. 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.960 But yeah, I started off writing for video game sites. 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.280 I started writing off for writing for what we're called 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.640 everything Nothing sites where they were sort of like blogs, 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.280 but there were more articles. You know, modern day equivalent 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.120 would be almost like Slate or The Escapist, where their 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.680 articles that are kind of thematic, but they could really 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:53.120 be about anything. So what led you into starting the 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:58.920 whole red versus Blue video phenomenon. Well, I was a 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.720 filmmaker and I live in Austin, Texas, and so in 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.720 college I built a non linear editor video captured device 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.919 that could catch her. Back then it was VHS tapes, 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.919 so we transfer film to VHS and then we would 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.200 capture the VHS and edited online. So then after making 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.359 a couple of movies with some friends in Austin, uh, 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.840 they moved out to l A to start their entertainment careers. 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:23.560 I stayed in Austin because I had a very good 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.040 tech job and I was always just trying to find 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.519 ways to make uh, you know, films or make short 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.880 little videos. And I had all this equipment laying around 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.160 and I thought, well, why don't I just take some 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.520 of these videos I'm producing and start putting them online. 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.200 Forget a way to do that, and so started encoding 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:43.000 them in quick time and dive x back then and 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.800 we'll just upload them to a site. And did a 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:47.720 few of those before I made the first episode of 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:52.600 Red Versus Blue and that immediately caught on. So for 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:54.920 for our listeners who may not be familiar with Red 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.960 Versus Blue, can you can you get sort of a 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.280 bird's eye view of what the series is and and uh, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.560 you know the vehicle you use to create the series. Sure, 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.280 So what we do in a nutshell, uh, is we 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:14.360 use the video game Halo uh to produce short comedic 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.040 cartoons essentially, um, and we use the graphics engine that's 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.640 in Halo to do all of our animation. And probably 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.360 the best way to describe it for something for someone 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.760 who's never seen anything like it before, it's almost like 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:32.320 using the video game characters as virtual puppets. Um. You know, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.760 we're not doing animation cell by cell or you know, 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.720 sitting down and plotting on all the character moves. We're 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.600 actually controlling them in real time. So it's a little 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.440 bit like animation, and it's a little bit like live 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.760 action shooting and that we do takes, we do rehearsals, 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.400 and the performance that you're seeing is actually a recorded 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.160 live performance by someone controlling the character in real time. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.719 That's that's really a very clever way of creating films. 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.040 And of course we now call this mishinima, but back 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.400 then that term probably wasn't very much in use at 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.880 the time you guys were first getting into Red Versus Blue. Right, Yeah, 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.040 it's funny, we didn't know what it was called. We 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:11.960 didn't know this was the movement that people were doing 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:13.720 these kind of things. So we felt we were brilliant 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.520 and we had been invented this new technique of shooting, 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:18.840 and we were actually wondering what we're gonna call it. 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.920 And uh, we we got a phone call from Paul Marino, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.200 who was the head of the Academy of Machinima Arts 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.520 and Scientists in New York, and you know, they said 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.080 they wanted us to come out and do a presentation 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.880 about Reversus Blue, and um, there was no award ceremony 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.880 that they we had been nominated for, and um, yeah, 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.960 that's how we first found out about the word mishinima. Yeah, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.680 so and you said that you were it took off 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.160 almost immediately. Was that like from episode one you immediately 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.440 saw a real interest in this Or did it take 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.400 a few before it started looking like you really had 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.640 a hit on your hands. No, it was pretty immediate. 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.080 We put up the We put up the first episode 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.680 and end we along with it, we put up a 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.000 p s A which was just the characters looking into 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.680 the screen and talking and um, we were doing jokes 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:10.560 about it. It was so long ago as weapons of 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.600 mass destruction. Uh, this was back in two thousand and three, 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.599 very very timely at the time, was very very topical. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.600 Um and uh. We were linked the first episode of 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:25.520 the series was linked on Fark and slash dot and 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:31.360 penny Arcade, and so it went from three thousand views 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.919 the first day that we put up the episode to 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.080 the next day we had about fifteen thousand views on it. 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.360 By the time we put out the second video. A 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.920 quarter of a million people showed up the day of 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.800 the first day to watch the second video. And but yeah, 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:49.359 by the end of the month, we were up to 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.279 about seven hundred and fifty thousand viewers a week within 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.920 within four weeks. That's that's it was. It was. It 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.680 was the biggest problem for us was figuring out how 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.560 to get it out there. Yeah, the bandwidth issues, Yeah, 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.039 I mean we were we were paying tons of money 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.839 to deliver it because I mean, I'm sure you remember 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:10.880 back in the day, people will get bannedidth bills when 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:12.520 they would put up, you know, things on servers and 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.360 then get a popular site. Um, And so we were 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.120 trying to figure out how to host what we're at 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.920 the time pretty massive files. I mean, these were, you know, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.720 seventy megabyte files people were downloading in you know, two 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.200 thousand and to two thousand and three. It was it 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:26.600 was hard to figure out how to stir all that. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:28.840 And YouTube didn't exist at the time, so we couldn't 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:30.320 just throw it up on YouTube and hope for the best, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.640 you know. I have I have a question, um, about 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.200 what's your recording schedule look like? I mean, how many 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.120 of these How fast can you do one of these videos? 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.800 And and about how long does it take to uh, 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:44.679 you know, from beginning to end. When you're talking about 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.200 scripting and going through rehearsals and things like that, how 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.760 long does that take. Well, we're a lot faster than 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:50.840 we used to be. As soon as we've been doing 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.000 it for nine seasons that we're we're just going into 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.960 season ten right now. But if you look at like 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.040 a Pixar movie and the machinima, what we produced is 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.000 not on the fidelity of a Pixel movie. We do 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.000 more custom animation now. But um, the big thing about 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.600 Sinim is how efficient it is. So a Pixar movie 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.800 might take a team of three people the course of 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:15.680 three years. Um, we can produce five minutes a week 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.960 with about This is now just neglecting voice actors, who 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:20.680 you have to have a different actor for every character. 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:22.800 But we can produce five minutes a week with about 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.840 three people. Uh, and that will take us about you know, 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.600 thirty or forty hours to do that. So every year 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.320 we put out of a full feature on DVD, and 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.320 we can do that with perruption crew of anywhere between 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.240 you know, three to five people. Now, now that in 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.800 later seasons we've been adding more custom animation. Just because 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.640 of cinema got more popular, we found we had to 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.160 do more to stand out. And you know, like anything, 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.079 it's like if it stays the same, it'll it'll get stale. 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.400 So we had to kind of evolved the series while 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:54.640 it was in place. And so now we have a 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.280 much bigger team now. We have a team of about 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:58.400 twenty people that work on it, uh and they do 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.200 a lot of custom animations and really fun on action scenes, 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.240 fighting scenes, that kind of thing. So when you guys 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:08.960 were first exploring motion capture, UH, when did you guys 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.720 actually sit down and consciously make that decision? And was 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.120 that a huge challenge? Was it that or what? Was 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.400 it surprisingly easy compared to everything else he had been doing. Well, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.880 we we made one higher that made it a lot easier, 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.960 and that was Monty Home. I'm a big consumer of 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.199 all things internet as well, so I'm always online, always 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.480 like looking at you know, online video. I just I 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.480 love it, and um, it's it's fun to spot people 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.880 who were doing cool new stuff. And montyme put up 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:43.440 a video where he custom animated master Chief from Halo 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:49.600 fighting Sammy's from Metroid and it was the models were 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.080 okay in a texture okay, but the animation was outrageously 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.760 sophisticated and the choreography of what he was doing. And 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.040 so we contacted him and we tried to work with 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.120 them for like two or three years before we we're 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.080 finally able to hire him. And that was in season eight, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:08.319 and so we essentially built an animation pipeline. That's he's 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.079 the centerpiece of it. We built it around him, essentially. Cool. Well, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.319 jumping back again back to the early days, about how 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.719 long did it did it take before you realize that 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.679 you actually had a viable company on your hands? I mean, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.680 the show was a hit, but there's a big difference 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.200 between something that ends up getting really viral on the 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.800 internet and then turning that into something that can actually 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.680 sustain itself as a business. Did that happen right away 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.920 as well? Well? I mean it came in the sense 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.480 that we all of a sudden had these major expenses 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:44.360 for that's what a great way to start a business, right? Well, 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.680 if you know, if there's a massive expense side of this, 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.280 then they're they're they're theoretically should be some kind of 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.280 revenue help service that I mean, there's there's obviously demand 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.520 for this. So if you sit still, the demand will 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.000 generate bills. Uh, you have to a proactive figure a 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.079 way to generate some revenue from it. And you know, 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.080 I think there's a big opinion, uh that a common opinion. 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.199 I should say that if you make something on the 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.800 internet and you get a ton of views. Um, that 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.520 the ad companies just show up like the ad trucks 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.320 shows up in your driveway. It does. It doesn't work 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:22.480 that way. Getting advertisers for content is very hard and 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.880 it's always been hard. It was never it was never 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:26.920 easy to do it on the internet. UM. And there's 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.839 a lot of places that will abstract that for you now, 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.360 a lot of a lot of video services that will 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.960 do that for you. But it's a very difficult process, 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.360 and so we had to go through and figure out 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.320 a way to build a business model. UM. We actually 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.040 built one that was based not on advertising, and we 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.520 reran on that for five years. UM. We just did merchandise, UM, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.640 premium memberships and DVD sales, and that's how we funded 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:52.200 the company for the first five years. We never we 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.760 never ran a single ad on anything, uh for the 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.680 first round of the show. Yeah. That actually brings me 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.280 to the question about the sponsorship, the premium membership that 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.400 you rant. I've been a fan of Red Versus Blue 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.280 since season one. I've been following it since season one, 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.520 and so I'm familiar with the idea of you became 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.440 a premium member and you would get access to certain 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.240 videos sometimes you get access early, sometimes you get exclusive access, 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.480 and also for the first few seasons. I remember you 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.240 would even get the DVD at the end of the 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:27.120 season when you are premium member. Yeah yeah, so, uh so, 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.120 clearly building a community was an important part of your 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.760 business model as well, right, and we built a community 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.800 site to that. We knew that eventually the popularity of 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.160 the show would wane, or at the very least that 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.840 people watching the show, you know, the individuals would you know, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.280 say well, I can't watch something for you know, ten years. Um, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.880 you know, people just naturally fall out, and so we 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.959 wanted to have something in place to hold people uh as, 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.640 like our portion of the internet, so that people would 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:58.520 always know where they can find us. And when we 0:12:58.600 --> 0:12:59.800 put new things out, it would be great to be 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:01.559 able to show it to people, to get that initial 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.200 seed of a of a new project. And that's that 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.480 was probably one of the smartest things we did, was 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.600 making sure that we carved out our own portion of 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:13.320 the Internet. Yeah, it's it's still a very popular portal. 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.440 I mean, if people want to go and check out 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.400 the you have several different your l's that all lead 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.200 into this kind of uh hub really of all the 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.360 different products Rooster Teeth does because it's not just Red 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.880 Versus Blue. Although we'll get into that in a little bit. 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.880 I did have another question about the tone of Red 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.000 Versus Blue and the early seasons the Blood Gulch Chronicles 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.160 in particular, which is the first five seasons of Red 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.680 Versus Blue. Uh, it was it was almost exclusively comedic, 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.959 and then you began to experiment by inserting some more 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:49.000 dramatic elements into the storyline, sometimes with uh tertiary characters 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.920 who were not playing directly with your main cast. What time, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:54.600 at what point did you decide to do that? Was 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:56.640 that something you had wanted to do from the beginning, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.360 or as you were going, were you thinking, hey, you 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.720 know what, we could actually try something new here and 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.680 try and do almost like an action movie type script 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.360 parallel to the comedic stuff we're doing on this other side. Yeah, 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.679 So it was essentially when it first started, essentially, like 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.320 somebody described it as Stripes in Space, which I think 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:17.920 is a great way to describe it. It's just just 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.360 it's very lighthearted. It's a it's a military comedy which 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.720 which focuses on a lot of bureaucracy humor, which I 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.640 think crosses over a lot of industries, not just you know, 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:34.200 the military, but also business and school and everything else. UM. 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.280 I was always as a as a writer, I was 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:42.080 always writing though background threads so that the story could 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.080 stay consistent. If you base it in a universe, you know, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.360 then it seems more honest. And I was doing all 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:49.960 of that. And when we got towards the end of 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.600 the fifth season, UM, I was talking with people about 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.960 stories in the background that we're going that audience members 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.720 had picked up on. But I had this whole fleshed out, 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.800 uh you know verse kind of behind the scenes, and 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.120 I was talking with somebody here about it and I 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:05.760 described it all, was writing on the on the white 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.880 board about all these things, and they said, maybe you 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.400 should show this to the audience, you know, I mean, 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.640 maybe you should, Maybe you should put this out there. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.160 And I thought, yeah, maybe, maybe, you know, maybe we should. 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.960 It's it's it's interesting to us. And you know, our 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.120 philosophy here is, um, if we make things that we like, 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:24.200 we just have faith that there's enough people on the 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.880 internet that are like us that they'll like it too. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.720 So yeah, it's just a natural evolution. Like I said, 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.720 it's you know, we started off the very first episode 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.200 of the very first season saying, all these guys do 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.920 we stand around and talk? That's what they were doing 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:38.800 last week. That's what we were doing five minutes from now, 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.320 and for five seasons. You know it's it works very 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.800 well standing around and talking, but you really do run 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.080 the risk of becoming stale. Five years on the internet 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.920 is is like a it's like a glacier, you know, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.640 it's it's like an eon. It seems like, um, that's 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.880 the rise and fall of my Space. Yeah. Yeah, And 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:58.360 you know we talked about that to you, like the 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:00.840 when I was talking you earlier about the carving out 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:02.400 your own space on the internet. It's like a lot 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.000 of people today, you know, they don't do that. There's 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.640 a big opinion that the the web is dead and 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.960 that you should just go all in on Facebook or 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.040 all in on YouTube or what you know, whatever the 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.080 darling uh site of the moment happens to be. But 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.160 I mean, we've been doing this for so long. I 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.400 remember when if we just spent all of our time 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.640 building up our Facebook or assuming are MySpace friends in 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:28.360 two thousand three and two tho four, we would I 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.320 think you know, uh, you know we're dealing with rever 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.560 or something like that. You know, it's just it's it's 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.600 it's Twitter, Twitter follower accounts, and you know, Facebook like 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.000 seemed very important right now, but five years from now 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.080 they probably won't seem all than important. Yeah. The biggest 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.520 shifts that I see right now are really more platform shifts. 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.280 So it's more like the emphasis now is on mobile 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.400 as opposed to the desktop and laptop models, which that 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.680 makes more sense. I mean, that's an access thing, not 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.880 a not a you know, this is the particular website 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:04.240 that in vogue right now. Well, oh no, go ahead, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.879 I'm sorry. No, it's crazy. It's crazy how much mobile 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.960 has taken off. I mean, it's just it's just insane. Yes, yeah, 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.119 we we talk about that all the time here at 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.119 how stuff works as well. I mean it's it's completely changed, uh, 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.520 the way that we create certain types of content. Because 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.399 there are some kinds that are perfect for the mobile 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.280 platform and that's just people love them. There are other 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.200 types that just don't quite fit as well. It's a 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.920 real challenge to try and find the balance there. Fortunately, 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.879 I think web video is one of those that it 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.960 transcends the platform you don't have. You don't have to 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.879 worry about that as much. UM. Let me ask you 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.879 also about some of the tricks you guys did working 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:52.199 within the confines of a video game universe and actually 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.199 within the actual physics engine of the video game itself. Uh. 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.040 Watching some of the behind the scenes stuff, I love 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.800 the idea that you has got really creative were the 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.159 ways you shot the series, especially early on, when there 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.520 weren't as many tools for you to use, tools that 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.440 I think have been built into games like Halo because 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.040 of the work you've done when they didn't exist back then. 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.800 You found really creative ways of getting around it. The 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:18.880 one I think of off the top of my head 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:25.399 is using a tank as a crane for crane shots, right. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:26.800 I mean, that's just goes back to how it's a 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.959 lot like live action. It's like we wanted to get 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.159 a shot where we raised up, how do we do? 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.159 How do we do that? Um, there wasn't any ability 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.040 within the retail game to raise the camera above eye level. 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.640 I mean the entire first three seasons of the show, 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.520 you're seeing the entire show through another character's eyes that 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.080 never appeared on screen. It's it's literally a camera man, um, 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.399 and so we would walk him around in order to 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.960 set up shots and to meet the camera. And so 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:52.800 we thought, well, how can we do this? I thought, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.480 why don't we just put him on the end of 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:57.920 the barrel of the tank and just slowly raised the 0:18:58.000 --> 0:18:59.840 tank barrel up and sure enough, that allowed us to 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.920 get a crane shot with it. Likewise, we would put 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.800 people on the tops of banshees and fly them around 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:08.600 if we wanted to get a really high view of 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.639 the canyon or something like that. Yeah, we had to 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:13.879 be really creative. Um. In a later season. One of 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.359 the things we would also just employ like some of 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.800 the oldest tricks that there are in filmmaking. Um, we 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.639 had a character, a baby alien, so we need a 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.320 small alien. Well, you can't shrink a character in the game, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.280 so we would just do forced perspective where we would 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.119 set the alien far back in the shot and because 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.240 there's no depth of field in the game, it's an 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.720 infinite focus. Um, we would just set up the scene 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:39.280 so that one character is really far away and they 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.680 just happen to look a lot smaller. And it worked perfectly. 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.920 I mean it it the illusion was great. It's you 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:45.399 know just like old things they used to do back 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.159 in the days when they would you know, shoot King 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:51.200 Kong and voyage the Moon. I imagine getting eyelines in 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.920 this series is a bit of a challenge. It definitely is. 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:56.600 I mean there's nothing in the game where it's like 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.359 everyone looks in the same direction, you know, And so 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:04.000 we're probably the best people in the world at playing 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.119 Halo in a very specific way. Like ever, if you 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.879 ever put us in a matchmaking game where all the 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:12.720 players on the team have to look in the same 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.200 direction or all run in the same line while looking 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.639 at their feet, we would we would kill at that. 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.880 So so yeah, we ever created Days of our Lives 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.440 game within Halo, you guys will rock it. Yes, we 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:32.400 would be the dramatic reaction team. Well, let's talk about 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.040 some of the other content that Rister Teeth produces. I mean, 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.480