''Red vs. Blue'', often abbreviated as ''RvB'', is an American
web series created by
Burnie Burns with his production company
Rooster Teeth. The show is based on the setting of the military science fiction first-person shooter series and media franchise
''Halo''. It is distributed through Rooster Teeth's website, as well as on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
,
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
, and formerly on the
El Rey Network and
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
. The series initially centers on two opposite teams fighting in an ostensible
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
—shown to actually be a
live fire exercise for elite soldiers—in the middle of
Blood Gulch
Blood Gulch is a multiplayer Level (video gaming), map in the first-person shooter ''Halo (series), Halo'' video game series. It first appeared in ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', and was remade for ''Halo 2'' as "Coagulation", as well as for ''Halo: Re ...
, a desolate box canyon, in a
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
of
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...
video games, military life, and
science fiction film
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...
s. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its premiere on April 1, 2003. The series consists of eighteen seasons and five mini-series. ''Red vs. Blue'' is the third longest-running animated webseries of all time, behind ''
Homestar Runner'' and ''
Neurotically Yours''.
''Red vs. Blue'' emerged from
Burnie Burns'
voice-over
Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-Diegetic#Film sound and music, diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, th ...
gameplay videos of
Bungie's
FPS
FPS may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* "F.P.S." (''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''), an episode of the TV show ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''
* '' fps magazine'', a defunct magazine about animation
* ''The Fabulous Picture Show'', a televi ...
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
''
Halo: Combat Evolved''. The series is primarily produced using the
machinima
Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...
technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the
multiplayer modes of ''
Halo: Combat Evolved'' and its
followups on the
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
consoles.
The series has been generally well-received. Praised for its originality, the series has won four awards at film festivals held by the
Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. It has also won the award for "Best Animated Web Series" from the
International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV). It also won a 2013
Webby Award for Animation, as well as nominated in 2014. It has been credited with bringing new popularity to
Machinima
Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...
, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form.
Graham Leggat
Graham Leggat (20 June 1934 – 29 August 2015) was a Scottish international footballer.
Playing career
Born in Aberdeen, Leggat started his career at his home town club as a right winger. He was part of the Aberdeen team that won the Scottish ...
, former director of communications for
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
's film society, described ''Red vs. Blue'' as "truly as sophisticated as
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
".
Rooster Teeth has created episodes, some under commission from
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, for special events. The voice actors from ''Red vs. Blue'' appear in cameos for ''
Halo 3'' and ''
Halo 4''. The webseries is also referenced in a secret room from ''
Halo: Reach''.
Overview
The ''Red vs. Blue'' storyline so far spans eighteen full-length seasons and five mini-series.
Rooster Teeth periodically releases self-referential
public service announcements and holiday-themed videos, which are generally unrelated to the main storyline and not considered canon. In these videos, the members of both teams are actors who claim to be from ''Red vs. Blue''.
Although the visual background of ''Red vs. Blue'' was primarily taken from the
''Halo'' series,
Rooster Teeth consciously limits connections to the
''Halo'' fictional universe. A special video made for
E3 2003 portrays
Master Chief,
''Halos protagonist, as a larger-than-life member of the army, and the ''Red vs. Blue'' trailer and first episode establish that the series is set between the events of the first two games. Beyond these references, the storyline is independent, a decision that, according to Burns, is intended to increase accessibility to those unfamiliar with the games. For example, even though the cast of the
fourth and
fifth seasons include characters from the
Covenant Elite alien race,
Rooster Teeth never portrays those characters in their original ''
Halo'' context.
Beginning with the
sixth season, titled ''Reconstruction'', the series begins to follow ''
Halo'' more closely. It is established that
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
onwards takes place one year after ''
Halo 3'' and several characters indirectly reference Smart AI, the
Human-Covenant War
''Halo'' is a military science fiction media franchise, originally developed by Bungie and currently managed and developed by 343 Industries, part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The series launched in 2001 with the first-person shooter video ...
, and
Forerunners. Also at several points it is noted that Project Freelancer is under the jurisdiction of the
United Nations Space Command
The ''Halo'' video game and media franchise takes place in a fictional science fiction universe. In the distant past, a race known as the Forerunners fought the parasitic Flood. The Forerunners ultimately activate weapons of mass destruction, th ...
.
During its first seventeen seasons, ''Red vs. Blue'' centered on the Red and Blue Teams, two groups of soldiers engaged in a supposed civil war. Originally, each team occupies a small base in a box canyon known as
Blood Gulch
Blood Gulch is a multiplayer Level (video gaming), map in the first-person shooter ''Halo (series), Halo'' video game series. It first appeared in ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', and was remade for ''Halo 2'' as "Coagulation", as well as for ''Halo: Re ...
. According to , one of the Red Team soldiers, each team's base exists only in response to the other team's base. It is later revealed that there is no actual civil war; both the Red and Blue armies are under the same command, Project Freelancer, and only exist as training simulations for Freelancer Agents. Although both teams generally dislike each other and have standing orders to defeat their opponents and
capture their flag, neither team is usually motivated to fight the other, with the exception of Sarge, the leader of Red Team.
Throughout ''The Chorus Trilogy'' arc, the UNSC's role in the series was greatly expanded in explaining the abandonment of the planet Chorus. This is primarily due to the arc's antagonist, Malcolm Hargrove, working for both the UNSC and his own company, Charon Industries, with the intent to wipe out all life on Chorus with the help of hired space pirates led by mercenaries Locus and Felix. Hargrove's crimes are exposed when he is apprehended offscreen by the Reds and Blues ten months before the events of ''The Shisno Paradox'' arc.
Starting with its eighteenth season, referred to as ''Zero'', ''Red vs. Blue'' now centers on an elite team of special operations soldiers, known as Shatter Squad, as they try to stop another group of soldiers, known as Viper, from getting the keys to a powerful suit of armor known as the Ultimate Power. Unlike the original series, the current ''Red vs. Blue'' instead parodies action movies. While certain character, vehicle, and weapon models are carried over from ''
Halo 5: Guardians'', the series appears to now distance itself from the ''Halo'' universe, instead introducing a new military force known as the Alliance of Defense in place of the UNSC. While featuring a brand new cast, three members of the original cast appear in the new series in mostly cameo roles, these being Carolina and Washington, two Freelancers who joined the Reds and Blues later in the original series, and Tucker, a member of the Blue Team, though the three are established to have left their now former friends to join the Alliance of Defense and, in Tucker's case, another unnamed military organization. Rather than being a machinima produced in the ''Halo'' engine, the series is now fully animated in
Unreal Engine 4, the same engine used for the menu UI and armor customization in ''
Halo: The Master Chief Collection'', and uses assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace that are unrelated to the ''Halo'' franchise, although there are moments that scenes are animated to mimic machinima limitations.
Cast and characters
During its original run, ''Red vs. Blue'' featured characters whose personalities are skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. Character interaction and dialogue, instead of action, would drive the story.
The original series centered on eleven main characters. Other characters, both team-affiliated and unaffiliated, human and non-human, have played significant roles throughout the story. Notable later additions to the cast include The Director and The Chairman, as well as the Freelancers, which are named after
U.S. states.
AIs AIS may refer to:
Medicine
* Abbreviated Injury Scale, an anatomical-based coding system to classify and describe the severity of injuries
* Acute ischemic stroke, the thromboembolic type of stroke
* Androgen insensitivity syndrome, an intersex ...
are also important characters, and are named after
Greek letters. As is a common habit in most forms of military, the soldiers usually refer to each other by their last names.
Throughout the original series, the Red Team primarily consists of their hotheaded leader Super Colonel Sarge (
Matt Hullum), his attentive second-in-command Captain Richard "Dick" Simmons (
Gus Sorola), the lazy Captain Dexter Grif (
Geoff Ramsey), the oblivious/effeminate Private Franklin Delano Donut (Dan Godwin), and their apathetic Spanish-speaking robot mechanic Lopez the Heavy (
Burnie Burns). For the majority of the series, the Blue Team consisted of their condecending defacto leader Private Leonard L. Church (Burns), the self-described ladies man Captain Lavernius Tucker (Jason Saldaña), the dimwitted Captain Michael J. Caboose (
Joel Heyman
Joel Pearce Heyman (born September 16, 1971) is an American actor, best known for voicing Michael J. Caboose in the Rooster Teeth web series ''Red vs. Blue'' from 2003 until 2020. He co-founded Rooster Teeth with Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff ...
), and the no-nonsense Freelancer Agent Texas/"Tex" (
Kathleen Zuelch
Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warner ...
). They are joined by Private Kaikaina "Sister" Grif (Becca Frasier), Grif's promiscuous sister, in ''Season 5''. However, Blue Team's roster (with the exception of Tucker and Caboose) became mixed with every passing season after the deaths of the original Church and Tex at the end of ''Reconstruction'', being joined by Epsilon (Burns), who would go onto take Church's identity and Tex II (Zuelch) during ''Recreation'' and ''Revelation'' respectively until their deaths in ''Season 13'' and ''Season 9''. The team was later joined by the emotionally scarred Freelancer Agent Washington/"Wash" (
Shannon McCormick
Shannon McCormick is an American film and voice actor. He is known for his work with Rooster Teeth, voicing Agent Washington in '' Red vs. Blue'' and Professor Ozpin in ''RWBY''.
His other roles include Kuroudo Akabane in ''GetBackers'', Masahi ...
) at the end of ''Revelation'' after first meeting the Reds and Blues during ''Reconstruction''. Blue Team currently consists of Tucker, Caboose, Wash, and Sister, the latter of whom rejoined the team during ''The Shisno Paradox''. Also part of the Reds and Blues are the somewhat incompetent Medical Officer Frank "Doc" DuFresne (Hullum), who first appeared in ''Season 2'', and the impatient and competitive Freelancer Agent Carolina (Jen Brown), who first appeared in ''Season 9'', both of whom are unaffiliated with a specific team and instead just act as members of both groups.
Over the years, ''Red vs. Blue'' has attracted numerous notable guest stars, namely
Ed Robertson
Lloyd Edward Elwyn Robertson (born October 25, 1970) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the band Barenaked Ladies. He, along with former member Steven Page, founded the group in 1988. As of Page's ...
,
Elijah Wood,
Christopher Sabat,
Amber Benson,
Dan Avidan
Leigh Daniel Avidan (born March 14, 1979), also known by his stage name Danny Sexbang, is an American musician, Internet personality, comedian, songwriter, actor and record producer. He is one half of the musical comedy duo Ninja Sex Party with B ...
,
Arin Hanson,
SungWon Cho
SungWon Cho ( ; ; born December 9, 1990), also known by his internet pseudonym ProZD, is an American voice actor and YouTuber. On his YouTube channel, Cho produces short comedy skits, unboxing videos, and reviews of board games and snack foods. H ...
,
Ricco Fajardo,
Anthony Padilla
Smosh is an American YouTube sketch comedy- improv collective founded by Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox. In 2002, Padilla created a website named "smosh.com" for making Flash animations, and he was later joined by Hecox. They began to post vide ...
, and
Ian Hecox #REDIRECT Smosh#Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hecox, Ian
1987 births
21st-century American male actors
American male actors
Living people
American YouTubers ...
.
:
= Main cast
In the performing arts industry such as theatre, film, or television, casting, or a casting call, is a pre-production process for selecting a certain type of actor, dancer, singer, or extra for a particular role or part in a script, screenp ...
(credited, or appears in most episodes for the season)
:
= Recurring cast (5+ appearances in season)
:
= Guest cast (1–4 appearances in season)
Episodes
Production
Development
''Red vs. Blue'' emerged from
Burnie Burns's voiceover-enhanced gameplay videos that he created for a website called drunkgamers.com, which was run by
Geoff Fink (later Geoff Ramsey) and
Gustavo Sorola. Having played ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' extensively, the ''drunkgamers'' crew discussed one day whether the
Warthog
''Phacochoerus'' is a genus in the family Suidae, commonly known as warthogs (pronounced ''wart-hog''). They are pigs who live in open and semi-open habitats, even in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were formerly cons ...
, an automobile in the game, looks like a
puma
Puma or PUMA may refer to:
Animals
* ''Puma'' (genus), a genus in the family Felidae
** Puma (species) or cougar, a large cat
Businesses and organisations
* Puma (brand), a multinational shoe and sportswear company
* Puma Energy, a mid- and d ...
. This discussion, re-created in , was "the spark for the whole series".
Seeing potential for a full story, Burns created a which was released September 5, 2002 on the Drunkgamers website, but it was largely ignored, and, for unrelated reasons, ''drunkgamers'' soon closed. Four months later, ''
Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
'' contacted Ramsey for permission to include a different ''drunkgamers'' video in a CD to be distributed with the magazine. Ramsey granted permission, but he and Burns felt that they needed a website to take advantage of the exposure from ''Computer Gaming World''. They therefore resurrected ''Red vs. Blue'' and re-released the trailer to coincide with the ''Computer Gaming World'' issue. The was released on April 1, 2003.
Rooster Teeth was initially unaware of the broader
machinima
Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...
movement. In 2004, Co-producer
Matt Hullum stated in an interview with ''
GameSpy
GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1996 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for the game, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...
'', "When we first started ''Red vs. Blue'' we thought we were completely original. We never imagined that there were other people out there using video games to make movies, much less that it was a new art form with a hard to pronounce name and an official organization."
The nature of ''Red vs. Blue'' was different from Burns's initial expectation. A partial character introduction released between the original trailer and the first episode featured extensive action and violence, set to
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of lead vocalist Fred Durst, drummer John Otto, guitarist Wes Borland, turntablist DJ Lethal and bassist Sam Rivers. The band's music is marked by D ...
's song "
Break Stuff". However, as work continued, the focus shifted to
situation comedy
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
rather than the heavy action initially implied.
Although the series parodies video games, Ramsey noted, "We try not to make it too much of an
inside joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...
. And I think we use more bureaucracy and military humor than anything else, which everybody working in an office can identify with."
Rooster Teeth has stated that ''Red vs. Blue'' was influenced by ''
Homestar Runner'',
''
Penny Arcade
''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...
'',
and possibly ''
Mystery Science Theater 3000
''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy film review television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. ...
''.
Rooster Teeth initially envisioned ''Red vs. Blue'' to be short, but the series grew beyond their expectations. Burns and Ramsey had preconceived a list of jokes for which they allocated six to eight episodes. By , however, they realized that the series had fleshed out more than expected; they had covered only about one third of their original list.
Later in , Burns estimated a series of 22 episodes; however, driven by the series' popularity, he realized that there was more potential story than could be covered in that length,
and was able to conceive an extension of the season 1 plot. The whole production team eventually quit their jobs and began to work full-time on the series; to generate revenue they created an online store to sell
T-shirt
A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a ''crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shirts are general ...
s.
On June 16, 2006, Burns announced a five-part mini-series, ''
Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind'', which chronicles the adventures of the
mercenary
A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...
Tex after her disappearance in . The mini-series premiered exclusively on the
Xbox Live Marketplace,
but Rooster Teeth later made it available on their official site.
The original series, ''The Blood Gulch Chronicles'', ended on June 28, 2007, with the release of episode 100. On April 4, 2008, Burns announced a new series, ''Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction'', the group's first ''Halo 3'' series and the beginning of the new ''Recollection'' story arc. Several voice actors returned in ''Reconstruction'', which ran from April 5 to October 30, 2008. Rooster Teeth announced plans for a sequel ''Red vs. Blue'' series, each separated by a few weeks' break. The mini-series ''Red vs. Blue: Relocated'' bridged the gap between ''Red vs. Blue: Recreation'' and the previous season. During a Late Nite Jenga Jam podcast, Burnie Burns officially confirmed that the working title of the eighth Red vs. Blue series was "''Red vs. Blue: Resolution''". The title was later finalized as "''Red vs. Blue: Revelation''". The first four episodes were previewed at PAX East in March. After five seasons, Rooster Teeth expanded the scope and animation of the show, hiring renowned animator
Monty Oum
Monyreak Oum ( ; June 22, 1981 – February 1, 2015) was an American web-based animator and writer.
Oum attracted attention within the gaming community after releasing an animated video in 2007, titled ''Haloid'', where characters from the ''Halo ...
for action scenes, starting with
season 8.
On April 1, 2010 the premiere of ''Revelation'' attracted such a large audience that both roosterteeth.com and
Blip.tv (who formerly hosted Rooster Teeth's videos) crashed.
On March 28, 2011, Rooster Teeth presented the first trailer for ''Season 9'' of Red vs Blue which aired on June 14, 2011, during which time Miles Luna officially joined the company.
Season 9 acted as a semi-prequel, fleshing out the event surrounding ''Project Freelancer'', one of the key elements of the plot in previous seasons, while continuing the events left off in ''Revelation''. ''Season 10'', which continued Season 9's pattern of showing both stories simultaneously, began on May 28, 2012 and ended on November 5, 2012. The season concluded the Freelancer backstory while setting up the events of Season 11. The first ''
RWBY
''RWBY'' (pronounced "Ruby") is an American Anime-influenced animation, anime-influenced Computer animation, computer-animated web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. It is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people tr ...
'' trailer was shown following the conclusion of the season's credits.
On September 7, 2012, Burnie Burns appeared on ''What's Trending'' and confirmed that there would be a ''Season 11'', which premiered on June 14, 2013 and started the Chorus Trilogy.
The trilogy picked up where Season 10 left off and returned to a format similar to that of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, having no
pre-rendered CGI. The season ended on November 11, 2013. On February 3, 2014, Miles Luna announced ''Season 12'' on Rooster Teeth's website. The season premiered on April 28, 2014 and concluded on September 29, 2014. The final season of the Chorus Trilogy, ''Season 13'', was announced on March 4, 2015, with a release date of April 1, 2015. The season brought back a handful of characters from the series, including Sharkface, the Counselor, Junior, and Sister, and ended with a cliffhanger on September 7, 2015.
On April 1, 2016, a trailer for ''Season 14'' was released, with its first episode airing on May 8, 2016. Breaking from the format of the previous seasons, Season 14 was instead an anthology season, featuring various backstories, such as the trilogy of episodes starring Locus and Felix, and/or non-canon "PSA-type" episodes, such as the third Sarge movie trailer. The season ended on October 16, 2016.
On February 24, 2017, it was announced that Joe Nicolosi, writer and director of the Season 14 episode "The Brick Gulch Chronicles" would be writing and directing Season 15. Its trailer was released on March 30, 2017, and the season itself premiered on April 2, 2017.
Nicolosi returned for Season 16, ''
Red vs. Blue: The Shisno Paradox'', where he also had the help of writer Jason Weight. The season premiered on April 15, 2018. While Nicolosi could not return for the seventeenth season due to other commitments within Rooster Teeth, he co-wrote the story with Weight, who was promoted to head writer, and Miles Luna, who penned one of the season's episodes. Machinima animators Josh Ornelas and Austin Clark took over as directors of ''
Red vs. Blue: Singularity'', which premiered on March 9, 2019.
On January 15, 2020, Season 18 was confirmed to be in development with a brief 3 second clip being shown in a promo trailer for upcoming Rooster Teeth releases. The season, Red vs. Blue: Zero, was scheduled to premiere on October 19, 2020, but was delayed to November 9, 2020. Director Torrian Crawford referred to the season as a “restart” for the series, as it follows a mostly new cast, has cleaner humor, and is more action focused than previous iterations.
Writing
The process by which the show is written has changed as the show progressed. In the first season,
Burnie Burns would typically write an episode script on a Sunday afternoon before the episode was to be released on Friday. Scripts were written with minimal planning as the storyline grew beyond the 6 to 8 episodes originally expected. Church's death, as well as the revelation of Tex as a female character, both of which drove most of the season 1 plot, were conceived shortly before their respective episodes began production.
In January 2005, Burnie Burns and Kathleen Zuelch were interviewed in an episode of ''
The Screen Savers
''The Screen Savers'' is an American TV show that aired on TechTV from 1998 to 2005.Fost, Dan (17 May 1999)A Day in the Life of ZDTV's `The Screen Savers' ''San Francisco Chronicle'' The show launched concurrently with the channel ZDTV (later k ...
'' on
G4. In response to a question regarding any drawbacks to using machinima techniques, Burns responded "There are drawbacks, like it's a very limited world".
[Rose, Burns and Zuelch interview, ''The Screen Savers'', 2005.] PC games often allow for the addition and integration of new game assets, such as new levels and textures; console games are much more limited in this respect.
"But really what you end up doing is you end up writing around what's in that world, that limited world ... sometimes we sit around and we think 'what can we possibly do with stuff that's in the game?'".
As an example, the skull from the Oddball multiplayer mode of ''Halo'' was used for the flashback scene in episode 10, in which Tex beats Private Jimmy to death with his own skull.
After the first season, the writing process changed.
Matt Hullum was added as a main writer in the next season, and plot events were planned much more in advance. Approximately 40 to 80 pages of rough plot and dialogue are now written out before production on a season begins. In describing the writing process, Burns has said that main plot points are assigned to occur at certain points in a season, and that they would begin writing each episode by asking how much they wanted to advance towards the next plot point.
Burns has said multiple times in
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
audio commentary and in public journal entries that he had minor issues writing towards large events in season 3, in terms of scheduling and pacing. The first problem was in compacting the plot from episode 39 to where the characters are sent into the future in episode 43, to mark the release of and the transfer of filming to ''
Halo 2''. The second issue involved the pacing of events leading up to those planned for the special 50th episode. The events initially envisioned for the episode were then deemed too many for a single episode, and were instead spread over episodes 50 to 52. In turn, this led to new hardships when events had to be compacted once more to meet the tradition of ending a season on its 19th episode, episode 57.
Audio
Dialogue for an entire episode is typically recorded over one or two days and cut together for filming the day after. Until midway through season 3, audio for the voice actors living in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
had been recorded in a makeshift soundproof booth in Burns' guest room closet. Currently, however, audio is recorded in a professional recording booth in the Rooster Teeth offices in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
, with the recordings later being compressed to a slightly lower quality. During season 1, dialogue for the voice actors living in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
—
Joel Heyman
Joel Pearce Heyman (born September 16, 1971) is an American actor, best known for voicing Michael J. Caboose in the Rooster Teeth web series ''Red vs. Blue'' from 2003 until 2020. He co-founded Rooster Teeth with Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff ...
, Kathleen Zuelch, and
Matt Hullum — was recorded over the phone. Afterwards, a second recording studio was set up in Hullum's Los Angeles home. As Hullum moved back to Texas in season 3, Heyman and Zuelch now record their own dialogue.
Jason Saldaña
Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warne ...
and
Gus Sorola also recorded audio by phone while temporarily residing in
New York State
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
and
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
respectively.
Music
![Nico Audy-Rowland and Jeff Williams (5791014950) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Nico_Audy-Rowland_and_Jeff_Williams_%285791014950%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Initially, the first several episodes of the series did not include any music. In May 2003,
Nico Audy-Rowland, the bandleader of
Trocadero, was introduced to Red vs. Blue and enjoyed the series enough to submit a song about it to Burns, who liked the piece and promptly requested more music for Red vs. Blue. Episode 8, "Don't Ph34r The Reaper",
was the first to include music. However, for the release of the season 1 DVD, music was retrofitted into earlier episodes, often during transitions.
Trocadero's "Blood Gulch Blues", whose last few measures are now heard during each episode's title sequence, is used as background music for the character introductions on the Red vs. Blue season DVDs. According to Trocadero's website, the song's lyrics are intended to highlight episode 2's joke about the Warthog and the notion that there is as much bickering and fighting within each team as there is conflict between the two sides. In fact, "Blood Gulch Blues" never mentions Red vs. Blue. The song is from the band's debut full-length album ''
Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue'' which was released in 2004. The band's style is
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
, taking influence from elements of
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
,
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
, and
western types of music. Trocadero continued to provide music for the show from their second and third albums, ''
Ghosts That Linger
''Ghosts That Linger'' is an album released in November 2009 by the alternative rock band Trocadero. The album was independently released, with manufacturing and distribution by Rooster Teeth Productions. Several tracks are used in episodes in '' ...
'' and ''
Flying by Wire
''Flying by Wire'' is an album released in July 2012 by the alternative rock band Trocadero. The album was independently released, with manufacturing and distribution by Rooster Teeth Productions. Most tracks on the album are used in episodes of ...
''.
Beginning with ''
Red vs. Blue: Revelation'', the main score for each season has been crafted by Jeff Williams, the former keyboardist of Trocadero, in addition to many of Trocadero's songs being reused. Williams's soundtracks have genres containing mixed elements of
score music,
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
, and sometimes
electronic and
rap
Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
. Williams often features others on vocals including Lamar Hall, Red Rapper, Barbara La Ronga, Nicole D'Andrea, his daughter Casey Lee Williams, Sandy Lee Casey, and some members of the cast, and collaborates with Steve Goldshein on some tracks. The soundtracks also feature several parody songs, and some songs included are heard in PSAs and Rooster Teeth shorts. With the release of
season eleven, Williams moved away from providing music for Red vs. Blue to work on Rooster Teeth's new series, ''
RWBY
''RWBY'' (pronounced "Ruby") is an American Anime-influenced animation, anime-influenced Computer animation, computer-animated web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. It is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people tr ...
''. Trocadero returned as the sole-provider of ''Red vs. Blues score for the first time since season seven, also providing a new theme song "Contact" effectively replacing "Blood Gulch Blues".
David Levy joined the music team alongside Trocadero in season 13 and has continued to write music for the show since.
Recording
''Red vs. Blue'' is mostly recorded using a number of networked
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
consoles. As the games evolved and Rooster Teeth grew, consoles were changed to eight connected
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
s and later sixteen
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
s. Within a
multiplayer
A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...
game session, the people controlling the avatars "puppet" their characters, moving them around, firing weapons, and performing other actions as dictated by the script, and in synchronization with the prerecorded dialogue. The camera is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer.
[ The ]Apple Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
games ''Marathon
The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...
'' and '' Marathon 2: Durandal'' were also used in Season 3 for scenes that occur in the distant past; this has the effect of making the graphical quality of the series an indication of time's progression throughout the story. The first five seasons of ''Red vs. Blue'' were later reshot in high definition
High definition or HD may refer to:
Visual technologies
*HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format
*HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format
*HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape
* HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...
using the PC ports of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' and ''Halo 2'', which have also been featured in later seasons whenever those games were required.
In the interview on ''The Screen Savers'', Burns described the use of machinima techniques to record the show thus: "It's like normal animation but instead of, y'know, sitting down, drawing everything by hand, we just use controllers." During the earlier seasons, Ramsey developed a technique to handle the gamepad with his foot in case more than four characters were in the scene.
In scenes using the original ''Halo'', a bug was exploited that made it so that by holding a pistol and looking down, the character would appear to be holding the pistol down but looking up, as if more relaxed. At the same time, changing the perspective the head would bob, giving the impression that the character was talking. The glitch also either made vertical movement limited or returned the character's appearance to normal, so characters would have to estimate movements, since they were always looking down.[
Bungie eliminated the bug in '' Halo 2'', so that the on-screen characters appear to look up or down correctly. However, Bungie also implemented a new feature that made it possible for Rooster Teeth and others to achieve the same effect as the original bug. In ''Halo 2'', pressing down on the D-Pad of the Xbox controller makes the player character appear to hold his or her weapon in a neutral position, without aiming it at anyone, while looking straight ahead. This also allowed them to move the heads up and down to achieve a more dynamic appearance for some scenes.
In footage made using ''Halo'', a weapon aiming reticle appears in the center of the screen. This reticle appears because, as with most ]machinima
Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...
, the camera's view is from the perspective of a weapon-wielding player. The exception to this is footage recorded by killing the camera player's avatar. Footage made using ''Halo: Custom Edition'' allowed for a player to act as a free roaming camera, and thus contained no reticle. In ''Halo 2'', a bug in the Oddball multiplayer mode allows the player to drop all weapons, causing the weapon reticle to disappear. This bug has been used in all ''Halo 2'' footage from episode 46 onwards.
To gain unique angles in the series, Rooster Teeth first used a tank in the game to emulate crane shots by standing the cameraman on the turret while it was raised. Later, they found it more practical to stand the cameraman on other characters in the game. This trick has also been used for other purposes, such as standing Donut on two characters to create the illusion that he could jump higher than is possible in the game.
For scenes which include the flag (CTF), only two colors could be used (Sarge's and early Donut's red, and Caboose's blue) as CTF is a team game and only red and blue colors could be used. When the flag used among different colored characters, it is only shown with a standard red or blue character, mixed with scenes with other characters behaving as if it is present.
During recording, there was an issue with the Blue Team's deceased leader, Church. Church appears as a ghost for some parts of the show, and he needed to appear transparent to the viewer. To achieve this, all scenes with ghost-Church had to be recorded twice, once with Church in them and once without him. After the switch to Halo 2, Church's ghost form was portrayed using the "Poor Camo" Armor enhancement.
Another difficulty when recording in ''Halo 2'' was the enormous shadow over Red Base in the map Coagulation. This shadow had a detrimental effect on the appearance of the characters. To avoid this, late in Season 4 a glitch was discovered that allowed a character to appear lit even in a dark area. Burnie Burns stated in the Season 4 audio commentary that the glitch was something they kept noticing a lot while recording the episodes, and when they discovered how to replicate it they utilized it extensively. During the first five seasons, the videos were mostly recorded on the ''Halo'' map Blood Gulch and its ''Halo 2'' counterpart, Coagulation, although later episodes have increasingly been recorded on other maps.
Episodes that have been made with the games starting with '' Halo 3'' have used the theater mode camera. The Forge Mode from '' Halo 4'' onward also helped by providing a green screen
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...
and the creation of entire areas for certain scenes.
Starting in season 8, action sequences have been made with dedicated animation that involve stunts not possible with the previous game engine. For this, they teamed up with animator Monty Oum
Monyreak Oum ( ; June 22, 1981 – February 1, 2015) was an American web-based animator and writer.
Oum attracted attention within the gaming community after releasing an animated video in 2007, titled ''Haloid'', where characters from the ''Halo ...
, a fan of the series. Making the show more ambitious and reliant on computer animation led to extensive planning – fight choreography, storyboards, animatics – for episodes that take months to be completed, in contrast to machinima ones that are done in just a week.
Post-production
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application (NLE) developed by Adobe Inc. and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a succes ...
is used to edit the audio and video together, add the titles, and create some of the special effects not normally possible on the console or in the games used. Adobe After Effects is also used, typically by Hullum, to create animated props not found in the regular game engine. Examples of these extra props include tombstones in and ornaments, presents, and lights in the Christmas 2004 video.
As the camera player's view has a heads-up display
A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD (), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a pilot being able to view informa ...
(HUD), black bars are added in post-production to hide the top and bottom portions containing irrelevant in-game information, creating a letterbox
A letter box, letterbox, letter plate, letter hole, mail slot or mailbox is a receptacle for receiving incoming mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private ...
effect. Most machinima is made with computer games, which often have HUDs that can be easily disabled in one way or another. Console games
A console game is a type of video game consisting of images and often sounds generated by a video game console, which are displayed on a television or similar audio-video system, and that can be manipulated by a player. This manipulation usually ...
such as ''Halo'' and ''Halo 2'' are often more limited in this respect. In 2010, Rooster Teeth Productions released a remastered edition of ''The Blood Gulch Chronicles'' that removed the black bars and aiming reticle existent in previous versions of the series, which was done by re-shooting the first four seasons in the PC versions of ''Halo'' and ''Halo 2''.
Other media
A book based on the series, titled ''Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide'', was published November 17, 2015. Written by Eddy Rivas and Burnie Burns, it collects information about the series over its first twelve seasons and most of its thirteenth season.
Due to the popularity and success of ''Red vs. Blue'', Rooster Teeth has created dozens of ''Red vs. Blue''-themed merchandise available for sale on the website's store. Rooster Teeth has released several posters featuring major characters accompanied by their most popular quotes, dubbed "-isms posters". Several t-shirts based on quotes from the show have also been created.
Reception
Critical response
''Red vs. Blue'' attracted interest immediately; the first episode was featured on Slashdot, Penny Arcade
''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...
, and Fark
Fark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. The site receives many story submissions per day and approximately 100 of them are public ...
on the same day, and had 20,000 downloads within a day. The following episodes wound up downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, forcing a change on the distribution to peer-to-peer file sharing
Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program tha ...
to cut the increasing server costs. Ramsey noted ''Red vs. Blue'' also "had a broader appeal than we anticipated", gathering a female following along with the expected demographic of young adult males. Shortly after episode 2, Bungie contacted Rooster Teeth. Although the crew had feared that any contact would be to force an end to the project, Bungie enjoyed the videos and was supportive; one staff member called the production "kind of brilliant". A deal was arranged to ensure that the series could continue to use Bungie's game properties without license fees. The relationship has continued with Bungie's successor in the ''Halo'' series, 343 Industries
343 Industries is an American video game developer located in Redmond, Washington, part of Xbox Game Studios. Headed by Pierre Hintze, the studio is responsible for the ''Halo'' series of military science fiction games, originally created and ...
. ''Red vs. Blue'' continued to attract more attention, and by April 2004, Kevin J. Delaney of ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' estimated that weekly viewership was between 650,000 and 1,000,000. In a 2006 interview, Strange Company founder Hugh Hancock called the series probably "the most successful machinima productions " and estimated that it was generating almost US$200,000 annually. ''Red vs. Blue'' content was also included with a premium "Legendary" edition of '' Halo 3''.
''Red vs. Blue'' was widely acclaimed within the machinima industry. The first season won awards for Best Picture, Best Independent Machinima Film, and Best Writing at the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences' 2003 Machinima Film Festival. Two years later, at the 2005 festival, the won an award for Best Independent Machinima and was nominated for five others.[; ] At the 2006 Machinima Festival, the series was nominated for awards in voice acting and writing, but won neither.
Among film critics, the response was generally positive. Darren Waters of ''BBC News Online'' called ''Red vs. Blue'' "riotously funny" and "reminiscent of the anarchic energy of ''South Park
''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...
''". Reviewing the three season DVDs for ''Cinema Strikes Back'', Charlie Prince wrote, "''Red vs. Blue'' is hysterical in large part because all the characters are morons, and so the seemingly intense conflict with the opposing base doesn't exactly work the way you'd think it would." Leggat described the series as " rt locker-room humor, part Beckett-like absurdist tragicomedy, part wicked vivisection of game culture and sci-fi action films and games". Ed Halter
Ed Halter is a film programmer, writer, and founder of Light Industry, a microcinema in Brooklyn, New York. He currently teaches at Bard College, where he is Critic in Residence.
Criticism
His writing has been featured in ''Artforum'', '' The ...
of ''The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'' dismissed the humor as shallow and described the first season as "'' Clerks''-meets-''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
''". Leggat defended the humor, arguing, "The literary analog is absurdist drama." It has also been critiqued by academic D. Bruno Starrs as an anti-war film.
Another common criticism of ''Red vs. Blue'' was that its season 3 plot was too far-fetched and out-of-character. Charlie Prince wrote, "By the third season, however, the ''Red vs. Blue'' idea seems to be running out of steam ... It's not funny so much as just odd." Writing for the ''Honolulu Star-Bulletin'', Wilma Jandoc agreed that the first part of "season 3 ... throws the teams into a ridiculous situation and has limited member interactions, leading to a lack of witty dialogue". In an '' about.com'' review of the season 4 DVD, writer Eric Qualls thought that season 3 was "a little too long, and too complicated, and the jokes were a bit too far apart". Nevertheless, both Prince and Jandoc were optimistic that the series would improve, and Qualls stated that the fourth season had "returned to the series' roots" as "some of the funniest stuff you'll ever see".
Rooster Teeth Productions has created special ''Red vs. Blue'' videos for various events. For example, Microsoft has commissioned ''Red vs. Blue'' videos for Xbox demo kiosks found in game stores and for a developer conference. Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian rock band formed in 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario. The band developed a following in Canada, with their self-titled 1991 cassette becoming the first independent release to be certified gold in Canada. They reach ...
has also commissioned videos for their concerts, as frontman Ed Robertson
Lloyd Edward Elwyn Robertson (born October 25, 1970) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the band Barenaked Ladies. He, along with former member Steven Page, founded the group in 1988. As of Page's ...
was a fan of the series, and would later voice a character, Captain Butch Flowers. Other videos have been specifically created for gaming magazines, including ''Electronic Gaming Monthly
''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews.
History
The m ...
'' and ''Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
''; gaming convention
A gaming convention is a gathering centered on role-playing games, collectible card games, miniatures wargames, board games, video games, or other types of games. These conventions are typically two or three days long, and often held at either a u ...
s, including E3 and the Penny Arcade Expo; and the Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
.
''Red vs. Blue'' has also received praise from soldiers stationed in the Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
. An August 2005 blog entry by Kimi Matsuzaki of 1UP.com
''1Up.com'' was an American entertainment website that focused on video games. Launched in 2003, ''1Up.com'' provided its own original features, news stories, game reviews, and video interviews, and also featured comprehensive PC-focused conten ...
displays photographs of soldiers holding various weapons, as well as copies of the first and second season ''Red vs. Blue'' DVDs. Geoff Ramsey later stated in an interview, "We get a lot of merchandise and DVDs out to Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
and get a lot of great e-mails back."
''Red vs. Blue'' has been acknowledged by Xbox Live through Grifball
Forge is a level editor developed by Bungie and 343 Industries for the first-person shooter video game series, ''Halo''. Forge was initially released alongside ''Halo 3'', and was further expanded upon in '' Halo: Reach'', ''Halo 4'', '' Halo 2: A ...
, a game variant which is featured on the Halo 3 multiplayer; Grifball originated as a joke by Sarge in the 4th season that alluded to inflicting pain on Grif. The notability and impact of ''Red vs. Blue'' extends to video games outside the ''Halo'' series as well. The developers of the Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
video game ''Gears of War
''Gears of War'' is a media franchise centered on a series of video games created by Epic Games, developed and managed by The Coalition, and owned and published by Xbox Game Studios. The franchise is best known for its third-person shooter vide ...
'', Epic Games, made a reference to a ''Red vs. Blue'' gag through an in-game achievement called, "Is it a spider?"; the award is earned for tagging opponents with grenades. Another reference to the series appears on Bungie's website. On a player's '' Halo 3'' profile screen the description of a kill or death with a flag is "Right next to the headlight fluid". In ''Halo 3'' itself, the second campaign scenario features a ''Red vs. Blue'' skit, wherein two cast members voice over a soldier attempting to bypass a locked door. Different skits are seen on each difficulty level. In ''Halo: Reach'', Dr. Halsey's office contains a data-file detailing the UNSC's "reaction" to the films. In the expansion pack for '' Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare'', there is an achievement called "Chupathingy," when killing a Chupacabra.
Impact on machinima
''Red vs. Blue'' is widely credited with attracting public attention to machinima
Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...
and web-series. The first instance of machinima dates back to the 1990s in the first-person shooter game '' Quake''. A group that called themselves "The Rangers" created a software mod of them typing in the chat box and putting lines of dialogue on the screen. This group named these "videos" ''Diary of a Camper
''Diary of a Camper'' is an American short film released in October 1996 that was made using id Software's first-person shooter video game '' Quake''. The film was created by the Rangers, a clan or group of video game players, and first release ...
.'' Even though Rooster Teeth is not the first to produce machinima, Clive Thompson credited ''Red vs. Blue'' as "the first to break out of the underground". Tavares, Gil, and Roque called it machinima's "first big success", and Paul Marino
Paul Marino (born March 10, 1980) is a film director, producer, animator, voice actor, and author currently focused on machinima, the art of using engines from video games to create films. He is a co-founder and the executive director of the ...
noted that "the series proved so popular that it not only transcended the typical gamer, it also claimed fans outside the gaming world". In 2005, Thompson wrote that "Microsoft has been so strangely solicitous that when it was developing the sequel to Halo last year 004 004, 0O4, O04, OO4 may refer to:
* 004, fictional British 00 Agent
* 0O4, Corning Municipal Airport (California)
* O04, the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation
* Abdul Haq Wasiq, Guantanamo detainee 004
* Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engine
* Lauda ...
the designers actually inserted a special command—a joystick button that makes a soldier lower his weapon—designed solely to make it easier for Rooster Teeth to do dialogue".
''Red vs. Blue'' has motivated the fan base to create the machinima "''Sponsors vs. Freeloaders''". This series lived on the forums o
roosterteeth.com
The series has inspired other machinima productions, including ''The Codex.'' Other '' Halo'' machinimas that are not necessarily related to, or influenced by, ''Red vs. Blue'' are: ''Arby 'n' the Chief'', ''The Forgotten Spartans'', ''Matchmaking'', ''Spriggs'', ''Rise of the Spartans'', ''Playtime'', ''C n' P'', and ''Sandguardians''.
In machinima, ''Red vs. Blue'' has been mentioned as the most successful example of the trend toward serial distribution. According to Hugh Hancock
Strange Company was a group of machinima creators and distributors based in Edinburgh, Scotland. They are known in the medium as the longest-standing machinima production company, having produced machinima films since 1997, and for creating th ...
, this format allows for gradual improvement as a result of viewer feedback, and gives viewers a reason to return for future videos. Hancock argues that this model was necessary for ''Red vs. Blue''s success: "Sunday night is Red vs. Blue night, just as (in the UK) Thursday used to be Buffy. Had RvB released their films as single downloads of an hour and a half, they'd have had nowhere near the success they currently enjoy." Karen Moltenbrey explains that, machinima films were quite lengthy and were typically not episodic. Rooster Teeth was able to combine these aspects by compiling the episodic adventures into a feature-length film and selling DVDs.
Distribution
''Red vs. Blue'' episodes were originally available in QuickTime
QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...
(QT) and Windows Media Video
Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...
(WMV) formats, with the most recent season available at the time in full and episodes from the previous seasons available in a rolling archive, cycling on a weekly basis. This original setup was intended to help to control bandwidth costs; as of September 2005, the official Rooster Teeth website was serving 400 terabyte
The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this ...
s of data monthly. Video content has now moved to streaming
Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...
, with initial releases occurring through the website directly, followed by YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
later on. Red vs. Blue Season 16 was not released to YouTube until March 19, 2019, unlike previous seasons which released on YouTube a week after being made available to FIRST members on the site. Previously it was hosted by ''Blip
Blip may refer to:
* Beta-lactamase inhibitor protein
* Blip (website), a defunct web video platform
* Blip.pl, a Polish social networking site
* Blip, a message in the Apache Wave (formerly Google Wave) collaboration platform
* Blip Festival, an ...
'', though has switched over to being hosted directly on the website with Jwplayer acting as its video player, after Blip was shut down. All freely released episodes are currently available and the rolling archive has been retired. ''Out of Mind'' was initially a free download on the Xbox Live Marketplace, along with some ''Red vs. Blue'' episodes being available purchased. More recently, episodes became available to be streamed on ''Halo Waypoint
343 Industries is an American video game developer located in Redmond, Washington, part of Xbox Game Studios. Headed by Pierre Hintze, the studio is responsible for the ''Halo'' series of military science fiction games, originally created and ...
''.
Members of the official website can become FIRST members, originally referred to as sponsors, for a fee of US$5 every month or US$20 every six months. FIRST members formerly could access videos a day before members can view them and a week before a general public release, but now get to view them a full week before both free members and non-members can view them, as well as the ability to access special content released only to FIRST members. For example, before the premiere of season 12, Rooster Teeth released exclusive audio logs featuring some of the main characters exclusively for FIRST members.[
Episodes were originally released in different resolutions; higher resolutions were reserved for FIRST members. Beginning with the ''Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind'' mini-series, Rooster Teeth began to film and edit videos in ]720p
720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...
high-definition, and release episodes in widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
format, instead of hiding the game HUD through the letterboxing seen in fullscreen releases. On January 8, 2007, the release of episode 87, Matt Hullum announced that videos would be viewable using Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
. He stated that the change allowed Rooster Teeth to release public videos in a higher resolution "while keeping the file size low", and that the entire video archive would be updated. Code to embed the Flash video on other websites was also distributed. In a site journal entry, Burns clarified that downloadable versions would continue to be released, but after their Flash counterparts. Eventually, during Season 10, downloadable episodes ceased to be posted. This was likely to prevent re-uploading episodes onto YouTube ahead of public release.
Although it is distributed serially over the internet, ''Red vs. Blue'' is also one of the first commercially released products made using machinima, as opposed to a product merely containing machinima. DVDs (and later Blu-rays) of every completed seasons are sold through Rooster Teeth's official website, as well as at several retailers in the United States, such as Target
Target may refer to:
Physical items
* Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports
** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports
** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...
and Wal-Mart. Rooster Teeth claimed in 2017 that ''Red vs. Blue'' has sold more than 1 million DVDs of individual seasons and box sets. Initially each season's episodes were edited together in the DVD releases to play continuously as full-length films, though later seasons were written as singular films with episodes being split up later during production. Because some episodes contain dialogue that continues into or past the episode credits
Credit refers to any form of deferred payment, the granting of a loan and the creation of debt.
Credit may also refer to:
Places
* Credit, Arkansas, a ghost town
* Credit River, a river in Ontario, Canada
* Credit River (Minnesota), a river in ...
, Rooster Teeth either removes that dialogue entirely or films extra footage to replace the original fade to black.[.] On April 1, 2008, Rooster Teeth released a box set of all five seasons, including a DVD of new bonus content. In 2010, a remastered box set of the first five seasons was released, with the first four seasons being completely reshot, featuring a proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the highly letterboxed look of the original episodes, and a much higher resolution.[ On November 6, 2012, to celebrate ten years, Rooster Teeth released a DVD and Blu-ray box set, titled ''RVBX'', comprising the first ten seasons and five discs worth of bonus content, two of which are almost entirely newly released material.
Theatrical presentations of ''Red vs. Blue'' seasons at the Lincoln Center and at other film festivals are cut (sometimes extensively) for time. In a 2005 interview, Burns noted that the first season, normally 75 minutes in length, was cut to 55 minutes for these venues, with an entire episode omitted.] Burns stated in a journal entry that the 134-minute season 3 DVD version had to be shortened to "a watchable-in-a-theater runtime of 100 minutes".
The first 5 seasons were made available on Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
in July 2014, with Seasons 6–12 debuting on the streaming service in April 2015. On March 4, 2015, Rooster Teeth debuted a new YouTube channel dedicated entirely to ''Red vs. Blue'', where the first twelve seasons were uploaded to between March 6–29 in anticipation for the release of the thirteenth season's premiere on April 1, 2015. The channel has over 886 thousand subscribers, and over 268 million video views, as of July 2019. The channel has since been renamed to ''Rooster Teeth Animation'' and features other original animated Rooster Teeth productions such as ''RWBY
''RWBY'' (pronounced "Ruby") is an American Anime-influenced animation, anime-influenced Computer animation, computer-animated web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. It is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people tr ...
'' and ''Camp Camp
Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warne ...
''.
El Rey Network syndicated the series in its entirety in November 2015, with the series premiering on December 5, 2015. Founder Robert Rodriguez called the series a "truly groundbreaking machinima series, with a strong focus on quality writing and pioneering motion capture techniques".
In May 2022 it was announced that FilmRise had acquired streaming rights for ''Nomad of Nowhere
''Nomad of Nowhere'' is an American Traditional animation, 2D animated web series released on the website of Rooster Teeth on March 16, 2018. The show, which was created by Georden Whitman, is a western-fantasy hybrid focused on a mute wanderer h ...
'', ''Camp Camp'', and ''Red vs. Blue'', grouping episodes from each series into "traditional half-hour formats and seasons for streaming."
Notes
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{{Authority control
2003 web series debuts
American adult animated web series
American time travel television series
Machinima based on Halo (franchise)
Fan films
Viral videos
Animated series based on video games
Television series by Otter Media