Rooster Teeth Productions
From Roosterpedia
Rooster Teeth Productions (known as RT within the community) is an award-winning production group from Austin, Texas that specializes in the creation of machinima, or films created using real-time, interactive engines from computer and video games. The name Rooster Teeth is a euphemism for Cockbite, an insult used in one of the group's trailers. Originally, the group ran an unsuccessful website called DrunkGamers.com, for which Burnie Burns created voice-over-enhanced gameplay videos of Bungie Studios' popular first-person shooter video game Halo: Combat Evolved. Eventually, these videos led to the creation of Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, an award-winning comic science fiction series that premiered on April 1, 2003 and ended on June 28, 2007 with the release of episode 100.
In 2004, Electronic Arts commissioned Rooster Teeth to promote its life simulation game The Sims 2 through The Strangerhood, a series that parodies popular culture. In 2005, Monolith Productions commissioned the group to create the mini-series PANICS to promote the computer game F.E.A.R.. Recently, they also produced a miniseries using the game Shadowrun called 1-800-MAGIC.
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Early History
While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum collaborated with actor Joel Heyman on a 1997 independent film called The Schedule. The film helped Matt and Joel to find work in Los Angeles, California, but otherwise had limited success. Working for a local company named Telenetwork, Burnie later met Geoff Ramsey and Gustavo Sorola (who had previously created and then taken down the site UglyInternet.com). In Spring of 2000 Geoff and Gus formed DrunkGamers.com, a website where video games were reviewed while drunk. According to Geoff, the group tried to receive free games to review, but "incurred the wrath" of several game developers in doing so. Burnie began to write for them, and soon became the "most prolific drunken video game writer of all time." As the website grew, two avid Drunkgamers emerged that would later join the ranks of RT Staff: "cheese-loving, shoe-hating hippy," Dan Godwin, and "a pseudo homeless kid," Jason Saldana.
One of the non-gameplay videos that the drunkgamers crew created during this time was a live-action parody of the Apple Switch ad campaign. This video featured Gus as the main actor, used Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" as background music, and focused on the lack of games available for the Apple Macintosh computer.
Shows
Red Vs. Blue
- Main Article: Red Vs. Blue
Responsible for covering the Microsoft Xbox, Burnie regularly posted gameplay videos of Halo: Combat Evolved and eventually began to add humor to them with voice-overs. The idea for a serial came next, and a trailer for Red vs. Blue was posted in 2002. Six months later, the drunkgamers website closed. However, the following week, the magazine Computer Gaming World asked permission to include the Switch parody in a CD to be included with an issue. To take advantage of the resultant publicity, RT re-encoded the video to point to redvsblue.com, and revived the Red vs. Blue project. Burnie also contacted Matt and Joel to work on the series.
In a parody of science fiction films and games and of military life, Red vs. Blue tells the story of two groups of soldiers fighting a civil war in a desolate box canyon. Initially, RT expected the series to consist of only six to eight episodes. However, the series became popular quickly, receiving 20,000 downloads in a single day. Accordingly, Burnie conceived an extension of the plot. Red vs. Blue has won several awards, including four from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, and completed its fifth season on June 28, 2007. The series ended with 100 episodes.
The Strangerhood
- Main Article: The Strangerhood
In May 2004, at the E3 gaming convention, RT was introduced to The Sims 2 and realized that the game would be suitable for a series that parodied reality television. The result was The Strangerhood, a comedy series that centers on eight strangers who awake one day unaware of where they are or how they arrived there. Its first season of 17 episodes completed on April 27, 2006. In 2005, the group collaborated with Paul Marino on Strangerhood Studios, a spin-off commissioned by the Independent Film Channel. This spin-off was the first machinima series to be commissioned for broadcast and won an award for Best Editing at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival.
PANICS
- Main Article: PANICS
Also in 2005, RT partnered with Monolith Productions to create PANICS, a short series that chronicles the adventures of Bravo Team. The four publicly released episodes were released between September 27, 2005 and October 18, 2005, and a prequel was released with F.E.A.R. - Director's Edition. The mini-series won an award for Best Writing at the 2005 Machinima Film Festival.
1-800-MAGIC
- Main Article: 1-800-MAGIC
On June 7, 2007, Rooster Teeth released the first episode of 1-800-Magic, a new mini series made using the game Shadowrun which lasted 4 episodes.
Other Machinima
In mid-2006, Electronic Arts commissioned RT to direct commercials for their EA Sports brand of games, including Madden NFL 2007 and NCAA Football 2007, for broadcast on television. RT released some of this work on their website. In late November 2006, controversy arose over a Madden NFL 07 commercial, when Indianapolis Colts tight end Dallas Clark complained about his depiction in the commercial.[1] Hit and tackled multiple times in the advertisement by Philadelphia Eagles players, Clark stated, "I haven't seen the commercial, but I'm upset about it. It makes me look like a punk."[1] In response, Rooster Teeth posted a director's cut, in which Clark plays and dominates every position.
Comics
In 2006, RT formed its own webcomic series. The strip portrays the staff members, but they play little role in its creation. Instead, it is drawn by Luke McKay, a Rooster Teeth enthusiast named staff member, and written by Griffon Ramsey, Geoff's wife. The comics are released three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Additionally, special comics for the site's sponsors are released about once a week.
Extra
This page is based off the format found in Wikipedia's Rooster Teeth article.
