Red vs. Blue

Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles
RvB general poster.jpg
Red vs. Blue official promotional image
Game(s) Halo: Reach
Halo trilogy
Halo 3: ODST
Marathon Trilogy
Genre(s) Comic science fiction
Running time Five minutes per episode (average)
Created by Burnie Burns
Matt Hullum
Geoff Ramsey
Gustavo Sorola
Jason Saldaña
Directed by Burnie Burns
Gavin Free
Voices Burnie Burns
Jordan Burns
Yomary Cruz
Joel Heyman
Rebecca Frasier
Dan Godwin
Matt Hullum
Geoff Ramsey
Ed Robertson
Jason Saldaña
Gustavo Sorola
Nathan Zellner
Kathleen Zuelch
Release(s) April 1, 2003 – June 28, 2007 (original run)
June 16, 2006 - Present (Other series)
Format(s) DivX, WMV, QuickTime, DVD, Flash
Number of episodes The Blood Gulch Chronicles: 100
Out of Mind: 5
Recovery One: 4
Reconstruction: 19
Relocated: 4
Recreation: 19
Revelation: 20
Other special videos
Website
http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/

Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and DVD. The story centers on two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon (Blood Gulch), in a parody of first-person shooter (FPS) games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its Internet premiere on April 1, 2003. The series introduced people to Halo, so Microsoft — the owner of Halo — offered to pay Rooster Teeth to continue production of Red vs. Blue; Rooster Teeth therefore decided to continue the story. The fifth and final season of the original Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles series ended with episode 100, released on June 28, 2007. Three mini-series—Out of Mind, Recovery One, and Relocated—and the three-part Recollection Trilogy containing the full-length Reconstruction, Recreation and Revelation series (Seasons 6-8) have extended the plot. It was revealed at Comic Con 2010 that Red vs Blue would return for a ninth season.

Red vs. Blue emerged from Burnie Burns' voice-over-enhanced gameplay videos of Bungie Studios' FPS video game Halo: Combat Evolved. The series is primarily produced using the machinima 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 sequels, Halo 2 and Halo 3, on the Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Minute sections of the series were also achieved using the Microsoft PC version of the same game.

Both within the machinima community and among film critics, Red vs. Blue 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 been credited with bringing new popularity to machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form. Graham Leggat, former director of communications for Lincoln Center's film society, described Red vs. Blue as "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett".[1] While special videos continue to be released online, the completed series is also available on DVD, making the series one of the first commercially released and successful machinima products. Rooster Teeth has created videos, some under commission from Microsoft, for special events, and Red vs. Blue content is included with the Legendary Edition of Halo 3.

Contents

Synopsis

Setting and overview

Red vs. Blue centers 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. According to Simmons, one of the Red Team soldiers, each team's base exists only in response to the other team's base. In Season 8 (Revelation) it was 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 grounds for Freelance Agents (although, this was hinted at in Season 6 (Reconstruction)). 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. Teammates have an array of eccentric personalities and usually create more problems for each other than for their enemies, as explained by Church.

The Red vs. Blue storyline so far spans eight full-length seasons and three mini-series. Rooster Teeth periodically releases self-referential public service announcements (PSAs) and holiday-themed videos, which are generally unrelated to the main storyline. In these videos, however, the members of both teams claim to be from Red vs. Blue.

Although the visual background of Red vs. Blue is 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, the protagonist of the Halo series, 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 season 4 and season 5 casts include characters from the alien Covenant Elite race, Rooster Teeth never portrays those characters in their original Halo context.[2]

Plot

The Blood Gulch Chronicles

Initially, the Red Team consists of Grif (Geoff Ramsey, under the credit of Geoff Fink); Simmons (Gustavo Sorola); rookie Donut (Dan Godwin); their leader, Sarge (Matt Hullum); and a robot engineer, Lopez (Burnie Burns). The Blue Team consists of Tucker (Jason Saldaña), rookie Caboose (Joel Heyman), de facto leader Church (Burns), and an artificially intelligent tank named Sheila (Yomary Cruz); prior to the events of the series, the Blues were led by the late Captain Butch Flowers (Ed Robertson). Church is killed in friendly fire by Caboose, and reappears as a ghost after mercenary Tex (Kathleen Zuelch) is called in to replace him. It is established that Tex comes from an experimental super-soldier program, which paired freelance soldiers, code-named by U.S. states, with artificial intelligence programs. After Tex is killed in combat, her AI, O'Malley (various),[3] transfers to and possesses Caboose.[4] Three months later, neutral medic Doc (Hullum) arrives, taking commands from both teams due to a lack of resources. The Blues take Donut hostage, and negotiate his release in exchange for robot bodies, constructed by Sarge, that the ghosts of Church and Tex can possess. O'Malley soon transfers to Doc, kidnaps Lopez, and escapes Blood Gulch through a teleporter.

The Red and Blue Teams join forces to pursue O'Malley,[5] eventually confronting him just before a bomb built by Sarge into Church's robot body detonates. The soldiers wake up in a wasteland, and conclude the force of the blast sent them into the future; the series later reveals this to be untrue, but their survival of the explosion remains unexplained. Church, however, travels a thousand years into the past. Living the events leading up to the explosion over and over, Church attempts to alter the timeline and avert the disaster, with every failure sending him back to the past once more. He eventually abandons his plans, and manages to join the others in the supposed future. The teams gather at O’Malley’s new fortress, and plan to plant the sentient time bomb, Andy (Nathan Zellner). Instead, O’Malley is defeated (temporarily) by an Alien creature (Zellner).[6] As the Red Team discovers the continued existence of Blood Gulch, the Alien leads the Blues and Andy on a sacred quest, but is killed. His murderer, Wyoming[7] (Hullum), is also part of the super-soldier program, prompting Tex to pursue him with the help of fellow test subject York (Sean Duggan) and his AI, Delta (Mark Bellman). York is soon killed as well. It is revealed that Wyoming has an armor enhancement which allows him to alter time,[8] which caused Church to travel into the past to begin with. The Blues, Andy, and Tex eventually return to Blood Gulch, and Tucker becomes ill; Church calls Doc, whom O'Malley still controls, for help. Doc diagnoses Tucker with male pregnancy, caused through parasitic symbiosis with the Alien. Tucker gives birth off-screen[7] to an alien child, Junior (Saldaña).[8] O’Malley leaves Doc.[7]

A ship crashes into the gulch,[7] carrying Grif's sibling, Sister (Rebecca Frasier), who is assigned to the Blue Team. Both teams are soon ambushed by Wyoming; Lopez; and O’Malley, who now possesses the reanimated corpse of Captain Flowers. They reveal their joint plot to steal Junior, the prophesied ruler of the alien race, in order to raise and control an army of alien creatures. In the ensuing battle, Wyoming and Flowers are killed. Tex, however, sees the possibility of rule over the aliens as a method to end the war, and convinces O’Malley to possess her once more. She takes Junior, and leaves in the ship. The Reds, however, have planted Andy on-board, and the ship explodes on their command.[8][9]

The Recollections

After Agent Washington (Shannon McCormick), also known as "Recovery One", retrieves Delta,[10] he encounters twin freelancers, South Dakota and North Dakota. Although ordered to kill South, Washington spares her to enlist her help in defeating an unknown enemy targeting the remaining freelancers, though she later betrays him and flees.

The events of Reconstruction begin with Tex's ship crashing into an outpost named Valhalla. The unknown enemy, who identifies himself as the Meta, appears, capturing O'Malley and stealing Tex's cloaking ability from her armor. Washington arrives to investigate after having tracked down Caboose and Church for advice on O'Malley, while the Meta manipulates communications to order the Reds to attack them. Attacking Agent South, The Meta escapes when Washington, Caboose, and Church intervene; Washington kills South. The Reds interrupt a second confrontation with the Meta, allowing it to recover and escape. Church enters Caboose's mind and finds a message left by Delta. Following the lead, Washington directs them to visit Command; the Meta sneaks inside with them. Inside, Washington and Church find Washington's former AI partner, Epsilon, and Washington deems Church to be the remnants of the Alpha AI, which was fractured, using torture, in order to create cheap duplicates. While inside command, the Reds erase the Blues from the database. Washington orders the Reds and Caboose to escape with Epsilon and turn the AI in as evidence for Project Freelancer's criminal handling of the Alpha AI, while he and Church remain to detonate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), erasing the Meta's stolen AI units. Caboose successfully escapes with Epsilon, but Church's and Washington's fate is left unstated. The epilogue of Reconstruction reveals the Director of Project Freelancer to be original Leonard Church, stating that the Alpha (Private Church) is based on his mind and memories.

In Recreation, the Reds settle into a new base and Sarge attempts to improve his new Warthog, eventually calling Lopez for help after getting the base's power online. Donut arrives in Valhalla, informing Caboose that Tucker is in peril. Caboose reveals he is trying to build a new friend and Donut offers to lend Sarge's secret facility to Caboose. After sneaking in, Epsilon activates and explains to Caboose that he must go to Tucker's current location. The Reds decide to aid Caboose to restore the Blues to the database's records in order to legitimately win the conflict. Sarge and Grif go with Caboose to aid his mission, while Simmons, Lopez and Donut remain behind. Upon arriving at a dig site they run afoul of the local soldiers and encounter Tucker. In Tucker's bunker, Caboose finds a forerunner monitor which he uploads Epsilon into. The memories act as a back-up of Alpha, who acts and sounds like Church, although with no recollection of any of the events that have happened throughout the series. Meanwhile, Simmons, Donut and Lopez come under attack from the Meta. Washington arrives as the Reds in Valhalla attempt to escape, shooting Lopez and Donut while demanding Epsilon from Simmons, revealing that he is now working alongside the Meta in order to return the Epsilon unit to the Chairman of the Oversight Committee in exchange for his freedom.

In Revelation, Doc is sent to Valhalla, at Simmons request, to check the Meta medically. Sarge and Grif manage to rescue Simmons with some help from Epsilon-Church, but Doc is left behind. The Reds and Epsilon-Church flee back to the dig site, where Epsilon-Church asks Caboose to follow him to a secret facility, with the Reds following behind. The facility is run by a computer identical to Sheila, who recognizes Epsilon-Church as the Director of Project Freelancer and admits him and Caboose. It is revealed the facility is a storage facility, holding unused battle equipment for Freelancer simulations. They proceed to a concealed area, where hundreds of empty robot versions of Church are found, along with a body for Tex. Epsilon-Church releases a copy of Tex from himself, who then proceeds to battle Tucker, Sarge, Simmons, Grif and Church (who has taken one of the robot bodies). Caboose has Sheila lock Tex's armor to save everyone and Church later convinces her not to attack them. Washington, the Meta and Doc arrive at the dig site and find Epsilon's storage unit and modify it in order to capture Epsilon. Tex researches her past to discover who she truly is and leaves for another Freelancer facility with Church in tow. After they leave, Simmons asks Sheila to restore the Blues' lost records, discovering at the same time that the events of Blood Gulch Chronicles were one of many possible situations that Freelancers are trained to deal with. At the second Freelancer facility, Tex shoots Church in order to activate his recovery beacon and draw in Washington and the Meta to interrogate them and find the Director. When Washington and the Meta arrive they fall for a number of traps set by Tex. Tex and the Meta battle, but Tex is captured. The Meta betrays Washington, but Caboose, Tucker, Sarge, Grif and Simmons arrive in a pelican dropship and rescue him. With Tex locked in the capture unit, Washington agrees to release her but only if Church comes with him willingly.

Characters

From left: Simmons, Grif, Sarge, Donut, Tex's future robot body, Sheila (the tank), Caboose, and Church

Red vs. Blue features characters whose personalities are skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. Character interaction and dialogue, rather than action, drive the story.[11] The series has centered on ten main characters. Other characters, both team-affiliated and unaffiliated, human and non-human, have played significant roles throughout the story.

Main characters

Significant supporting characters

Development history

Burnie Burns had voiced over gameplay videos on drunkgamers.com before creating Red vs. Blue with Hullum, Ramsey, Sorola, and Saldaña.
Red vs. Blue series
Series or season Start date End date Episode numbers
The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 1 02003-04-01 April 1, 2003 02003-09-28 September 28, 2003 1–19
The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 2 02004-01-03 January 3, 2004 02004-06-11 June 11, 2004 20–38
The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 3 02004-10-12 October 12, 2004 02005-05-18 May 18, 2005 39–57
The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 4 02005-08-29 August 29, 2005 02006-04-01 April 1, 2006 58–77
Out of Mind 02006-06-16 June 16, 2006 02006-09-04 September 4, 2006 1–5
The Blood Gulch Chronicles season 5 02006-10-02 October 2, 2006 02007-06-28 June 28, 2007 78–100
Recovery One 02007-10-28 October 28, 2007 02007-12-07 December 7, 2007 1–4
Reconstruction 02008-04-05 April 5, 2008 02008-10-30 October 30, 2008 1–19
Relocated 02009-02-09 February 9, 2009 02009-03-09 March 9, 2009 1–4
Recreation 02009-06-15 June 15, 2009 02009-10-26 October 26, 2009 1–19
Revelation 02010-04-01 April 1, 2010 02010-09-13 September 13, 2010 1–20

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, an automobile in the game, looks like a puma. This discussion, re-created in episode 2, was "the spark for the whole series".[14] Seeing potential for a full story, Burns created a trailer for Red vs. Blue, but it was largely ignored, and, for unrelated reasons, drunkgamers soon closed. Four months later, Computer Gaming World 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 first episode proper was released on April 1, 2003.[15]

Rooster Teeth was initially unaware of the broader machinima movement. In 2004, Co-producer Matt Hullum stated in an interview with GameSpy, "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."[16]

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's song "Break Stuff". However, as work continued, the focus shifted to situation comedy rather than the heavy action initially implied.[17] Although the series parodies video games, Ramsey noted, "We try not to make it too much of an inside joke. And I think we use more bureaucracy and military humor than anything else, which everybody working in an office can identify with."[18] Rooster Teeth has stated that Red vs. Blue was influenced by Homestar Runner,[19] Penny Arcade,[2] and possibly Mystery Science Theater 3000.[18]

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 episode 8, however, they realized that the series had fleshed out more than expected; they had covered only about one third of their original list.[20] Later in season 1, 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,[21] 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-shirts.

On June 16, 2006, Burns announced a five-part mini-series, Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, which chronicles the adventures of the mercenary Tex after her disappearance in season 4. The mini-series premiered exclusively on the Xbox Live Marketplace,[22] but Rooster Teeth later made it available on their official site.[23]

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,[24] the group's first Halo 3 series. Several voice actors returned in Reconstruction,[25] which ran from April 5 to October 30, 2008. Rooster Teeth announced plans for new Red vs. Blue series, each separated by a few weeks' break. The first mini-series, Relocated, ran from February 9 to March 9, 2009. A second series, Recreation, began on June 15, 2009 and ended on October 26, 2009.

During a Late Nite Jenga Jam podcast, Burnie Burns officially confirmed that the title of the eighth Red vs. Blue series was "Red vs. Blue: Resolution"[26]. The title was later changed to "Revelation".[27] The series started on April 1, 2010. The first four episodes were previewed at PAX East in March. [28]

On April 1st, 2010, the premiere of Revelation, so many people visited the site that not only did their own site crash but also crashed Blip.tv's (which they host non-sponsor videos on) as well.[29]

Production

A Red vs. Blue scene filmed using Halo 2

The writing process for the series has changed over time. Early in season 1, Burns wrote the episode scripts from week to week, with minimal planning in advance;[2] major plot events were conceived shortly before they were filmed.[30] For the second season, Matt Hullum became a main writer.[31] A rough plot outline is now written before a season begins, although the actual content of an individual episode is still decided on a more short-term basis.[32] Because Red vs. Blue is loosely based on the Halo universe, Rooster Teeth encountered some difficulties when trying to synchronize events in the series with the release of Halo 2.[33]

Except for a few scenes created with the Marathon Trilogy and the PC version of Halo, Red vs. Blue is mostly filmed with interconnected Xbox consoles. As the series title suggests, the videos are largely set in the Halo map Blood Gulch and its Halo 2 counterpart, Coagulation. However, some episodes have been filmed on other maps, including Sidewinder and Hang 'Em High from Halo and Zanzibar and Waterworks from Halo 2. One special video used the public Beta of Halo 3 as a special introduction video. Within a multiplayer game session of any of the games used for filming, 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 episode's dialogue, which is recorded ahead of time.[34]

The "cameraman" is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer. To work around in-game limitations, bugs and post-production techniques are exploited to achieve desired visual effects. In particular, Adobe Premiere Pro is used to edit the audio and video together, impose letterboxing to hide the camera player's head-up display, add the titles and fade-to-black screens, and create some visual effects that cannot be accomplished in-game.[35]

Trocadero provides the music for Red vs. Blue, which did not feature any originally. According to a journal entry on Rooster Teeth's official site, Nico Audy-Rowland, Trocadero's bandleader, was introduced to the series and enjoyed it enough to submit a song about it. Burns liked the piece and requested more;[36] he stated in the season 1 DVD audio commentary tracks that the music added a "whole new element to the series".[37] To create other sound effects, Burns used Foley artistry, in some cases to replace cinematically awkward counterparts from the game engine.[38]

Reception

Red vs. Blue attracted interest immediately; the first episode had 20,000 downloads within a day.[39] Shortly after episode 2, Bungie Studios 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;[40] one staff member called the production "kind of brilliant".[41] A deal was arranged to ensure that the series could continue to use Bungie's game properties[1] without license fees.[41] Red vs. Blue continued to attract more attention, and, by April 2004, Kevin J. Delaney of The Wall Street Journal estimated that weekly viewership was between 650,000 and 1,000,000.[1] In a 2006 interview, Strange Company founder Hugh Hancock called the series probably "the most successful machinima productions [sic]" and estimated that it was generating almost US$200,000 annually.[42] Red vs. Blue content was also included with a premium "Legendary" edition of Halo 3.[43]

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.[44] Two years later, at the 2005 festival, the third season won an award for Best Independent Machinima and was nominated for five others.[45] At the 2006 Machinima Festival, the series was nominated for awards in voice acting and writing, but won neither.[46]

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".[21] 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."[47] Leggat described the series as "[p]art locker-room humor, part Beckett-like absurdist tragicomedy, part wicked vivisection of game culture and sci-fi action films and games".[48] Ed Halter of The Village Voice dismissed the humor as shallow and described the first season as "Clerks-meets-Star Wars".[49] Leggat defended the humor, arguing, "The literary analog is absurdist drama."[1]

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."[47] 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".[11] 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".[50] 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".[50]

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.[51] Barenaked Ladies has also commissioned videos for their concerts.[1] Other videos have been specifically created for gaming magazines, including Electronic Gaming Monthly and Computer Gaming World; gaming conventions, including E3 and the Penny Arcade Expo; and the Sundance Film Festival.

Red vs. Blue has also received praise from soldiers stationed in the Middle East. An August 2005 blog entry by Kimi Matsuzaki of 1UP.com displays photographs of soldiers holding various weapons, as well as copies of the first and second season Red vs. Blue DVDs.[52] Geoff Ramsey later stated in an interview, "We get a lot of merchandise and DVDs out to Iraq and get a lot of great e-mails back."[18]

The notability and impact of Red vs. Blue extends to video games outside the Halo series. The developers of the Xbox 360 video game Gears of War, 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”.[53] 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.

Impact on machinima

Red vs. Blue is widely credited with attracting public attention to machinima. Although examples had existed since the 1990s, Clive Thompson credited Red vs. Blue as "the first to break out of the underground".[54] Tavares, Gil, and Roque called it machinima's "first big success",[55] and Paul Marino noted that "the series proved so popular that it not only transcended the typical gamer, it also claimed fans outside the gaming world".[56] In 2005, Thompson wrote that "Microsoft has been so strangely solicitous that when it was developing the sequel to Halo last year, 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".[41] The series has inspired other machinima productions, including The Codex.[57]

In machinima, Red vs. Blue has been mentioned as the most successful example of the trend toward serial distribution. According to Hugh Hancock, 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."[58]

Distribution

Red vs. Blue video resolutions
Public Sponsor DVD
Seasons 1–4
320×240
or
360×240		 640×480
or
720×480		 640×480
Out of Mind and after
320×180 640×360 720×480

Videos are typically available in QuickTime (QT) and Windows Media Video (WMV) formats. All released episodes of the latest season are freely available from the official site. A few episodes from the previous seasons are available from a rolling archive; each week, the videos are rotated to the next set. This setup is intended to help to control bandwidth costs;[59] as of September 2005, the official Rooster Teeth website was serving 400 terabytes of data monthly.[60] However, nearly all freely released episodes of Red vs. Blue are also available from websites such as Machinima.com, Archive.org, FilePlanet, and Google Video. From the Xbox Live Marketplace, Out of Mind is available as a free download, and some Red vs. Blue episodes can be purchased for 80 Microsoft Points each.[61] Episodes are also available to be streamed via Halo Waypoint.

Members of the official website can gain sponsor status for a fee of US$10 every six months. Sponsors can access videos a few days before the general public release, download higher-resolution versions of the episodes, and access special content released only to sponsors. For example, during season 5, Rooster Teeth began to release directors' commentary to sponsors for download. Additionally, while the public archive is limited to rotating sets of videos, sponsors can access content from previous seasons at any time.[62]

Episodes are released in different resolutions; higher resolutions are reserved for sponsors. Beginning with the Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind mini-series, Rooster Teeth began to film and edit video in 720p high-definition,[63] and to release episodes in widescreen format, instead of hiding the game HUD through the letterboxing seen in full-screen releases. On the January 8, 2007, release of episode 87, Matt Hullum announced that videos would be viewable in Macromedia Flash format. 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.[64] In a site journal entry, Burns clarified that downloadable versions would continue to be released, but after their Flash counterparts.

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 of the seven completed seasons are sold through Rooster Teeth's official website, as well as at most EB Games, GameStop and Hot Topic stores in the United States.[65] For the DVDs, the episodes of the main storyline are edited together to play continuously as a full-length film. Because the episodes as individually released often contain dialogue that continues into or past the fade to black at the end of the video, Rooster Teeth either removes that dialogue entirely or films extra footage to replace the original fade to black.[66] 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 seasons 1 - 4 completely reshot, featuring a proper 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the highly letterboxed look of the original episodes, and a much higher resolution.

A third version of the season is further edited for time for showing at the Lincoln Center and at other film festivals. 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.[67] Burns stated in a website news post that the 135-minute season 3 DVD version had to be shortened to "a watchable-in-a-theater runtime of 100 minutes".[68]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Delaney 2004
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Smith 2006
  3. ↑ O'Malley is voiced by the actor responsible for whichever character he is possessing at the time.
  4. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003
  5. ↑ Burns, et al. 2004
  6. ↑ Burns, et al. 2005
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Burns, et al. 2006
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Burns, et al. 2007
  9. ↑ Six alternate endings were released on the season 5 DVD; two were available on the website since the release of episode 100
  10. ↑ Red vs. Blue: Recovery One Part One commentary.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Jandoc 2004
  12. ↑ Burns, et al. 2005, Character profiles, Sarge.
  13. ↑ Burns, et al. 2005, character profiles, Tex
  14. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 2
  15. ↑ Rooster Teeth Productions n.d. a; Konow 2005, 2
  16. ↑ Kosak 2004
  17. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, introduction
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Konow 2005, 4
  19. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 16
  20. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 4
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Waters 2003
  22. ↑ Burns 2006a
  23. ↑ Burns 2006b
  24. ↑ Burns 2008
  25. ↑ http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/?id=2
  26. ↑ http://www.jengajam.net/2009/10/burnie-vs-lfto.html
  27. ↑ http://roosterteeth.com/viewEntry.php?id=1988
  28. ↑ http://redvsblue.com/viewEntry.php?id=1888
  29. ↑ http://redvsblue.com/blog/viewEntry.php?id=2546770
  30. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 8
  31. ↑ Burns, et al. 2004, audio commentary
  32. ↑ Konow & 2005 3
  33. ↑ Burns, et al. 2005, audio commentary, episode 39
  34. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, Audio Commentary; Delaney.
  35. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary; Moltenbrey 2005
  36. ↑ Audy-Rowland 2005
  37. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 10
  38. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 11
  39. ↑ Thompson 2005, 1
  40. ↑ Konow 2005, 2
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 Thompson 2005, 3
  42. ↑ MacGregor 2006
  43. ↑ Gameworld Network staff 2006
  44. ↑ Machinima.com staff 2003
  45. ↑ Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences 2005; Machinima.com staff 2005
  46. ↑ Choi 2006
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Prince 2005
  48. ↑ Leggat 2006
  49. ↑ Halter 2003
  50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 Qualls 2006
  51. ↑ Bungie staff 2005; Delaney 2004
  52. ↑ Matsuzaki.
  53. ↑ Hsu 2008, 106
  54. ↑ Thompson 2005, 2
  55. ↑ Tavares, Gil & Roque 2005, 4
  56. ↑ Marino 2004, 19
  57. ↑ Whitley 2006
  58. ↑ Hancock 2004
  59. ↑ Rooster Teeth Productions n.d. b; Rooster Teeth Productions n.d. d
  60. ↑ Totilo.
  61. ↑ Surette 2007
  62. ↑ Rooster Teeth Productions n.d. c
  63. ↑ Sorola 2006
  64. ↑ Hullum 2007
  65. ↑ Rooster Teeth Productions n.d. e
  66. ↑ Burns, et al. 2003, audio commentary, episode 18.
  67. ↑ Marks 2005
  68. ↑ Burns 2005

References

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