Red vs Blue

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Otheruses4 Template:Infobox machinima Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, sometimes abbreviated as RvB, is a science fiction comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions. The series is produced primarily by using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from computer and video games to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the multiplayer modes of Bungie Studios' first-person shooter (FPS) video games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 on the Microsoft Xbox video game console. Chronicling the story of two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon, the series is an absurdist parody of FPS games, military life, and other science fiction films.

Red vs Blue emerged from Burnie Burns's voiceover-enhaced gamplay videos of Halo: Combat Evoved. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly achieved significant popularity following its 1 April 2003 online premiere, and, as a result, Rooster Teeth decided to extend the series, whose fourth season ended on 1 April 2006.

Both within the machinima movement and among film critics, Red vs Blue has been generally well-received. Praised for its originality, the series has won four awards from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, and 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, a former director of communications for Lincoln Center's film society, has called Red vs Blue "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett".<ref name="Delaney">{{cite web |last=Delaney |first=Kevin J. |year=2004-04-09 |url=http://interactive.wsj.com/dividends/retrieve.cgi?id=/text/wsjie/data/SB108145721789778243.djm&d2hconverter=display-d2h&template=dividends |title=When Art Imitates Videogames, You Have "Red vs. Blue": Mr. Burns Makes Little Movies Internet Fans Clamor For; Shades of Samuel Beckett |work=The Wall Street Journal |accessdate=2006-01-08}} </ref> Although episodes continue to be released online, the first three seasons are also available on DVD, making Red vs Blue one of the first commercially released and successful machinima products.

Contents

[edit]

Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Red vs Blue tells the story of the Red Team and the Blue Team, two groups of soldiers belonging to two opposing armies, who occupy two small bases in a box canyon known as Template:Halomap. Each team's base seems only to exist in response to the other team's base. While both teams generally dislike the other and have standing orders to defeat them and capture their flag, neither team's soldiers are particularly motivated to fight each other. Teammates have a wide array of eccentric personalities and often create more problems for each other than for their enemies.

Although the animation is done primarily with the Halo and Halo 2 games, Red vs Blue has little connection with the Halo fictional universe. The only reference in the main series is a brief, throw-away line in the first episode, in which Grif mentions that there are no aliens to fight because Master Chief has destroyed the Covenant armada. No other references to the Halo storyline have been made in the regular episodes, though Master Chief was again briefly mentioned as a showboating member of the Army in a video made for E3 2003. A separate reference to the Halo universe appears in the trailer, where it is told that, between the events of Halo and Halo 2, there was "a brief but violent period of civil war", in allusion to the events of the series proper. But the Blue Team's failure to recognize the alien that joined the cast in Template:Rvbep as a Covenant Elite suggests that the creators of the show either plan on presenting a parallel universe to that of Halo, or that they simply ignore the events of the games.

Rooster Teeth also periodically releases self-referential public service announcements (PSAs) and holiday-themed videos which are generally not connected to the main storyline. However, the members of both teams still act in-character.

Image:RVB group shot.jpg

[edit]

Seasons

The seasons of Red vs Blue premiered on the following dates:

[edit]

Season 1

Template:Main The delicate balance of indifference in Blood Gulch is disrupted by the introduction of new players to the "conflict". Template:Rvbchar enters the fray on the Template:Rvbchar and manages to capture the Blue flag on his first day, after being sent on a fool's errand by Template:Rvbchar and Template:Rvbchar. Meanwhile, a rookie named Template:Rvbchar arrives for the Blue Team alongside a battle tank named Template:Rvbchar, and they manage to accidentally kill the Template:Rvbchar self-appointed leader, Template:Rvbchar. At the request of Template:Rvbchar and Caboose, Blue Command hires a mercenary named Template:Rvbchar to help. Church briefly returns as a ghost to warn his teammates about Tex, who soon arrives and attacks the Reds. After severely injuring Donut, Tex succeeds in returning the Blue flag, but is captured by Template:Rvbchar. Church again appears to the Blues to explain that Tex is actually his former girlfriend, whose mind is partially under the control of a psychotic artificial intelligence (AI). Church organizes a rescue mission that succeeds after some difficulties. In an attempt to keep Tex stationed in Blood Gulch so that he can attempt to remove the AI from her head, Church possesses the Red Team's robot, Template:Rvbchar, to warn them of Tex's pending attack. He fails and, much to his horror, she is killed in action by Donut in revenge for her previous attack. Church runs to her side, stealing Lopez's body in the process.

[edit]

Season 2

Template:Main Three months later, a medic named Template:Rvbchar<ref name="Cast"> {{cite web |url=http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/?id=2 |title=Red Vs Blue Cast |work=Red Vs Blue |publisher=Rooster Teeth Productions |accessdate=2006-04-04}}</ref> (soon nicknamed "Doc") — on loan to both armies, due to low resources — arrives in the canyon and checks on the Blue Team, just before the Reds attack. The Reds take Doc as a hostage, but soon tire of his personality and ditch him in the middle of the canyon. Church is still trying to get used to his new, stolen robot body, of which he eventually loses control. Tex returns as a ghost and informs the Blues that her evil, megalomaniacal AI, Template:Rvbchar, had jumped to Caboose right before her death, thereby explaining his recent aggressive behavior. Jumping inside Caboose's mind, Church and Tex try to eliminate O'Malley, but the AI escapes and possesses Doc. Later, Donut is captured by the Blues during a reconnaissance mission and Sarge is forced to build two new robot bodies in exchange for his return. Meanwhile, Sheila and Lopez form their own robot army, and come to the exchange in order to conquer the Blues. This culminates in a Mexican standoff, during which Tucker discovers that both teams are apparently secretly controlled by the same Command, as both teams have the same contact, a man named Template:Rvbchar. O'Malley suddenly appears, kidnaps Lopez, and escapes with him through a teleporter. The Red and Blue Teams call a truce and form two-man teams to pursue O'Malley. However, the teleporter malfunctions, and the teams become separated and scattered across various locations outside Blood Gulch.

[edit]

Season 3

Template:Main Sarge and Caboose manage to escape from immortal, respawning, flag-obsessed Red and Blue soldiers ("Template:Rvbchar")<ref name="S3DVDComment">Rooster Teeth Productions (2005). Audio commentary. In Red vs Blue Season Three [DVD]. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions.</ref> in Template:Halomap. O'Malley hires a mercenary named Template:Rvbchar to kill Tucker due to his knowledge of the apparent conspiracy. After Simmons repairs the teleporter, the Red and Blue teams regroup on Template:Halomap and confront O'Malley, only to have a reality-shattering bomb destroy the present and propel everyone except for Church into the future (represented by Halo 2); Church is thrown into the past (represented by Marathon Infinity and Marathon 2). The Reds and Blues who find themselves in the future soon battle O'Malley at his new fortress, only to end up trapped inside with an active time bomb (later revealed to speak in a foul-mouthed manner and respond to the name Template:Rvbchar). In the distant past, Church learns from Template:Rvbchar, a computer, of a prophecy that in the future, a blue being known as Template:Rvbchar will use The Great Weapon to bring The Great Doom to billions of people. Believing that the prophecy refers to Caboose, Church travels forward in time to Blood Gulch, in the recent past. He then attempts to prevent the problems that the teams had encountered in the previous two seasons, and therefore prevent the events that lead up to The Great Doom. However, in a causality loop, Church realizes that it is in fact his interference that causes most or all of these problems in Blood Gulch in the first place. Eventually giving up on trying to change the past, he travels to Sidewinder and rejoins the main group as the explosion occurs, so that he can be propelled into the future with everyone else. He arrives just in time to ask Gary, who still remains in the fortress, to stop Andy from destructing. Shortly after, O'Malley lays siege to his captured fortress with an army of robots, only to have them obliterated by an unknown being, just before he himself is seemingly killed by the same being. Unbeknownst to the Blues, the Reds leave mid-battle in search of a mysterious distress call. They arrive back at Blood Gulch, much to Grif's dismay. The season ends on a cliffhanger as a creature is seen creeping up on an unsuspecting Church.

[edit]

Season 4

Template:Main As the Red Team re-explores Blood Gulch, Simmons' insistence that Sheila still roams the canyon leads to his exile from the group. Painting himself mostly blue and taking command of the empty Blue Base and Sheila, he takes Grif hostage, later confessing to him that he believes that Sheila might be hiding something. Back at the fortress, the Blue Team attempts to confront the new Template:Rvbchar, only to experience a series of humiliating defeats until Caboose manages to befriend him. With Andy acting as a translator, the Alien reveals that he has been on a sacred quest to save his people, and has come to the fortress to retrieve The Great Weapon (an energy sword), which only Tucker can now activate, since he accidentally discovered it first. Threatening to kill everyone otherwise, the Alien forces Tucker, Andy, and Caboose to partake of his quest, with Tex trailing and then joining them. Arriving at their final destination, the team finds a temple occupied by the Grunts from Battle Creek. As Tex defeats them, Tucker uses the sword to open a gate to a flying ship, of which the Alien quickly takes command. Wyoming suddenly re-appears, however, and shoots the ship down before fleeing with Tex in pursuit.

Meanwhile, Church returns to the Blue Base in Blood Gulch and encounters the blue Simmons, whom he pretends not to recognize, and comes into contact with a distant descendant of Vic, who scoffs at Church's mention of Blue Command. Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to the gulch, and inform Church of the events at the temple. Simmons returns to the Red Base, and attempts to relay information learned from Vic Jr about the war. At the Blue Base, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church is forced to call Doc for help. On his arrival, O'Malley negotiates a deal to exchange Doc's aid for something to be named later. The Reds find Lopez, who had returned to the canyon with O'Malley, and discover that important instructions Red Command has planted inside his head can only be played in Spanish. While Church is confirming Doc's diagnosis that Tucker is pregnant, Sarge distracts Caboose and steals Andy to translate the plans. Tucker regains alertness and complains of stomach pains. Church, upon hearing of Andy’s disappearance, becomes enraged at the whole situation. As he confronts the Reds with Sheila, Sarge radios Command for reinforcements, despite having heard the translation of the uninformative instructions. Andy reveals that the Alien had the ability to impregnate others with parasitic embryos. Via radio, Caboose informs Church that Tucker has given birth (a higher-pitched alien language is heard off-screen) and that O'Malley had left Doc after Sarge had contacted Command. As Church runs back to the Blue Base, a ship crashes into the gulch, right on top of Donut.

[edit]

Characters

Image:RvB Reds.JPG Template:Main Red vs Blue features a cast of diverse characters, whose personalities are skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. These quirks and the ways that they interact and conflict with each other drive much of the plot and humor. The series has revolved around eight main characters, four on each team. In addition, several other characters, both affiliated and unaffiliated, human and non-human, have played significant roles at various points in the story.

[edit]

Main characters

Template:Main Sarge is the staff sergeant<ref name="S3DVDProfiles">Rooster Teeth Productions (2005). Character profiles. In Red vs Blue Season Three [DVD]. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions.</ref> and leader of the Blood Gulch Red Team. A military man with a Southern American accent, he is the only Blood Gulch soldier on either team consistently serious about the Red versus Blue civil war. His psychopathic battle plans often entail unnecessary casualties in his own men. In particular, a common planned outcome is the death of Grif, who is habitually lazy, irresponsible, and uninsightful. These characteristics earn him the disrespect and ridicule of both Sarge and Simmons, Sarge's sycophantic, insecure right-hand man. Despite this, Simmons and Grif are often seen together, either chatting or bickering. Donut, the eager rookie who joins the team in episode 3, tends to annoy his teammates with his naïveté, garrulousness, and cheerfulness and becomes more effeminate and childish as the series progresses.

Image:RvB Blues.JPG On the other side of the canyon, Church is the cynical de facto leader of the Blue Team. Often shouldering the responsibility of actually solving the various crises that the Blood Gulch teams encounter, he often ends up taking their brunt, leaving him increasingly disillusioned and antisocial. His serious, reasoned approach conflicts with the personalities of Tucker and Caboose. The former is snide, averse to work and battle, and obsessed with women; the latter, although physically strong, is unable to grasp simple concepts and exhibits varying degrees of stupidity and insanity throughout the series. Rounding out the Blue Team is Tex, Church's former girlfriend who is hired by Blue Command to join the team as a mercenary in episode 10. Able to eliminate entire teams of soldiers by herself, she is described as "the most lethal soldier in Blood Gulch".<ref name="S3DVDProfiles" />

[edit]

Significant supporting characters

Template:Endspoiler

[edit]

Background

Red vs Blue grew out of Burnie Burns's voiceover-enhanced gameplay videos that he created for a site 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, a vehicle in the game, actually looked more like a cat. This discussion, re-created in Template:Rvbep, turned out to be "the spark for the whole series".<ref name="S1DVDComment">Rooster Teeth Productions (2003). Audio commentary. In Red vs Blue Season One [DVD]. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions.</ref> With the idea that a full story could be developed, Burns created a Template:Rvbep, 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 drunkgamers video in a CD that they were going to distribute 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. As a result, they resurrected the Red vs Blue project, re-releasing the trailer to coincide with the Computer Gaming World issue. The Template:Rvbep was released on April 1 2003.<ref name="RvBinfo"> {{cite web |url=http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/ |title=The History of Red Vs Blue |work=Red Vs Blue |publisher=Rooster Teeth Productions |accessdate=2006-01-08}}</ref>, <ref name="Konow"> {{cite web |last=Konow |first=David |year=2005-09-24 |url=http://www.twitchguru.com/2005/09/24/the_cult_of_red_vs/ |title=The Cult of Red vs Blue |work=TwitchGuru |publisher=Tom's Guide Publishing |accessdate=2006-02-28}}</ref>

Rooster Teeth was initally unaware of the machinima movement. Matt Hullum stated in an interview with GameSpy in 2004, "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."<ref name="GameSpy"> {{cite web |last=Kosak |first=Dave |year=2004-11-16 |url=http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-sims-2/566692p3.html |title=GameSpy Examines the Teeth of the Rooster |work=GameSpy |publisher=IGN Entertainment, Inc. |accessdate=2006-02-22}}</ref>

The nature of the series was different from Burns's initial expectation. A partial character introduction released in between the original trailer and the first episode featured extensive action and violence and was set to Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff". However, the crew realized as the project developed that Red vs Blue was going to focus more on situational comedy rather than on the heavy action initially implied.<ref name="S1DVDComment" /> Indeed, 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."<ref name="Konow" /> Rooster Teeth noted that Red vs Blue has a wide variety of influences,<ref name="Oliver"> {{cite web |last=Oliver |first=Caitlin |year=January 2005 |url=http://www.atanime.com/v7i1/09_redvsblue.html |title=Red vs. Blue Q&A |work=@anime! Ionfuse |publisher=Animero Studios |accessdate=2006-03-01}}</ref> including Homestar Runner<ref name="S1DVDComment" /> and possibly Mystery Science Theater 3000.<ref name="Konow" />

Rooster Teeth also initially envisioned the project to be short, but the series grew beyond their expectations. Burns and Ramsey noted that they had preconceived a list of jokes for Red vs Blue, and, at the time of inception, had expected the series to run 6 to 8 episodes. By Template:Rvbep, however, they realized that the series had fleshed out more than expected, and, as a result, they had only gotten through about a third of their list.<ref name="S1DVDComment" /> Another early series length cited by Burns in the middle of Template:Rvbep was 22 episodes, but, driven by the series' popularity, he later realized that there was potentially more story than could be covered in that length,<ref name="Waters"> {{cite web |last=Waters |first=Darren |year=2003-08-07 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3107599.stm |title=Animators turn to video games |work=BBC News Online |publisher=BBC |accessdate=2006-01-09}}</ref> and was able to conceive an extension of the season 1 plot. Just before the debut of season 4, Ramsey's only indication of final series length was that Rooster Teeth planned "to make as many episodes as they can".<ref name="Konow" />

[edit]

Production

Template:Main Image:RvB ep58 Sarge Donut.jpg 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; major plot events were conceived shortly before they were filmed.<ref name="S1DVDComment" /> In the second season, Matt Hullum also became a main writer.<ref name="S2DVDComment">Rooster Teeth Productions (2004). Audio commentary. In Red vs Blue Season Two [DVD]. Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions.</ref> 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.<ref name="Konow" /> 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.<ref name="S3DVDComment" />

Aside from a few scenes created using Marathon Infinity, Marathon 2, and the PC version of Halo, the series is mostly filmed using a number of interconnected Xbox consoles. As the series title suggests, the videos are largely set within the Halo map Blood Gulch (and its Halo 2 counterpart, Template:Halo2map). However, some episodes have been filmed on other maps, including Template:Halo2map from Halo 2. Within a multiplayer 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 episode's dialogue, which is recorded ahead of time.<ref name="S1DVDComment" />, <ref name="Delaney" />

The "camera" is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer. As the recording occurs within the game, a few different bugs and post-production techniques have been exploited in order to achieve desired visual effects. In particular, Adobe Premiere Pro is used to edit the audio and video together, create letterboxing to hide the camera player's head-up display, add the title and fade-to-black screens, and create some special visual effects that cannot be accomplished in-game.<ref name="S1DVDComment" />, <ref name="Moltenbrey"> {{cite web |last=Moltenbrey |first=Karen |year=November 2005 |url=http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARTCL&ARTICLE_ID=240696&VERSION_NUM=2&p=18 |title=Out of Character |work=Computer Graphics World |publisher=PennWell Corporation |accessdate=2006-03-01}}</ref>

[edit]

Reception

Red vs Blue attracted interest immediately; the first episode had 20,000 downloads within a day.<ref name="Thompson"> {{cite web |last=Thompson |first=Clive |year=2005-08-07 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/magazine/07MACHINI.html?ex=1281067200&en=a0b469a4346f3cbb&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss |title=The Xbox Auteurs |work=The New York Times |accessdate=2006-01-08}}</ref> Shortly after episode 2, Bungie Studios contacted Rooster Teeth. The crew had feared that any contact from Bungie would be to force an end to the project, but Bungie enjoyed the videos and was supportive;<ref name="Konow" /> a deal was eventually struck to ensure that the series could continue legally,<ref name="Delaney" /> without license fees<ref name="Thompson" /> and without creative guidelines from Microsoft, Bungie's parent company, except for specifically commissioned videos.<ref name="Oliver" /> From there, Red vs Blue continued to attract more attention, and, by April 2004, viewership was estimated at about one million.<ref name="Delaney" />

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.<ref name="2003Machinima"> {{cite web |url=http://www.machinima.com/article.php?article=379 |title=Machinima Awards 2003 Results |work=Machinima.com |publisher=Machinima, Inc |accessdate=2006-02-12}}</ref> Two years later, at the 2005 festival, the series' Template:Rvbep won an award for Best Independent Machinima and was nominated for five others.<ref name="2005Machinima"> {{cite web |url=http://festival.machinima.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=5 |title=2005 Award Nominations and Selections |work=2005 Machinima Film Festival |accessdate=2006-01-09}}</ref>, <ref name="2005MachinimaWin"> {{cite web |url=http://festival.machinima.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14 |title=Mackie Winners Announced! |work=2005 Machinima Film Festival |accessdate=2006-01-09}}.</ref>

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".<ref name="Waters" /> 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."<ref name="Prince"> {{cite web |last=Prince |first=Charlie |year=2005-08-23 |url=http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/?p=560 |title=Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles is Hysterically Funny (But Skip the 3rd Season) |work=Cinema Strikes Back |accessdate=2006-01-09}}</ref> However, Ed Halter of The Village Voice dismissed the humor as shallow, describing the first season as "Clerks-meets-Star Wars".<ref name="Halter"> {{cite web |last=Halter |first=Ed |year=2003-12-31 |url=http://radio.villagevoice.com/film/0353,halter,49912,20.html |title=Tracking Shot: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. |work=The Village Voice |publisher=Village Voice Media, Inc |accessdate=2006-01-09}}</ref> Graham Leggat, then director of communications of Lincoln Center's film society, indirectly countered this criticism by arguing, "The literary analog is absurdist drama."<ref name="Delaney" />

Another common criticism of Red vs Blue was that its season 3 plot was too far-fetched and out-of-character for the series. 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."<ref name="Prince" /> 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."<ref name="Jandoc"> {{cite web |last=Jandoc |first=Wilma |year=2004-12-05 |url=http://starbulletin.com/2004/12/05/features/story4.html |title="Red vs. Blue" mines game for comedy gold |work=Honolulu Star-Bulletin |accessdate=2006-01-09}}</ref> Nevertheless, both critics expressed optimism that the series would improve from this low point.

Outside the machinima and film community, Red vs Blue has also attracted positive attention. Rooster Teeth Productions has been asked to create 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.<ref name="Bungie"> {{cite web |url=http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=rvbinterview |title=Red vs. Blue : The Interview Strikes Back |work=Bungie.net |publisher=Microsoft Corporation |accessdate=2006-01-08}}</ref>, <ref name="Delaney" /> Additionally, the Barenaked Ladies also commissioned videos for their concerts.<ref name="Delaney" /> 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. In August 2005, Michael Burns wrote, "Whenever someone tells me that they are in the military and they watch Red vs Blue, I half-expect to be put in a choke hold for having such goofy characters playing soldiers. Instead, I get endless tales about how Sarge reminds them of their CO or how the guy in their platoon that aims the 20-megaton artillery 'is just like Caboose'."<ref name="Normandy">{{cite web |last=Burns |first=Michael |year=2005-08-05 |url=http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/viewEntry.php?id=133 |title=We're Huge In Normandy |work=Red vs Blue |publisher=Rooster Teeth Productions |accessdate=2006-03-02}}</ref> An August 2005 blog entry by Kimi Matsuzaki displays photographs of soldiers holding various weapons, as well as copies of the first and second season Red vs Blue DVDs.<ref name="Matsuzaki"> {{cite web |last=Matsuzaki |first=Kimi |year=2005-08-04 |url=http://kimi.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=5373433&publicUserId=5546002 |title=Big booms and big guns |work=Kimi Matsuzaki's 1UP Blog |publisher=Ziff Davis Media Inc |accessdate=2006-03-02}}</ref> 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."<ref name="Konow" />

[edit]

Impact on the machinima movement

Red vs Blue is credited with attracting public attention to the art form of machinima, which existed as a mostly underground form of filmmaking, with limited notice (and only within the computer and video games industry), up until Red vs Blue's release. It also allowed for the machinima medium to expand without fear of legal persecution. The aforementioned agreement with Microsoft allowing Rooster Teeth to profit from the series without fear of copyright infringement, license fees, or external creative control has helped to set the standard for video game publishers to allow machinima use of their properties, and in some cases to create machinima for promotional use.<ref name="Delaney" />, <ref name="Thompson" />

In the machinima industry, the series is credited with popularizing the idea of shorter, multiple episodes, and in turn, the long-running serial. This allows gradual improvement as a result of viewer feedback, and gives viewers a reason to return for future videos. Previously, most machinima productions were released in lengthier, singular pieces. Following the success of Red vs Blue, more machinima has been released in serial format.<ref name="Hancock"> {{cite web |last=Hancock |first=Hugh |year=2004-11-23 |url=http://www.machinima.com/article.php?article=425 |title=Editorial - Serialise This! |work=Machinima.com |publisher=Machinima, Inc |accessdate=2006-01-01}}</ref>

[edit]

Distribution

Videos are released in QuickTime (QT), DivX, and, starting with episode 26, Windows Media Video (WMV) formats. All released episodes of the season in production are freely available from the official site, in 360-by-240 resolution (except 320-by-240 for WMV). 3-4 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; as of September 2005, the official Rooster Teeth website was serving 400 terabytes of data monthly.<ref name="Totilo"> {{cite web |last=Totilo |first=Stephen |year=2005-09-28 |url=http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/news/story.jhtml?id=1510551 |title=Machinima Pros Make a Living Playing "Halo" — With Their Feet |work=MTV.com |publisher=MTV Networks |accessdate=2006-03-03}}</ref> However, nearly all freely released episodes of Red vs Blue are also available from websites such as Machinima.com, PlanetMirror, Fileplanet, and Google Video.

For a fee of US$10, members of the official website can gain sponsorship status for a period of 6 months. Perhaps the best known of the extra features that a sponsor receives is access to the new videos two or three days before the release to the general public. In addition to the public low-resolution videos, sponsors can also access high-resolution (720-by-480 for QT and DivX, 640-by-480 for WMV) versions of the videos, sponsor-only special videos, and access to the entire video archive at any time, as opposed to having to wait for a chosen video to make its way through the public rolling archive.

In addition to being distributed episodically online, Red vs Blue is one of the first commercially released machinima products — as opposed to a commercial product containing machinima — with each of its three completed seasons having been released on DVD. The DVDs are sold through the Rooster Teeth official website, as well as at some GameStop and Hot Topic stores in the United States.<ref name="RTBuy"> {{cite web |url=http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/info/?id=4 |title=Where to Buy Rooster Teeth Products |work=Red Vs Blue |publisher=Rooster Teeth Productions |accessdate=2006-02-20}}</ref> Each season is released on DVD within two months of that season's final episode. 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 episode, Rooster Teeth either removes that dialogue entirely, or shoots extra video footage to replace the original fade to black.<ref name="S1DVDComment" />

Additionally, 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.<ref name="Marks"> {{cite web |last=Marks |first=Chris |year=2005-07-09 |url=http://www.roostertooths.com/interview.php?interview=bandg |title=Interview - Burnie Burns and Gus Sorola |work=The Unofficial Rooster Teeth Productions Resource Site |accessdate=2006-03-06}}</ref> Burns also noted 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".<ref name="135to100"> {{cite web |last=Burns |first=Michael |year=2005-08-10 |url=http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/viewEntry.php?id=136 |title=It's Official |work=Red Vs Blue |publisher=Rooster Teeth Productions |accessdate=2006-02-20}}</ref>

[edit]

See also

  • Sponsors vs Freeloaders - A parody series created by forum members of the Red vs Blue official site.
  • Fire Team Charlie - Another comedic Halo machinima series.
  • The Codex - Another popular Halo machinima series that focuses on drama rather than comedy.
[edit]

References

<references />

[edit]

External links

Template:Wikiquote

Template:RoosterTeethTemplate:Featured article it:Red Vs Blue

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Red_vs_Blue"