They had quick, short-lived fame, that's what. However, Burnie Burns, founder of Rooster Teeth productions is experiencing ongoing success in the world of online video and film production. The steps getting up the hill weren't to easy though.
Burns was going to the University of Texas in the mid 90s as a pre-med student. The internet wasn't a big deal or a mainstream thing back then, but one day he realised that going to school for another 10 years was going to be a drain on him and his pocket.
He decided that Computer Science might be the way to go, because the business model, for computers, was going to take off any second. He was right, but his net success days were still a ways off. While killing some time he found that UT had a TV studio that wasn't being utilized, so he got his feet wet by editing A and b roll footage. keep in mind that this was before digital, non-linear programs were around, so he had to literally cut and paste film together.
Soon, and after eleven months, he and a few friends completeded a feature film that was about 116 minutes. They soon found out that distribution of the film was a huge hurdle. They had minor success with a few underground festivals, but couldn't get people to see the movie.
After the 'funk' of distributon, they eventually gave up on the project, and the friend who helped him moved to L.A. to begin his own work with major productions.
Burnie got a job, and on the side worked on a project with some buddies called drunkgamers. Exactly as it sounds, the model was essentially for them to try and recieve free video games in return for reviews.
On a whim, Burns decided to film a Mac parody PSA about Macs being bad for gaming, as PC is the preferred platform for gaming. Within 24 hours, his friend in L.A. saw the video from a friend and recognized a mutual friend in the film. To burns' surprise the L.A. friend called Burnie and asked what it was.
The light bulb clicked in Burnies head and he decided to switch the motive for drunkgamers. He could see that essentially what had happened was the internet cut out the ditribution efforts and cut the middleman. Now he could present something to people right away as opposed to 'getting picked up' or 'noticed.'
They soon developed a series of Halo parodies that critiqued real world values, issues, and sometimes off the wall stuff or content from the Halo game itself. Within 6 months of the first episode they were at one point six million views each episode.
Bernie had discovered that while he had experienced 'movie hell', he has tasted 'net heaven!' It was much quicker to do so many things with online video.
He discussed a few of his thoughts on why some people succeed and some follow a sort of reverse cliff pattern. His main point for getting noticed was to use your own platform website, as opposed to using something else, such as Twitter, Youtube etc. he says users who do that enjoy immediate success, but then decline after the initial shock or laugh factor wears off.
He thinks his idea is succeeding because he used his own platform that didn't enjoy great and immediate success, and people are still enjoying 'Red vs. Blue' for the first time and keep coming back because it is something unique and separate from a fad on Youtube.
However, he doesn't think Youtube is bad. He uses Youtube in conjunction with his own site, and thinks it's good to utilize Youtube as a hosting tool. Even some of his newer projects get more hits on Youtube than his own site roosterteeth.com
The net is becoming a huge platform for breaking artists and personalities. it is, as Burnie says, a 'media farm.' The lines between TV and the net is obviously blurring. Burnie says in the UK they have spent more on internet fudning than television programming.
When asked about net neutrality, what he thinks about the future of the net, and the possibility of paying for content, he doesn't think everyone will be forced to pay. Instead, we may see sites that host a higher tier of content for paying users, or special offers to those that donate.
The net has allowed for immediate feedback and cut out the middleman of media. It's a world where a teen can make six figures a year just by posting episodes about his day, thoughts, and a slice of his life. The changes aren't coming, they're here.
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