Meet the Producers Behind Indiegogo's Highest-Funded Film
The longest-running science-fiction series in internet video history begins not with a bang but a whimper. Two gun-toting soldiers outfitted in futuristic armor stand guard over a desolate box canyon, defending their military base from the threat of enemy invasion.
“You ever wonder why we’re here?” the crimson soldier asks. “It’s one of life’s great mysteries, isn’t it?” yellow replies. “Why are we here? Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a god watching everything? You know, with a plan for us, and stuff?”
Silence. “What?!” the crimson soldier finally says, incredulous. “I mean, why are we out here? In this canyon? What’s all this stuff about god?” So it goes for another two minutes, eschewing all pretense of traditional sci-fi action in favor of existential farce and metatextual snark. And 12 seasons and 256 episodes later, it’s still going, with no end in sight.
Welcome to the delightfully oddball world of Red vs. Blue, the flagship franchise of Austin-based creative studio Rooster Teeth Productions, and a milestone in the evolution of “machinima” (a portmanteau of “machine” and “cinema”), a genre of animated films created via 3-D computer graphics engines. Since its online premiere in 2003, Red vs. Blue—a foul-mouthed satire of military bureaucracy rendered in the hyper-stylized visual grammar of first-person shooter video games—has emerged as an international cult sensation seemingly impervious to the whims of the mercurial web community, driving billions of online views and inspiring a deluge of licensed merchandise, including DVDs, T-shirts, posters and toys.
“The innovation with wasn’t just about the art form itself—it was
