Red vs Blue Season 5 Interview

This interview was done by Frank O'Connor from Bungie.net. He interviews Burnie Burns, creator of Red vs. Blue and voice of Church. Never seen an episode of RvB? You are dead to me. (Seriously, just go to Google Video and search for the episode you want, i.e "Red vs. Blue episode 01. That's the easy, download-free way that I use.)


Red vs. Blue is the king of cliffhangers, any plans to sew one or two of those up in the season debut?

I’d like to say yes, but in reality, the opening few episodes of S5 will just add a few more questions to the mix. We plan on tying up most of the high level questions about the RvB storyline during the course of the entire season. We also have a cool new avenue that will let us add more material into the overall series. We should have more info about that very soon.

Have you guys made any changes to the studio or the equipment that you use to make the series during the off time?


You bet. During production, we can’t really touch the gear because we tend to upgrade our stuff by breaking it first. As I write this, my editing computer is currently running at a robust 640x480 and 16 colors. It’s awesome for playing Marathon, but that’s about it. The capture card we used for Season 4 is getting mothballed because we didn’t like some interlacing issues it had with the online version of the files. The videos look great on television sets, which was the main thing we tested it for when we installed it, but we’re hoping to find an even better solution for the new season.
The biggest upgrade is to our Xboxes. We finally decided to max out the credit card and move to all 360’s. The biggest obvious benefit is the higher resolution of Halo 2, but we’re really, really excited about the wireless controllers. Dealing with the cords got to be kind of a hassle. At the end of every recording session, we had this huge knot that took forever to unbraid. Also, the black controllers made it hard to customize for each character. We had to use these dumb office labels to help us show which character was which. Then we had to use a different sticker to show which monitor and quadrant of the screen they were on. The new white ones look much cooler, show the color customizations much more clearly and the quadrant indicator is built in. The real bonus is no cords, though.

Are there any plans to use a different environment – either Halo 1 or Halo 2 – as major settings?


This will probably be the biggest change in the coming episodes. We plan on using as many maps as possible during Season 5 -- maps from Halo, Halo PC and Halo2. We’re also going to continue using multiple maps to illustrate one location in the story. We have one set that we’re trying to “build” by using as many as five different levels in the game. Some of the maps, like Midship, are a little harder fit for us, but coming up with a use for them is half the fun.


At the end of the last season, it looked like we might be getting a new cast member. Can you tell us if you have plans to introduce any other new cast members?


We’ll probably have two new cast members right away. After the first few episodes, it’s wide open. I really want to kill Simmons, though. I can’t stand that guy.


One of the coolest parts of Red vs. Blue is the strong community that you guys foster with the site, is there anything in the works for that on the horizon?


The whole internet community scene went from 0 to 60 pretty quickly. I think it might have something to do with Fox buying MySpace for half a billion dollars. Go figure. The end result is that it seems like a new community website is popping up every five minutes. We want to stay ahead of the pack with our site by expanding cool features like the scoring and “mod economy” system while adding new features that appeal to gamers. We are looking at adding milestones for users that unlock features of the site and that allow them to do more things on their profiles that tie into gaming. Like hosting tournaments and grouping with other members of the site. We want to give the users more control of that part of the site. We’ve always wanted to put that software in the hands of the members, our first version was intended to be a self-moderating entity. The users took that in a different direction than we intended, so we’re just going to roll with them.


Are there any events that you guys will be attending in the future that you’d like to tell us about?


The summer is always the busiest con season. We will be attending the big ones like Comic Con in San Diego (July) and PAX, Penny Arcade’s convention (August). The RvB community has a get together every year now in Toronto. It’s called RvBTO and it’s more about the community site than about the actual show. I know they’ll have screenings of RvB, but they will also be showing more machinima work and some live action pieces made by members from our website. We’ll also be at Akon in Dallas (early June) and the Edinburgh (Scotland) Film Festival later in the summer. We’ll also be in Baltimore and Anaheim as well. You can always check the events page on our site to see if we’re coming close to you. If we are, be sure to come out and kick our ass at Halo. It’s not that hard to do.

I don't know. Makes sense to me.

Snake River

I took these on my trip while horseback riding.

I'm ba-ack!

Hey everybody! Did you miss me? I'll post my travel pictures as soon as I figure it out. (I'm using one of those crappy digital disposable cameras.)

My quest

In my quest to become "Link of the Month" over at Alien CG's blog I've decided to make every few words a link to him. NOTE:This will be my last post before I leave.

I'm leaving on Saturday!

Those of you who got the emails, you know who you are. The rest of you, here's where I'm going. I'll be gone for a week, so don't expect any blog posts. I'll be out in the deep wilderness roughing it with like fourteen other people.

The one that started it all.

Here's another addition to my "Funny Videos" series: the very first episode of Red vs. Blue. I'll post some more of the first season if you guys want.

Risky Business

Funny! Note the RoboSapien cameo and the father on the computer.

My first review ever!

This is from Alien CG, check out his blog. "El Patro, the founder of this blog, has an opinion all his own. His blog is always entertaining, whether he's talking about the goings-on in his life or interesting stuff found on the Internet."

Me, entertaining? Thanks Alien! You rule!

Me: The STAR

I, El Patro, have just been cast in The Sound of Music as this guy, Capt Georg Von Trapp who just happens to be the male lead. It's on June 16th at The Community House in Hinsdale. I'm so talented!

Happy Tortilla Day!

Tara, over at Eclectic Spaghetti, is having Tortilla Day today. In honor of ME!!!

Once again, thx Tara!

Blogger is watching you.

I can't take it anymore. Either I'm switching my outlet, or I'll never post again.
Come on everybody, let's do it Orwell-style.
DOWN WITH BLOGGER!
DOWN WITH BLOGGER!
DOWN WITH BLOGGER!
DOWN WITH BLOGGER!

Real Advertisements

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Great Dames for sale.

Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

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And of course, the church ones:

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Thursday night - Potluck supper. Prayer and medication to follow.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

The rosebud on the alter this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

Tuesday at 4:00 PM there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.

Wednesday the ladies liturgy will meet. Mrs. Johnson will sing "Put me in my little bed" accompanied by the pastor.

Thursday at 5:00 PM there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All ladies wishing to be "Little Mothers" will meet with the Pastor in his study.

This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come foreward and lay an egg on the alter.

The service will close with "Little Drops of Water." One of the ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in.

Next Sunday a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet will come foreward and do so.

The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement Saturday.

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

My pirate name

My pirate name is:

Dread Pirate Rackham

Like the famous Dread Pirate Roberts, you have a keen head for how to make a profit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Make your own name

I stole this from Nicole.
1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME:(first pet and current street)
Chase Madison
2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME:(grandfather/grandmother on your mother’s side, your favorite candy)
Norman Twix
3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite animal, favorite color)
Wolf Green
4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, city where you were born)
John Chicago
5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME:(first 3 letters of your last name- last 3 letters of mother’s maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet’s name)
Pec Ews-Mac
6. JEDI NAME:(middle name spelled backwards, your mom’s maiden name spelled backwards)
Nohj Swerdna
7. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(middle name, street you grew up on)
John Monroe
8. SUPERHERO NAME:(”The”, your favorite color, the automobile you drive)The Blue Lexus

Woman dies after riding Mission: SPACE.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Walt Disney World reopened its “Mission: Space” attraction Thursday, a day after a woman who became ill after leaving the ride died at a hospital.
It was the second death in less than a year related to the Epcot Center ride, which spins riders in a centrifuge that subjects them to twice the normal force of gravity. It is considered so intense it has motion sickness bags and signs warning people with heart, back and neck problems not to board it.
The 49-year-old woman who died Wednesday had reported dizziness and nausea after stepping off the ride on Tuesday, Disney officials said.
Disney told state officials that the woman, who was not identified, may have had high blood pressure and other unspecified health problems.
“Walt Disney World engineers and ride system experts completed a thorough inspection of the attraction overnight and found it to be operating properly,” the theme park said Thursday in announcing the reopening of the ride.
A worker from the state Bureau of Fair Rides Inspection monitored the testing and said the ride didn’t appear “to be acting abnormal in any way,” said Terence McElroy, a spokesman for Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which oversees the bureau.
The $100 million ride, one of Disney World’s most popular, was also closed in June after the death of a 4-year-old boy who passed out while aboard. An autopsy concluded he died of a heart condition that a medical examiner said can cause sudden death in stressful situations.

Sultry Seven

Let's write something together! I'll start off with seven words, and then you guys'll add seven more words, and it will go on and on. It ends Saturday at midnight. Okay? It'll be fun!
My sultry seven words are: It was much worse than last time.

Halo explained SPOILER WARNING!!

The story begins with Captain Jacob Keyes, whose ship, the Pillar of Autumn, just made a blind jump into faster-than-light travel, called Slipspace. They were escaping the bombardment of the human colony Reach by the villains, a religious alien race called the Covenant whose sole goal is to exterminate the human race in a holy vendetta.
The Autumn is now near a gas giant called Threshold and its moon, Basis. They have found a large ring-shaped structure near it. Keyes is conversing with Cortana, a foot tall purple holographic woman who is the ship's AI and has control over all of its functions. Unfortunately, it seems that the Covenant have caught up with the ship. Keyes orders initiation of the Cole Protocol, a safeguard designed to lead the Covenant away from Earth should a human ship become a captive. It involves purging all evidence of Earth and her colonies from the ship's mainframe, and if it is captured the ship automatically self-destructs.
Keyes also orders all hands to get suited for combat in case of boarders. Meanwhile, in the ship's cryo bay, a pair of personnel get orders from Cortana to "unseal the Hushed Casket". That is where the Master Chief, the playable character in the game, lies in cryo-sleep. The last of a failed experiment to create super-soldiers codenamed SPARTANs, the Master Chief was kidnapped by the military at six years old and has undergone brutal training and surgical augmentation giving him heightened strength, intelligence, speed, and bone hardness.
The Chief is awakened while the Covenant are boarding the ship. He goes to the bridge and meets with Captain Keyes, who puts Cortana into his Mark V MJOLNIR armor. The Chief leaves the Autumn on an escape pod while Keyes attempts to land the ship on the ring structure.
The Chief also lands and rescues the surviving Marines via dropship pickup. However, Captain Keyes is captured by the Covenant and is taken prisoner aboard a Covenant cruiser known as The Truth and Reconciliation.
The Chief, along with a strike force of Marines, rescue him. While in captivity, Keyes recalls a group of guards discussing the ring. He heard that it was known as Halo and was presumably a weapon with ultimate power. Keyes tells the Chief to try to find Halo's Control Center before the Covenant, as they might use Halo to wipe out the human race.
Cortana hacks into the Covenant battle-net where she learns the location of The Silent Cartographer, a map room that points the way to the Control Room. The Chief and the Marines find the map room, and make their way to the Control Room.
Meanwhile, Keyes trys to find a Covenant weapons cache that could be useful for the war effort. While at the Control Room, Cortana tells the Chief to stop Keyes from finding the cache without a clear reason. It turns out that Keyes and the Marines accidentally released a race of parasitic life-forms known as the Flood, which reproduce using small infection forms that borrow into your body and tap into your spinal cord, turning you into a Flood form.
Chief finds a video recording proving all of it. He eventually escapes the cache and runs into a small floating blue robot who introduces himself as 343 Guilty Spark, who is the Monitor of Installation 04, presumably Halo. He says that Halo is supposed to completely annihilate the Flood, and, for reasons unknown, calls the Master Chief a Reclaimer. He teleports the Chief to a facility called the Library where he is supposed to find the Index, the key for activating Halo. The Chief fights his way to it and is teleported to the Control Room. Before the Monitor can activate Halo, Cortana, who is still inside Halo's systems, purges the Index form the system and stores it in her memory core. She reveals to the Chief that Halo doesn't kill Flood: it kills their food. That's humans, Covenant, all sentient life. The Monitor lied to him.
Now the Monitor and his Sentinels, floating robots with laser beams, are trying to stop the Chief from stopping the Monitor, who has found a secondary way to activate the ring. Fortunately, the Chief and Cortana do stop the Monitor. Cortana finds out that, once again, Captain Keyes has been captured and is held aboard the Truth and Reconciliation, except this time he is being assimilated into the Flood. Cortana teleports the Chief onto the ship, which is almost completely Flood-infected, where Keyes dies.
However, the Chief is able to remove Keyes' neural implants, allowing him to initiate the Pillar of Autumn's self-destruct sequence, which is halted by the Monitor. Needless to say, the Autumn is also Flood-infected. The Chief goes to the Engineering bay where he manages to re-initiate the self-destruct sequence, allowing him to escape just as Halo, the Flood, and the Covenant armada still on the ring are completely obliterated.
Coming up: Halo 2 explained.

Google in funny languages

Here's Google in a language called Bork, bork, bork! which in my opinion is Google in hopelessly accented English. Also here's Google in Elmer Fudd language, Pig Latin, Yiddish, Klingon, and 13375p34k (Leetspeak)

Keywords people have used to get to my site

Trum4n (from my "If WWII was a real-time strategy game" post)
coca-cola
coke blak
and
norsefire (the totalitarian regime discussed in my "V for Vendetta" post)