Burnie Burns - Career

Career

In his final year of university, Burns wanted to make a movie. Joel Heyman and Matt Hullum, who were roommates at the time, agreed to help, with the former agreeing to star and the latter helping write, produce and direct. They shot The Schedule (1997) over a three-month period on 16mm film for $9,000. Burns became frustrated with the difficult distribution process and the film only screened in a few festivals. Soon after, the trio split ways. Heyman and Hullum went to Los Angeles, while Burns accepted a position at a local tech support company.

There, he met his co-workers and future Red vs. Blue collaborators Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola. In June 2002, Burns teamed up with his colleagues to create their first viral video, a Mac Gamer Switch parody.

That moment is probably the single most important moment in the history of this company. Even more so than when we put the first video of Red vs. Blue online. That's when we developed a lot of the early strategies... that's why to this day we still have a website, we still have our own presence on there, which we think is an important part of what we do.

Burns attributes "two vectors that came together, the movie guys and the tech guys," as being a catalyst for their success. Their next project would be Red vs. Blue, which debuted in April 2003. After the first season of Red vs. Blue, Burns, voicing the character of Church, became a celebrity in the machinima community. As the director, writer, and lead actor of the series, he is the driving force behind the series. His series earned three awards at the 2003 Machinima Film Festival – Best Picture, Best Writing, and Best Independent Machinima Film – and was nominated for three others.

The series completed its original five season 100-episode run on June 28, 2007. The series has made more seasons including season six: Reconstruction, season seven: Recreation, season eight: Revelation and season nine. A tenth season premiered Memorial Day 2012.

Burns regularly attends conventions featuring Red vs. Blue and has made several appearances on G4techTV. Some of the appearances he has made include: Comic Con San Diego, Armageddon, New York Comic Con, SXSW and his own convention, RTX, which he co-founded in 2011. He also appeared on the Discovery Channel mini-series "Rise of the Video Game" along with Sorola. He also makes frequent appearances on the "The Rooster Teeth Podcast" along with Ramsey and Sorola.