Red Vs. Blue Production

Red Vs. Blue Production

Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a comic science fiction video web series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD. The story centers on two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon (Blood Gulch), in a parody of first-person shooter (FPS) games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its Internet premiere on April 1, 2003. The fifth season of the original Blood Gulch Chronicles series ended with episode 100, released on June 28, 2007. Three mini-series—Out of Mind, Recovery One, and Relocated —and the three-part Recollection trilogy containing the full-length Reconstruction (2008), Recreation (2009) and Revelation (2010) series (Seasons 6-8) have extended the plot. The Project Freelancer saga began with Season 9 (2011) and follows two separate stories: a continuation to the Recollection trilogy and a prequel set before the events of The Blood Gulch Chronicles. The two stories are continued in two further mini-series - MIA and Where There's a Will, There's a Wall - and concluded in Season 10 (2012) which was the show's most recent season. Burnie Burns confirmed in What's Trending that the series will continue with Season 11, though further details and the date for the season premiere have not yet been announced.

Red vs. Blue emerged from Burnie Burns' voice-over-enhanced gameplay videos of Bungie Studios' FPS video game Halo: Combat Evolved. The series is primarily produced using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the multiplayer modes of Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4, along with its prequel, Halo: Reach on the Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Minute sections of the series as it was originally filmed as well as the remastered versions of the first four seasons were also achieved using the Microsoft PC version of the same game.

Red vs. Blue has been generally well-received within the machinima community as well as among film critics. Praised for its originality, the series has won four awards at film festivals held by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. It has also won the award from "Best Animated Web Series" from the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV). It 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, former director of communications for Lincoln Center's film society, described Red vs. Blue as "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett". While special videos continue to be released online, the completed series is also available on DVD, making the series one of the first commercially released and successful machinima products. Rooster Teeth has created videos, some under commission from Microsoft, for special events, and Red vs. Blue content is included with the Legendary Edition of Halo 3.