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Rooster Teeth Creator Speaks to Students about Digital Entrepreneurship

By Jaelyn Lyles

Students packed Old Main Wednesday to hear the head of Rooster Teeth speak about digital entrepreneurship and the future of online media.

Burnie Burns, the creator Rooster Teeth, started out pursuing medicine at the University of Texas at Austin but later switched to computer science and started making films.

“It took us 13 months to shoot and edit our film,” said Burns. “And that was just the beginning.”

After getting rejected from independent film festivals, Burns and his friends turned to the Internet as a means to get their content out to consumers directly, starting with one episode of Red vs. Blue. Since airing, it is now the longest running web series, and the second longest science fiction series right behind Dr. Who.

Burns also spoke about crowdfunding, and discussed how it is not only a great way to raise money, but also awareness for your cause or project.

Lazer Team, Rooster Teeth’s first feature length film, was funded through the website indiegogo. While many thought that the goal set by Rooster Teeth was setting their hopes too high, fans and supporters helped make it one of the most successful indiegogo campaigns on the internet.

“Indiegogo told us a goal of $1 million was too ambitious,” said Burns. “But in 12 hours, we had reached that goal. By the end of it, 22,000 supporters raised $2.2 million in this fundraising campaign.”

While “Lazer Team” has been successful so, Burns added that there has been a lot of trial- and-error in the past with distribution. He even used the term “format agnostic” to describe the strategy of formatting and distributing Rooster Teeth content due to our constantly changing society.

“You never know what distribution is going to look like a year, eighteen months from now,” he said. “We’re reaching a point of massive convergence. We’re not just competing with other production companies, or other forms of entertainment, even... We are competing with attention spans.”

Burns also offered some words of advice for young filmmakers, or anyone else trying to get into online and digital media.

“Learning how to learn something is the best part of education,” he said. “Apply yourself. If you can really get a passion for learning, that's hugely important.”

You can find Burnie Burns on twitter (@burnie), and also learn more about Lazer Team and Red vs. Blue at www.RoosterTeeth.com.