Burnie Burns

Michael "Burnie" Burns (born 1973) is an independent filmmaker living in Texas. His most notable contributions have been in machinima, although he has also worked with live-action. Burns voiced character Leonard L. Church in Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles and was a very popular character with his fans. In April 2003, Burns, along with several of his friends, created the Internet machinima series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, filmed using the Xbox video games Halo and Halo 2. Burns has become the fatherly figure of the staff and looks after everyone. He almost acts like the leader of the staff but that is because he is the most qualified and skilled. He plays the lead character in the majority of their series and is a very skilled comedic writer.

Pre-Rooster Teeth
Burns met 2 of the Rooster Teeth staff whilst studying at the University of Texas at Austin. He was childhood friends with Matt Hullum (Sarge from Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles) and eventually they met with Joel Heyman (Michael J. Caboose from Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles) whilst making an independent film called "The Schedule". Hullum and Heyman pursued their dreams of being famous and traveled to Hollywood leaving Burns in Texas. Burns then found work at local Help desk company TeleNetwork. This is where he met Geoff Ramsey (Dexter Grif from Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles) and Gustav Sorola (Dick Simmons from Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles). The three clicked automatically and had 2 loves, drinking and video games, this caused them to create Drunkgamers.com where the three created a scheme to get free video games and asked companies to send them games to review. According to Ramsey, the group tried to receive free games to review, but "incurred the wrath" of several game developers in doing so. They finished with 2. One of which was Halo: Combat Evolved they loved the game, especially Burns. Burns whilst playing the games noticed a few things:


 * The multiplayer characters didn't have voices
 * They were fighting for no real reason apart from being told to
 * They didn't even know anything about the enemies
 * The Warthog looks like a Puma

This caused Burns to think about creating a series based on this points which seemed interesting. He consulted Ramsey and Sorola who were very cautious about the idea and turned it down. The coming weeks brought Burn to write more sketches and become more into his multiplayer voice idea. Whilst writing the ideas Drunkgamers.com was slowly coming to a halt with a lack of users and people knowing about the website. This caused Ramsey and Sorola to panic, then finally after a few weeks work Burns finally talked them into his multiplayer voice idea. The first 3 minute episode was filmed. Six months later, the Drunkgamers.com website closed. However, the following week, the magazine Computer Gaming World asked permission to include the Switch parody in a CD to be included with an issue. To take advantage of the resultant publicity, the three re-encoded the video to point to Redvsblue.com which at the time was a website which was created in no time and was very low key.

Rooster Teeth Productions was born.

Rooster Teeth
The first episode was a big hit with gamers and became one of the most loved Viral videos ever made.Burns figured that the staff could be bigger and offered Joel Heyman and Matt Hullum a place on the staff, which they graciously accepted. The five were then catapulted into internet fame and went onto create 100 episodes which made up Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles.

Halo and Halo 2 was then catapulted into a broader audience and the sales were increased due to a series about voiceless character with humorous voiceovers. This caused Electronic Arts (EA) to approach Burns and the staff to ask if they would make a series for their upcoming game "Sims 2". Burns graciously accepted and then The Strangerhood was born. Although been not as famous as Red vs. Blue, the series still kicked off and gained a cult following dedicated to the spectrum of characters featured.

Reconstruction is the newest series/movie of Red vs. Blue and has been regarded as one of the greatest machinma movies ever made. It is currently on sale on the Rootser Teeth website and is available to watch on their website. Burns wrote the full film whilst having some people chip in with some of the sketches, the movie is based around Burns' character and Burns appeared to want to go into great depths with his character Leonard L. Church. Burns appeared to have taken a lot of information from the fans by showing the fans' favorite character (Michael J. Caboose, according to a survey) in more detail and began answering questions like:


 * Did Tex die?
 * Did Sheila die?
 * What happened to Tucker Jr.?
 * What map is the new series set on?
 * What Happened to Agent Washington?

Relocated backed up a few of these questions and answers and only featured 5/6 of the members of Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles due to the aftermath of Reconstruction. Relocated has now ended and the story will carry on in the new series starting in Summer '09.

Burns is now still working on Red vs. Blue and is currently writing a new series which will be broadcasted in the Summer of 2009. It will directly lead on from the events of Reconstruction. Burns is currently writing new episodes/series of other Rooster Teeth projects including:


 * 1-800-Magic
 * Achievement Hunter
 * The Strangerhood
 * People Acting Normal In Crazy-ass Situations
 * Captain Dynamic
 * Red vs. Blue