Hey everybody, so we just finished RTX here in Austin, RTX Austin as it's known
And... inevitably whenever we're at RTX Austin, we get tons and tons of questions about
"How do I get a job at Rooster Teeth?"
Which I always try to tell people:
"You don't want a job at Rooster Teeth what you want to do is make your own Rooster Teeth,"
but essentially we get asked a lot, "How do I get started in entertainment," and...
Uh, whenever we are on stage or on panels or something the history of Rooster Teeth comes up
and how we got started and that's kind of my
story, and Geoff and Gus and Joel and Matt's story of how we got into entertainment
But I thought it'd be fun to walk around
And talk to the other people who work at Rooster Teeth and see how they got started
What was their first job ever that they got a paycheck for, and then what was their break into entertainment?
*music plays*
Hey everybody, its Joe Nicolosi, writer and director of RVB season 15. What was your first job you ever had?
I was a wedding videographer in New York for like ten years
I shot weddings and bar Mitzvahs
I set up the lights
And then I rotated them whenever he moved around and I tried not to fall asleep by the end of the night
This is in New York, so there's a lot of, like, gangster weddings. It's, like, a lot of fun [Burnie] Yeah?
[Burnie] I guess that was technically your first foray into entertainment
[Joe] Yeah So your first job is kind of your first break into working in production or entertainment
So then, how did you end up getting the job at Rooster Teeth? You made South by Southwest bumpers?
Bumpers. I volunteered for that
Essentially, to the festival, you submitted the short film, the little short form every movie attention gets you more than anything else
Yeah, yeah, and a couple of them weren't really viral had no crew had no budget
Just like work my ass up on those if you will never make film festival bumpers. It's awesome
Vo a captive audience and an important people in the room all the time which coen everybody
We get asked a lot. How do I get start like how do I get going in entertainment?
How do I get a animation career going? How do I get is out received stuff like that?
What was the first job you ever had first paycheck you ever received?
I think I worked in a feed mill when I was 14 years old yeah, yeah first first job in the industry was
I worked shoveling horse shit and in
Ringer stalls actually was I worked as a wrangler and thank allah for what for for movies like ride with the devil
They were big gigantic like historical movies
And then I kind of worked my way up from that and then when I got out of college. This was Gonna be a writer-director
Then I found my way into doing like art department stuff with storyboards for many more years three boards like machete
I worked the movies with coen brothers and Tarantino and just I did a whole bunch of the jobs
What I?
Think the biggest thing for me is I early on I agreed to myself that I was going to be like a journeyman and learn
As the lead different crafts as possible and once I figured out exactly
What I wanted to do which was more kind of in the production realm directing realm I kind of headed for that and then just
Kind of honed in exactly what I was good at if I were to say like the most important thing that I took away from
It all is to focus on one point
But be aware of everything around don't be afraid to change with that one thing is over time. Yes
But when you're doing the job you the job yeah and also get to know yourself be always asking yourself like am I suited for
this role because one happens a lot of times people get locked into a row they may not be good for it and
You have to always be questioned yourself am I going down the right path be willing to
Jump on to another road, and even if it makes means that you have to double back
Do what's right for you in your career? What was your first job?
Ever it was I used to do
scorekeeping at a little league field when I was a teenager in the summers really
So it's like I would say it's like a full-time job, and what was what was your seat entertainment?
Break in an entertainment or roosterteeth I guess I mean
But we made websites before that I used to do that garage sale column it seemed like that
We go to garage sales every weekend over radio games accessories. We asked me we had about three thousand readers
I'm about three thousand today. Yeah, and then gus also was for a long time
He was the face of rich because he was doing the guy who ever appeared to any of the videos
Some people recognize him more than any of us for like the first year
That's brand equity my friend. Yes, brain building hashtag gold. I guess noumenon everybody in chrome
Probably best to exhume Bethany everybody fresh off the RCX like that, so I'm asking everybody. What was your first job?
You've ever had I was a hostess at a cajun restaurant. There was a place called Robin hood under a new prospective
So what would you say was your first break into what you do now?
I had an internship at an art gallery in College and
I met really cool people through there, so they gave me my first event job
So that kind of led me to travel a lot and go to different places and learn from them
How'd you know her she um I wanted move back to Austin or to Texas and to be close to her family?
Gus, and I hit it off, and he hired me pretty quickly, and I moved here months later. You haven't really back
I
Talked to you today consent. I hand it off with contracts. I don't know why we just always invited. It'll be good
Yeah, all right well congrats on rT. . Yeah. Thank you very much Austin because if I checked off and our story on London
Yeah
So really quickly. What would everybody's first Java we have for job
Seriously, no first job. Where you have a chain?
Dessert girl at a restaurant, and then anyone super chef you mean like post-college or like first job
Eddie's we got a paycheck. When is mommy Lobby your table? How old were you I was
Attached here reese like stocking stocking got rearranged all the ornaments after everything from on be around beacon was your first cake
Councillor Cheerilee can't counter yeah, the glamour is first
I
Like I like I was at the university of Exodus. I was a sexual health peer advisor
I got that job because I was touring taste of iser and
Every woman who got a new prescription for birth control pills had to take my class so what would government's first job in their table?
- what was your first job in entertainment first? What would you consider to be your brit my friend? I mean
and
He contacted me on issuing a bunch of stuff with them, and that's what Domino's one
Thing is the next thing you know the next thing
But bankrate will be joining the fries off then you guys were the professional gaming team for ubisoft yes. Yeah, it's the first of all
How'd you get it? How did you yeah, I had
to go through a bunch of like interviews in Gameplay test and
Then they there's no styling
Interviewing played some more and then they offers me a quality
What will you make it was your break in entertainment?
I think it would be really weird coincidence of running a - gavin at sushi one day in La because that started the conversation with
Everybody here
I went to rTX and met Jeff and Jeff was like we'd like to have you with some less length of time
how about you come do some test run and
All that culminated and one day when max come to extra life for second year what we'd like to offer you a job
Any we any we had kind of a similar story because your view came through collaboration as well, right? Yeah
Yeah, that was my friends
and I were making kind of gaming videos a
cinema stuff on the side and we had a portal video called day in the life of a turret implant Viral and
It went viral and it got seen by a lot of people that I got seen by Mr.. Bernie burns
To come up and check stuff out. Every city. That was back in like
2007 yeah
Yep
Yeah, then you were making your series
They had a very popular machinima series as well
And we acted weird because we always want to work with her the first year for works on was season six of red VS.
Is right without opening shot of reconstruction? Yes, and then years and years later? We he wrote the red VS. Blue
fan guy and then get the job writing for the net
Patrick yeah Patrick everybody hi. What was the first job you ever had I worked at a place called
Taco villa in West Texas, and then what do you consider to be your?
First break into entertainment. I was working as a production assistant at a news station and
They were working on the big sales presentation and they needed
someone who could draw
a cartoon sketch on poster board and nobody in the station could draw and I I said I can do it and
They moved me into the creative team I need strong
I haven't drawn in a long time, but yeah, he's too good don't tell people on here from the east hey zach
Yeah, nate as what's going on
How you doing, then well soon, well? What was the first job that you ever had like her for a paycheck?
What was your first job ever my first job ever? What is a sports sports?
store like
Selling shoes basically and then what what do you think was your first break into the entertainment industry I?
was
it was after I finished college and
I was trying to figure out where goes my life, and I was sitting in a cafe
After my shift as a waiter, and I happen to sit next to a guy who was writing hawking points
For al gore for vice-President. He was buying a television network, and I leaned over and said, what are you working on?
and he said Al
TV Network
and
That was my inroad into getting a job at Current TV
Where I started an intern became assistant and when I left I was the number two person in all programming so I
Remember that conversation very well that was my was a moment where?
Was he you know they always talk about that trapped in an elevator or in an elevator ride
Like you know you got to you have 30 seconds to pitch someone. [Burnie] Yep
Like that was my that was my elevator pitch moment where it's just like that life-changing
Moment where either you go and set yourself outside of your comfort zone and you ask the question you, uh...
You know, interrupt someone, you do something that you know is outside of what you normally would do
But you know it's a kind of a put up or shut up moment for- for you.
And that was mine again. What was the first job you ever had? What was your first jump?
They gave you a paycheck a nickel a my first job with a paper round
Which I did one time
And I realized that
all of the effort and
Back-And-Forth trips to get papers wasn't worth the four quid I was going to make so I dumped the papers in the woods
Took the four quid, and then I quit
Yeah, and then after that, I worked in a supermarket. And I liked that job, that was fun
[Burnie] You stocked veg. [Gavin] Yeah, I was in charge of the fruit and veg. King of bananas
[Burnie] And then what was your break into the entertainment industry? What was the moment where you were like, "Oh. This is my break."
This is... looking back.
[Gavin] Yeah, I just met the guy that had those high-speed cameras
And I was like, "That's better than stocking veg"
"Can I work with you?" Did that for about a year for no money,
just sort of went on his jobs. While also working a Waitrose... and going to school.
So pretty busy, but worth it in the end
So, for me, my first job that I ever had was...
I got a job making and delivering subs for Blimpie subs,
which doesn't really exist around here anymore, but it might be where you live
Red vs Blue hit when I was 29 years old, and I had made movies, I'd made videos, everything
But I think the big break was, a video that I made with Gus went viral
It was the Apple Switch ad parody, and what was really important was
a company named Computer Gaming World contacted me and said,
"Hey, we want to put your video on the CD on the cover of our magazine
I kind of used that opportunity of promotion to launch my next big thing,
which was really my first big thing.
I have had a job every single day of my life
since I was 18 years old. I had a job before this in telecom and then started Richard's even been here for 13 years
So I have never been out of work a single day in all that time.
I need a vacation
All right, so as you can tell, everybody's career path is different
And you never know what it's going to take in order to get to the place that you want to be
But there's some common themes,
I mean, you can see in everyone. I spoke to they all took whatever job
they could get whenever they could they also made themselves available for
Opportunities as they came up and the other thing was they were able to identify
Opportunities that could lead to something bigger, and they jumped on them even if it wasn't clear at the moment what that would lead to
Looking back in hindsight. They can see how it helped their career. I hope you learned a little bit about what it takes
to get a career in Entertainment going I
Guess you just kind of wait for the opportunities to Arise
Well that is the story of how a lot of people are roosterteeth were able to get their start
Hopefully if you're in that position in your career, maybe you learn something from this, we'll see you guys next week