First film and viral video: 1997–2002
In his final year of university, Burns was intent on making 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.[17] It took 10 months to edit on a non-linear editor Burns himself built.[18] That same system was used in his early videos, including their first viral hit.
Burns became frustrated with the difficult distribution process and the film only screened in a few festivals. They turned down an offer of about $25,000 to buy because they "wanted to hold onto the story."[18] A few VHS copies of The Schedule exist in Burns's possession. Soon after, the trio parted 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.[19]
"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.'[20]"
Burns attributes "two vectors that came together, the movie guys and the tech guys," as being a catalyst for their success.[21]
Red vs. Blue: 2003–2024
Burns joined Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola in one of their many Internet ventures, drunkgamers.com creating voiceover-enhanced gameplay videos for the website. The trio were giant enthusiasts of the 2001 first-person shooter video game Halo: Combat Evolved, leading them to discuss whether an automobile in the game known as a Warthog looks like a puma. Burns has said that this discussion was "the spark for the whole series".[22] Seeing potential for a full story, Burns created a, which was released September 5, 2002 on the drunkgamers website, but it was largely ignored, and, for unrelated reasons, drunkgamers soon closed. Four months later, Computer Gaming World contacted Ramsey for permission to include a different drunkgamers video in a CD to be distributed with the magazine. Ramsey granted permission, but he and Burns felt that they needed a website to take advantage of the exposure from Computer Gaming World. They therefore resurrected Red vs. Blue and re-released the trailer to coincide with the Computer Gaming World issue. Burns founded the production company Rooster Teeth to produce the show with Sorola, Ramsey, Matt Hullum and Joel Heyman. The was released on April 1, 2003. The series is primarily produced using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio.[23]
The Strangerhood and PANICS: 2004–2006
In 2004, 13 months after the first season of Red vs. Blue had finished airing, Burns and Matt Hullum created the comedy web series The Strangerhood. The series uses the same machinima technique used to film Red vs. Blue.
The idea for the series came from the E3 gaming convention where Burns and his Rooster Teeth partners were introduced to the life simulation game The Sims 2 and realized that the game would be suitable for a series that parodied reality television. The game's publisher Electronic Arts allowed them to continue with the project.[29] The series centers on eight strangers who awake one day unaware of where they are or how they arrived there.[30] Its first season of 17 episodes completed on April 27, 2006.[31] In 2005, the group collaborated with Paul Marino[32]
Return to live-action, Captain Dynamic and RT Shorts: 2009
Burns first returned to live-action with Captain Dynamic a mini-series to promote the online game City of Heroes.[36] It was based around a team of writers hired to use the new in-game content creation tools to promote the title character, Captain Dynamic, the 'worst superhero in the world'. Directed by Matt Hullum and written by Burns, the series starred Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, who is a long time friend.
The series was well received by fans, which led him and Rooster Teeth to begin producing a new live-action series, titled Rooster Teeth Shorts (also referred to as RT Shorts), a sketch comedy which parodies life at their offices. The series features the staff of Rooster Teeth, including Burns, who all play caricatures of themselves, as well as occasional appearances from voice actors from some of their machinima series. The first season ran for twenty episodes and five seasons have since followed, as well as six-second mini episodes released exclusively through the video sharing service Vine.
Hosting and producing work: 2008–2015
On December 29, 2008, Burns co-hosted the inaugural episode of the Drunk Tank audio podcast, alongside his Rooster Teeth co-workers Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola. The podcast consists largely of comedic commentary on the popular culture of the week, including video games, recent news, website features, sports and upcoming projects and is available for download through iTunes, Zune Marketplace and their website. It has since become one of the more popular features of the site, at one point becoming the #1 most downloaded podcast on iTunes, as well as a featured podcast in the iTunes Store. New episodes have been released regularly every Wednesday since April 10, 2009, with occasional special episodes or multiple releases in one week.
In September 2011, the podcast was renamed The Rooster Teeth Podcast. The show has since become available in video form and Burns continues to make regular appearances. On January 7, the podcast won "Best Gaming Podcast" at the 8th Annual Podcast Awards.[37] The Rooster Teeth Podcast has recently adapted a new style of doing podcasts in which they live stream to "sponsors" on their website, in video, the night before the release of the audio podcast on iTunes and their site. The sponsor live stream is then later available 1 day on the Rooster website and 2 days later on YouTube.
Burns began co-hosting Immersion alongside Griffon Ramsey in 2010. The show tests the concepts of video games in real life, such as whether the heckling that sometimes occurs in multiplayer video games would negatively affect the performance of real soldiers. Burns joked in The Rooster Teeth Podcast that the series started as an "elaborate way for [them] to do fun stuff and get paid for it".
Lazer Team and other film projects: 2015–2019
In June 2014, Rooster Teeth launched a crowdfunding campaign for the film Lazer Team on Indiegogo. The fundraiser reached its $650,000 goal in under 10 hours and broke Indiegogo's record for the fastest film campaign to reach $700,000.[44][45] Within three days, Lazer Team broke $1 million.[46] As of 2015, Lazer Team held the record for the highest funded film campaign on Indiegogo with over $2.4 million collected.[47]
Burns explained during the campaign that as it makes more money, the film's budget scales up. "The initial budget for talent was based on making the movie on the bare minimum with us throwing in the remainder of the expected budget. For instance, that meant using talent almost exclusively from in-house. As the budget grows, so do our opportunities to approach all kinds of talent. The same applies to Visual FX, quality of props and costuming, lighting, crew, etc."[48]
Post-Rooster Teeth and Morning Somewhere: 2019–present
In September 2019, Burns' involvement within Rooster Teeth became one of executive producer, withdrawing from on camera appearances focusing on larger projects behind the scenes.
In June 2020, Burns officially left Rooster Teeth, announcing on his blog a focus on his family alongside a move abroad.[53]
On December 26, 2023, after a period of withdrawal from the public eye, Burns launched the daily podcast Morning Somewhere, co-hosted with wife Ashley Burns in their home in Scotland.
On February 5, 2025, Burns announced he had acquired the Rooster Teeth brand and its remaining intellectual properties through his company Box Canyon Productions.[54] On August 7, 2025, the Rooster Teeth site was relaunched, as announced on his Morning Somewhere podcast.[55]
