Hey everyone. I was very lucky to be invited recently to the set of Rooster Teeth's latest web series DAY 5. If you're not a male between the ages of 12-18 you likely have zero clue what Rooster Teeth is- go ask your little brother, cousin, or son and you'll soon discover that Rooster Teeth is a ridiculously popular site-turned-studio for the above-mentioned demographic with 8.5 million subscribers and over 4.3 billion views according to recent estimates. That adds up to an incredible amount of screen time. The company also released their first indie feature this year, LAZER TEAM, funded by one of the most successful Indiegogo crowd funding campaigns to date. Although the company's online content has mostly been of the machinima (ladies and gents filming themselves in realtime whilst playing video games) and various comedic shorts and series, the outfit's latest foray takes them into the world of episodic drama- quite the departure for a company that built its cred spoofing Halo with their most popular series (and longest running on the inter webs) RED VS BLUE.
I knew very little going into my visit, which was pretty fun actually. I had learned through my friend Angela Behm (her hubby Brian works at the Austin-based studio) that the series was about an event where everyone who is asleep one random night dies, while those night owls who were awake are left to figure out how to stay alert or else meet their doom. It sounded cool enough for me, so on one of the first truly hot days of the year in Austin, I made my way to the DAY 5 set located way out in the suburb of Lakeway, TX to a half empty hospital perched atop a country peak. Since this is a working hospital- and when are hospitals not confusing anyway- it took me a try or two before I found my way to the loading dock area. Though there was a PA there seemingly waiting to direct little 'ol me to the set, I later discovered that I had actually parked in the wrong area after all. Regardless, I was soon escorted down to the "base camp" area where the cast and crew gathered under tents to rest, nosh... and of course talk to me.
I was immediately joined by Walker Satterwhite, the youngest cast member who plays the "kid" of the series. Soon, co-writers/directors Aaron Marquis, Chris Demarais, as well as other primary cast members Jesse Boyd and Stephanie Drapeau were seated with us, my brief interview commenced, and I finally got to learn about the premise of the series.
AM: Yeah, I mean the idea is for as many people to see it as possible. So, while it will be on RT right now for sponsors, other avenues- as they work out and make sense for how we distribute things- we always keep that open. Because ultimately we want to bring more people to RT, and we want to bring more people to our project. So yeah, we're absolutely keeping it open.
RE: Jesse, tell me about your character and where he is in the story.
JB: How much am I allowed to say? (everyone laughs)
AM: Nothing!
SD: General...
JB: His name is Jake, thank you, the end. Period. (everyone laughs) I can say what is already out there I guess. Jake is a bit of a party guy. When everything starts in the story he is up doing crystal. Crystal meth. He's made some bad life choices, but at the same time he's not like this crazy raging meth head by any means. He has a really big sense of humor and a really big heart, and you do discover that a lot as the story goes on. He's a little bit of a pussy sometimes, but he definitely has an evolution over the story. At the same time- it's funny because I was talking to my mom about the character and she said that he's probably the most equipped for this apocalypse than anybody. (everyone laughs) He's used to being awake. And I was like, you are totally right. Like for him, he's totally like and antihero in this. He's like, "Five days? Come on, that's nothing!" So, he's got more experience with something like this than anyone else in the story and this situation and I think that's valuable as well.
CD: Normally in apocalypse type scenarios the brawn survives, but this kind of turns that on its head. Jake survives because he's a skittery drug addict. It's just funny because he has the power here, like you were saying, you have that knowledge of what it takes to be up for five days. You have that experience.
JB: Yep.
RE: Which I guess is nicely juxtaposed against your character, Stephanie, who is a physician who has also experienced endless shift work.
SD: Yeah, certainly the stress of medical school and the hospital and life threatening situations would prepare someone for dealing with the kind of catastrophic scenarios we're up against throughout the series by all means.
RE: Walker, how do you feel about being "the kid" of the group?
WS: I feel like the cool one. (everyone laughs) Any adult can survive, but a kid? Sometimes the character doesn't feel like a kid because he's helping out a lot. He saved Jake plenty of times.
JB: He's more mature than Jake much of the time.
WS: I drove him home.
RE: Spoiler alert! (everyone laughs) Have there been any unique obstacles shooting this type of subject matter versus past RT projects?
CD: I'd say the pages per day- the big scale. We're shooting a lot in a short amount of time. Even LAZER TEAM, which was RT's biggest live action project, had a lot less pages to cover. That was feature, and then this is essentially 3 features.
AM: Shooting half a feature a week.
CD: As opposed to shooting an entire feature in five weeks. So, it's a lot. But good people make it easier. (showrunner Josh Flanagan approaches the table) There's Josh!
Josh Flanagan: (handing Walker a prop bullet proof vest) I'm giving you this and a 30 second head start.(everyone laughs)
SD: I certainly can't let the interview end without saying that the vibe that Rooster Teeth and their people put forth- the sort of trickle down effect that happens for all of us. Yeah, we have a bajillion pages to cover, and yeah there's a lot to do, but they have such an amazing group of people and such a collaborative team that are down to earth but also very professional and creative and visionary. That trickles down to the rest of us, so it's really a family unit. We've had a great experience, and we've had a lot of fun taking on the task of having to shoot all this stuff. It's been a wonderful experience because of the people who put it all together.
CD: Except Josh and I hate each other.
WS: Wow Josh! Did you shave?
RE: (Josh gives me a curious glance) Hi! I'm Rebecca. I'm interviewing these guys.
CD: This is our showrunner Tom Selleck.
JF: It's for this role! It's like the worst mustache.
SD: He's actually the head PA.
CD: Josh looks like he's going to have sex with everyone at this table. Look at him!
JF: (in a creepy voice) Who's first? (everyone is laughing and chiming in with jokes)
JB: Please put in your interview that he walked up to the table with a bullet proof vest and a Tom Selleck mustache.
RE: Yes, and gave Walker 60 seconds to run.
WS: It was actually only 30 seconds. He doesn't care about me that much.
RE: How did you guys split up directing duties.
AM: Well, Josh directed the first two episodes. I'm directing one. Chris is doing this one, and then Todd (McMullen) and Mark (Lambert Bristol) each have one as well.
SD: Mark did episode 3 and Todd has (episode) 6.
JB: And they've all had very, very different vibes too which has been really cool. As far as location, set design, the directors- they've all had very different vibes.
SD: Each one has a distinct finger print.
JF: Messy, greasy finger prints.
At this point, the interview basically devolved into friendly banter as they finished their 6:00pm "lunch." When we were done, I was ushered into the hospital and up to the 4th floor. It's pretty weird to see an entire floor of a hospital vacant, but it's even more strange to see one littered with various film equipment and abuzz with crew dashing about readying the set for the next scene. Since this particular scene was taking place in a cramped hospital suite, we were led to the adjacent unoccupied suite where we had a great view of the monitors. Since we were slightly out of earshot, I was delighted when a member from the sound team offered me a pair of wireless earbuds so I could hear what was going down as well. After a few takes, I was invited to stand just outside of the shooting area and was able to view the action first hand. Though I don't want to give away any spoilers here, I did witness a creepy looking syringe filled with a black liquid- I won't divulge what was done with said syringe, but it seemed as though it may be part of a pivotal plot point. When director Aaron Marquis yelled cut, the makeup department rushed in to touch up the actors' sleep-deprived looks and I realized I new one of the make up artists from a project we worked on together a few years ago. It certainly is a small world, especially in the Austin based film scene.
After a few more takes of the reverse angle, some sort of alarm started going off at what would normally be the level's nurses' station. It was discovered that an unused computer monitor was making the racket, but once it was disconnected the sound could be heard from various locations throughout the floor. Since the crew had this unintended break, I had another opportunity to visit with show runner Josh Flanagan behind the desk of another unused nurse station, so here's our quick chat.
Following a solid ten minute halt in production to figure out the source of the alarm, it was determined that somebody in one of the vacant operatories must have leaned against a nurse call button and activated it unwittingly. Upon return to my previous post, I was relieved to find no nurse call button on the wall behind me-whew! With silence finally restored, production immediately went back into full tilt.
After a few more takes, Walker was finished and it was announced that it was time for school. As the youngster on the set, he must complete a certain amount of school work each day. I noticed a woman, who I assumed was Walker's mom, briefly chat with him before he entered his "school room", and I introduced myself. She was happy to chat with me and explained that Walker had to complete at least 3 hours of school work per day. She said that he could bank a few hours each day so he could take days off if needed, but 3 hours was the daily minimum. When I peeked into the room on my way out, I could see Walker seated next to his tutor at a table in a bare hospital room diligently working in his lessons. What a trip to have school in such a location!
So, that pretty much wraps up my set visit to Rooster Teeth's DAY 5. I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look at the much-anticipated project. DAY 5 premieres and will be free to the public on Sunday, June 19th on roosterteeth.com as well as their Facebook page and YouTube channel. After that, only Rooster Teeth "sponsors" with a subscription will be able to see upcoming episodes, though you can sign up for a free 30-day trial if (and when) you get hooked!
Thanks for reading!
After a few more takes of the reverse angle, some sort of alarm started going off at what would normally be the level's nurses' station. It was discovered that an unused computer monitor was making the racket, but once it was disconnected the sound could be heard from various locations throughout the floor. Since the crew had this unintended break, I had another opportunity to visit with show runner Josh Flanagan behind the desk of another unused nurse station, so here's our quick chat.
Rebecca Elliott: Thanks so much for talking to me some more since we had to start without you earlier.
Josh Flanagan: Sure.
RE: So how did you come into this project?
JF: It's been a long gestation at Rooster Teeth. This was an idea that we wanted to do a feature of, like, five years ago. I came on board about three years ago, and at that time they decided that LAZER TEAM was actually going to be their first feature. So we wanted to do something with the idea because they thought it was really cool. So, they had Chris Demarais and I script up a short version that kind of gave a cool tour of the world- the texture and people and interesting scenarios. They made that short, and didn't know what to do with it, but they thought the short was cool enough to expand into a series and has since been absorbed into the series.
RE: So pretty much from the beginning.
JF: Yes. The original concept is Bernie's (Burns), but the stories and the characters and the world came from me and Chris.
RE: So LAZER TEAM is basically the reason DAY 5 has taken so long to come to fruition?
JF: Yeah, basically. But I worked on LAZER TEAM too, so that was cool.
RE: Absolutely. And congratulations on your success with that. I was at the Fantastic Fest screening and had a lot of fun with it.
JF: I was there too! That was great.
RE: So what are the challenges with working on something episodic versus working on a feature like LAZER TEAM?
JF: It's definitely bigger. I think comparatively LAZER TEAM- even on script level was 110 pages while this is 270 pages. So it's a lot to do. What's cool about the structure that we've chosen- which is a really tight, six episode first season- is that it lets you put all your good ideas out there instead of having to stretch it for 10 or 15 episodes. So I feel really good that each of the six episodes has a really good slice of the world and things like that. I think we're really able to strike a good balance between having these interesting episodes that also move the overall story forward.
RE: I guess that also gives you more avenues for character arcs and things like that.
JF: Oh yeah.
RE: Do you have a particular character that you relate to the most?
JF: There are pieces of each. Actually, probably Walker's character- Sam the 13 year old. I like to think I'm as funny as him. Maybe not. We were looking at it the other day and Chris Demarais and Aaron Marquis- we realized that there are pieces of all of us in all of the characters. Like, their backstories are actually my true stories or Chris' true stories. It's a weird squishing together of three people.
RE: Do you feel the dramatic subject matter of DAY 5 is transcending the usual content from Rooster Teeth?
JF: I think it is a stab in a completely new direction. But it's cool because the fans have known about it for years and they're primed for it, so I don't think that it's going to feel like it's out of left field. Especially with some of the talent like Joel Heyman, one of the founding members of Rooster Teeth who also has a strong acting backround. He can be like, "Hey, I do dramatic acting. Remember?" So, it's cool. I mean, me too- before Rooster Teeth my back round was dramatic too, like thriller specs and stuff, so it's kinda fun to go back to the roots and do a series that's markedly different from what Rooster Teeth normally does, but still have the audience excited about it.
RE: Is there anything else you'd like to add that we haven't talked about?
JF: (in a funny voice) It's gonna be really good. You won't believe how good it is.
Following a solid ten minute halt in production to figure out the source of the alarm, it was determined that somebody in one of the vacant operatories must have leaned against a nurse call button and activated it unwittingly. Upon return to my previous post, I was relieved to find no nurse call button on the wall behind me-whew! With silence finally restored, production immediately went back into full tilt.
After a few more takes, Walker was finished and it was announced that it was time for school. As the youngster on the set, he must complete a certain amount of school work each day. I noticed a woman, who I assumed was Walker's mom, briefly chat with him before he entered his "school room", and I introduced myself. She was happy to chat with me and explained that Walker had to complete at least 3 hours of school work per day. She said that he could bank a few hours each day so he could take days off if needed, but 3 hours was the daily minimum. When I peeked into the room on my way out, I could see Walker seated next to his tutor at a table in a bare hospital room diligently working in his lessons. What a trip to have school in such a location!
So, that pretty much wraps up my set visit to Rooster Teeth's DAY 5. I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look at the much-anticipated project. DAY 5 premieres and will be free to the public on Sunday, June 19th on roosterteeth.com as well as their Facebook page and YouTube channel. After that, only Rooster Teeth "sponsors" with a subscription will be able to see upcoming episodes, though you can sign up for a free 30-day trial if (and when) you get hooked!
Thanks for reading!
Rebecca Elliott
aka Annette Kellerman
