Really Short Summary: Making it Big

• Q: How long until break even? A: A year and a half A: 2-3 years A:1 year
• Q: Making it big? Watch the numbers? A: Started with small computer in corner of office, got slashboingfarkdugg, almost took down company network. Expanded to 4 servers.
• Q: Influences? A: Don Chrisfel A: Don Chrisfel A: White ninja A: White ninja A: A list of what not to do. A: Print comics A: thespot.com thespark.com Homestar Runner
• Q: How do you work? A: Flash, Internet distribution, no animation skills, write in inspiringly depressing shopping center. One guy does graphics, other does voice. A: No censorship on the Internet. A: Entertain yourself A: Let your work go free and get passed around.
• Q: Distributed workforce? A: Peurto Rico, several states A: I make a video and hand it to some people. I’m totally not a computer person.
• Q: Do you feel obligated to maintain your characters? A: No. A: Not an issue. I have 8 identical guys who are different colors + a jeep + a tank. A. We don’t have characters or stories. A: No. A: No. We just use stick figures. It’s easy to create new characters.
• Q: Limits? A: 720 pixels wide. A: 4:3 A: Halo engine A: stop motion A: We use stick figures.
• Q: Moving from comic to video game world? A: Video games are an extension of the comics. (Homestar Runner is getting a Wii game).
• Q: Why no ads on HSR? A: Ads are the worst part of the internet. I hate ads. Fans buy T-shirts – It supports site and authors. Would rather go under than have ads.
• Q: For Brad: Comic vs video production. A: Yep. Haven’t done comic for 3-4 years. Video took over.
• Q: What’s next? A: 4-part 11 minute special that might hit TV, includes all characters. A: Red vs Blue. Going to feature length. Live action. A: More of the same. A: Video Game. A: Start doing animation.
• Q: Tech limitations? A: We use Flash 5, but our real bottleneck is bandwidth costs. We used a 30-day free trial. A: I used flash 4 until a couple months ago. A: Video codecs (we push 140 TB per month) Bandwidth bill dropped %75 A: I don’t know what flash does… He’s a guy in a red suit that runs fast right? I hand draw stuff a scanner, and use iMovie.
• Q: How important is sound? A: We used to have a closet with clothes. Now we have expensive foam triangles that emulate the closet with clothes. A: We used to just sit in front of the computer. Now we have a sound room.
• Q: How long will you stay funny, stay current? A: Whenever a new game comes out, we get to do more stuff. We thought we would never go this far. A: Things become retro and cool when they’re 4 years old. A: We laugh when watching our own cartoons that we forgot about. (There are too many to remember!) A: Entire archive is always there. A few years from now, people will be finding it for the first time. A: I could be out of a job at any second.
• Q: Do you have haters? A: I have received death threats. A: Had to convince a woman that homestar didn’t have down syndrome. A: People like and dislike a few seconds of a video at a time.
• Q: Getting help? A: Some fans say your stuff sucks, then give you better stuff. (RvB soundtrack, Trogdor flash game, translations, running forums)
• Q: You visited Disney, what was it like? A: Cool. Producer thought character was retarded.
• Q: Internet blah blah blah good? all A: Yes.
• Q: (from Firefox) Open standards? A: I use Firefox, try to use open source when possible. A: I don’t know what open source means, but I get cool points for using that word.
• Q: Will you make HSR voices say things you would never put on the site? A: [Dodged question]

Announcement from Tim – Firefox vs Owl smack down official! Free pizza for lunch! (regarding blackboard: I need a mini-b usb cable… kevin@kevinchiu.org)