About Kill Faz and Red-Light Green-Light Entertainment

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Last Updated: May 20, 2012
What's all this stuff about red lights and green lights?
Red-Light Green-Light Entertainment is the name of the group that produces Kill Faz.

That sounds kinda dumb.
Please state your insults in the form of a question.

...that sounds kinda dumb?
Now you just sound like an ass.

Okay, but what about 'Kill Faz'? Who is this Faz and why do you want to kill him?
Kill Faz is the name of our machinima series based on the Halo games by Bungie. Check out our history page for a full backstory on who Faz is and why we want to kill him.

Whoa, hang on a second. What the hell's a machinima?
It's basically a newer genre of filmmaking where people use video games as pre-rendered CGI elements in their movie.

...and now in English?
Basically we go into the game, move around the characters, and film ourselves doing it.

And how is that accomplished? Do you have some video-game-to-film-converter?
Sort of. Really we only call it filming because it sounds professional, I guess. What we really do is plug an Xbox into one of our capture devices and move the characters around on other Xboxes.

Okay, but how do you get a camera in the game? Aren't you only able to be a player in the game
In Halo 2, yes. Our camera is actually just another player, and we just record what he sees (using a modded gametype that takes away the HUD, to give it that not-in-a-game smell)

But what about Halo 3? I've heard a lot about Saved Films, surely you use those?
Yes - in Halo 3, filming is a lot easier since we can actually act out the scenes without worrying about camera angles and whatnot, and then go back and use the Theater's flying camera mode to film what we did. So for Halo 3, we really can get a camera in the game, and we only need at the least one Xbox 360 to film (for any scene with 4 or less people, that is).

So what about other Halo 3 features, like armor permutations and whatnot?
You'll just have to watch the series to find out.

What about Forge? That seems like it'd be a useful tool.
Oh, definitely. Obviously, it's the ultimate tool for making the perfect movie sets and customizing what's in a map. We're definitely going to use this for every video we make in Halo 3.

What about the videos themselves? Are they just gonna be a bunch of guys standing around bobbing their heads and talking about snipes and blitzkriegs?
We do realize that a lot of what we did with Halo 2 really was just standing around and talking, but this is more to do with the way we had to film in Halo 2. We basically needed someone to man the camera and someone to man the characters, preferably one per character. But, since it's usually just me and Jay filming, we only had one guy able to do the characters. And if we had an action shot where more than one person moved, we'd have to have a still camera, which is always kinda boring. With Halo 3, we'll have a lot more freedom in filming, unlike Halo 2, where we had to actually start filming before we moved the characters how we wanted (and then had to re-film if something went wrong, wasting a lot of hard drive space). With Halo 3, we can more or less film right in the game - we make our set in Forge, start up a Slayer game (or Oddball, CTF, etc. depending on the scene), move the characters how we want, re-do stuff if something goes wrong or if we want something re-done, and then just watch the film. So in essence, the only footage wasted would be film space in Halo 3, so we can only actually record what we want to record. Add to that the fact that the only thing we have to worry about during actual recording time is the camera angles and movement, and you have yourself a streamlined machinima-maker.

I'm like Jay (way too lazy) and didn't read that entire thing. What are you saying?
I'm basically saying that making the series have a lot more action and more dynamic camera angles will be much easier and highly likely.

I'm not an English scholar, so what did THAT say?
THE SERIES WILL HAVE A LOT OF ACTION AND CAMERAS THAT MOVE.

Ooohhhkay. That makes sense.
'Bout damn time.

Speaking of dams, what about swearing? You guys did some in the last season but censored the really bad stuff. Is that gonna be the same for the upcoming season?
Probably not - the way I see it, any swearing that would occur in the series would be much less and a lot more mature than any swearing or words one would hear on Xbox Live. Not to mention the fact that Halo 3 is an M-rated game and thus we expect our viewing audience to be mature enough to tolerate and (preferably) enjoy any swearing that we'll do.

But in regards to the plotline of Kill Faz, I'm a little confused - you've used parts of the actual Halo 2 game in such ways to imply that the KF characters are just playing Halo 2, but then it also seems like the characters live in that world. What's going on?
We've decided that this isn't something we just want to state in an FAQ but rather have our viewers watch the development of this on its own.

So... what does that mean?
We hope that the viewers will get a better understanding of the plotline as the series continues.

You really need to speak plainer.
FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOUR GOD DAMN SELF.

Okay, now you're just being mean.
Do you have any more questions?

Yeah, I see the new season will be done in high-def, but only 720p. What about 1080p? Television tells me that 1080p is far superior to 720p even though I'm too dumb to notice any difference. How come Kill Faz is only in 720p?
Our current hardware can only capture Halo footage up to 1080i. Even though Halo is only rendered at 30 frames per second, it suffers from the same problem Halo 2 has on standard-def connections where it doesn't match fields and frames. It's fixable, but it's a time-consuming fix. Basically, we're too lazy to make Kill Faz in 1080p.

Oh, so it comes down to your laziness. I could've guessed that.
Wait, Kill Faz was in standard def for years, we finally upgrade to 720p, and you're complaining it's not 1080p? Fuck you.

How do you make the videos, technically-speaking?
We write some scripts with Celtx, then we record our voices with an Audio-Technica microphone, then we hook up our Xbox 360s to our computers with component cables and a Hauppauge HD-PVR to record the footage from the game, then we use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 (hooray for educational discount!) to edit and render the final product. I would link these programs like I did in the last version of the FAQ, but I'm way too lazy for that. Plus you know how to use Google, right?

What the hell is Google?
Haven't we gone over this already?

Well yeah, but you're too lazy to re-write the entire FAQ, so you just keep updating it and end up making the same jokes in multiple places.
...shut up. Do you have any more questions now?

Yeah, when's the new season gonna be finished??!!
Eventually :-)

No, seriously. When are you going to get off your lazy asses and finish it?
That question is too insulting to answer.

...?
Question mark, indeed, sir.
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