![\"RWBY](\"http:\/\/rmwhittaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/rwyb1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRichard Whittaker<\/b>: <\/i>RWBY Volume I introduced characters, Volume II broadened the world, and Volume III is where the plot really fits together. The Twitter response when everything came together \u2013 and started falling apart for the characters \u2013 was basically \u2018what the hell?\u2019 Where you prepared for the response from the fanbase?<\/i><\/p>\n
Kerry Shawcross<\/b>: When we started off with this story, it was important to us to pull a Lost<\/i>. We didn\u2019t want to start in a cool place, not know where it was going, and then try to figure it out as we went. When we came up with this initial story, we tried to think years and years ahead. We knew the events of Volume III were going to happen before the show even started, so it\u2019s really been a case of biting our tongues and not letting anything slip. We really wanted to hit the fans hard, in the same way that the characters were hit really hard with all this. We wanted them to share in these emotions.<\/p>\n
Miles Luna<\/b>: When it came to introducing the characters in volume I, the thing that we tried to do with them is that you think you know the archetype at face value. A great example is Yang: when the audience first meets her, she seems like that party hard kind of girl, the popular preppy girl, and that\u2019s what you get the first time you see there, and then you learn she\u2019s like a mother figure to Ruby, she has this very compassionate side, she has this history with her mother. We wanted to do the same thing with the tone of the show, whereby it\u2019s introduced as a Hub anime, it\u2019s this fun show where it takes place in a magic school, but then we wanted to do an about face and pull the rug out from under the audience as say, no, this is not what the show is about. It\u2019s just as intrusive to the audience as it was to the characters, that suddenly, woah, everything that was going according to plan is suddenly out the window.<\/p>\n
Gray Haddock<\/b>: And Rooster Teeth has never put a parental advisory on its videos in the company\u2019s history, and we didn\u2019t want to start now, but halfway through this season was a good time to remind all the parent andf babysitters and uncle and aunts who would have been sharing the videos with the much younger end of the audience that, hey, we\u2019ve been trying to make as much noise whenever possible in the behind-the-scenes supplements on the DVDs, or at panel appearances at conventions, that there was more to this story than what they had seen in the first couple of volumes, and the full story of RWBY<\/i> is going to involve a lot of changes and emotions. So halfway through volume III was a good time to re-start the conversation with the audience, just to let them know, hey, no reason, but if you\u2019re sharing the world of RWBY<\/i> with the most extremely young members of the audience, maybe you want to start watching the episodes first and seeing whether it\u2019s suitable for them.<\/p>\n
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RW<\/b>: With Monty dying before production started, what did that mean to you guys, and what was the state of this volume, from a practical point of view?<\/i><\/p>\n
KS<\/b>: Because we\u2019d been working on the story for so long, we all had been talking and had an idea or where we wanted to go, what we wanted volume II to be like, what looking forward we wanted the end of the season to be like, but we hadn\u2019t even started writing scripts yet.<\/p>\n
ML<\/b>: The scripts hadn\u2019t begun, but the roadmap had been laid out since before we\u2019d started volume I. So we knew where we wanted it to go, just how crazy it was going to go, and where our ending was heading. There were lots of late nights were we were talking together, and I don\u2019t think there was ever a worry about what we were going to go from a story perspective after Monty passed. As a family, it was quite devastating, but we always knew we were going to be able to persevere and stick to our guns with what we had set out to do all those years ago.<\/p>\n
GH<\/b>: It was more about making sure we had a conversation with the audience that what would happen in Volume III was always the plan, that Monty was aware of it, Monty helped conceive some of those moments, and that certain changes in certain characters was not of a result of our news from last year.<\/p>\n
RW<\/b>: Looking at the difference in the animation between Volume I and Volume III, I don\u2019t think you could have done the tournament in Volume I and made it look as the same as it does now. What was the process of making the world fuller, but still feel cohesive?<\/i><\/p>\n
KS<\/b>: One of the biggest things about working at Rooster Teeth, and working with the crew that we do, is that we\u2019re never happy to do the same thing again from season to season. The reason Volume II looked better than Volume I was because, in the course of Volume I we learned how to do it that way, now we can do that faster. It didn\u2019t mean we did the season faster, it meant we could make the next season look better because we could do all the other stuff much faster. We wanted to continue that into Volume III as well. Between volumes I and II we figured out how to do crowds better, so we went, OK, we know how to do those, let\u2019s do them even better now.<\/p>\n
GH<\/b>: For better or worse, we always challenge ourselves to raise the bar every year. Half the time it winds up biting us in ass in terms of how many hours you have to throw at it in order to maintain the new level of quality, but ultimately everyone\u2019s so passionate about it. It\u2019s always better for us to get through the pain of making the art and then be that much more satisfied looking backwards. On top of that, Rooster Teeth the company has been very kind in recognizing Rooster Teeth Animation\u2019s work over the last couple of years, and as they help us out on the resource front. Then we take the lessons learned on the previous seasons and put them into new crew positions and new resources to throw at the show.<\/p>\n
RW<\/b>: Every time I visit Austin Studios, it seems like your animation farm has doubled in size. <\/i><\/p>\n
GH<\/b>: Rooster Teeth Animation is now the same size as the company as a whole when we moved onto the lot two years ago.<\/p>\n