User:Minomelo/Sandbox/Development

Original Concept


At some point Monty Oum had a dream of four different colored girls and told Kerry about it.

Monty Oum had the idea for RWBY for several years, but never got around to acting on it due to the amount of his time dedicated to his work on Red vs. Blue. During the production of Season 10 of Red vs. Blue, Monty decided to develop his idea further and present it to Burnie Burns. After describing the premise of the show as well as giving a description of the character that would become Ruby Rose, Monty received approval for the show.

Some of the animations and concepts Monty used in the series were in development for more than 10 years. For example, the idea for the shotgun nunchucks used by Sun Wukong can be seen in some of Monty's very early animation work. Certain characters and their fighting style, such as Qrow Branwen, also pre-date the show entirely.

Monty pitched the idea for Ruby's character to Burnie as "a badass Red Riding Hood". Fairy tales, literature, mythology and historical figures would later become a source of inspiration for other characters, who are developed with a certain existing basis in mind. However, Monty was careful to note that they are not adaptations, but rather original characters which allude to other works.

The theme of four colors, Red, White, Black and Yellow, each corresponding to four girls, came to Monty in a dream. This color theming would become a core part of the character development process and a key theme in the series itself.

Many characters were designed by Eileen Chang, who followed rough sketches provided by Monty and further developed them into fully-fleshed out character designs.

Team Expansion


After receiving approval from Burnie, Monty then enlisted the services of Shane Newville to assist him in animating the show. The show was animated in the software Smith Micro's Poser, which Monty had years of experience and expertise in. The assets were modelled in Autodesk Maya. Motion capture footage was also widely used for animations in the show alongside manual animation.

Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna were brought on by Monty to be the main writers. Monty assigned the two writers anime homework so that they could have a better idea of what Monty was aiming for. The pair developed characters based on the basic outlines given by Monty, for example, the personalities of Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren were devised based only on the direction that they were "powerful" and "honorable", respectively. On finding the correct tone and inspiration for the series, Kerry Shawcross cited Grimms' Fairy Tales as well as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as influences.

The four team members spent many working and off hours, in and out of the office, developing the show. One of the most frequented locations was the local IHOP, where the map of Remnant, the show's setting, was developed by squirting ketchup on a napkin, with blots forming landmasses, in order to create a truly organic and emergent design. Over many such discussions, the long-term plot, world-building and characters of the series were planned out.

The first released videos for RWBY were the four trailers, which were developed mostly by Monty and Shane alone. A larger team of animators, modellers and other artists later joined the RWBY team for the production of Volume 1.

Casting


After some development, Monty decided to begin casting the roles for the leads, with each lead character reflecting certain personality traits of her voice actor:


 * Lindsay Jones was cast as Ruby Rose, with her silliness, but also honesty, being reflected in Ruby.
 * Kara Eberle was chosen to play Weiss Schnee, as both can be nice, but at the same time "bitchy".
 * Arryn Zech plays Blake Belladonna because Monty did not know much about Arryn, he had the impression that she was mysterious, just as Blake is in the series.
 * Barbara Dunkelman voice acts Yang Xiao Long as both do not care what other people think about them.

Many other Rooster Teeth employees landed voice roles in RWBY, with Jack Pattillo cast as Junior Xiong and Michael Jones taking on the role of Sun Wukong. Series creator Monty played Lie Ren until his death after Volume 2 aired, and writer Miles plays Jaune Arc. Other crew working on the show also had a chance to play characters, with Volume 1 Art Director Taylor McNee cast as Penny Polendina and Producer Gray G. Haddock playing Roman Torchwick.

Other actors who have previously worked with Rooster Teeth landed roles, including Shannon McCormick, who had previously voiced Agent Washington in Red vs. Blue, playing Ozpin; and Samantha Ireland, previously the voice of C.T. in Red vs. Blue, being cast as Nora Valkyrie. Kathleen Zuelch, voice of Agent Texas in Red vs. Blue, voices Glynda Goodwitch, and was also a Producer on Volume 1 of RWBY. Voice actress Jen Taylor, the voice of Cortana from Halo, was also contacted for Volume 1 and played Salam, the mysterious narrator. Jessica Nigri, a famous cosplayer, was approached by Monty and cast as Cinder Fall.

The first episode of RWBY Volume 1 premiered at RTX 2013 at the first RWBY Panel in July 2013. Development on later episodes continued during the show's run, with some episodes completed mere weeks before they were aired.

RWBY Volume 1 received several accolades, including the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) 2014 Award for Best Animated Series and the 4th Streamy Awards for Best Animated Series and Best Original Score for Jeff Williams.

Volume 3 marked a point where along with Rooster Teeth staffers and collaborators, the cast also got the addition of well-known anime voice actors, such as Vic Mignogna as Qrow Branwen, Elizabeth Maxwell as Winter Schnee, and Yuri Lowenthal as the new voice of Mercury Black.

Volume 2 Production
Development on the second Volume of RWBY was documented by official production diaries, which were released during the hiatus between Volume 1 and 2. The four production diaries covered different sections of the second Volume's development.


 * Production Diary 1 outlined the pre-production phase of the show, including the writing process and initial table reads.
 * Production Diary 2 focused on artwork, and followed the design process of Velvet from original concept to the final character model.
 * Production Diary 3 followed the voice acting for RWBY Volume 2. The diary also included interviews with the voice actors and covered how they get into character. For example, Lindsay takes off her shoes to get into a more childlike mindset, while Barbara basically plays herself, due to her similarity with Yang.
 * Production Diary 4 focused on final rendering, compositing, sound design and post-production.



A contest was opened for the design of the character Velvet's outfit, in order to recognize the community's contributions and include them to the show. More than 1,300 designs were submitted to the contest, with the winning one selected by Velvet's voice actress Caiti Ward and Monty Oum. A fan art contest was also opened, where some of the submitted fan art was featured in the ending credits of episodes of Volume 2.

During development of the second Volume, the show adopted more subtle, balanced lighting in contrast to the brighter and flatter lighting of the first Volume, and the character models underwent an overhaul. The black silhouette background characters that were present in the first Volume were replaced with fully-rendered procedurally generated models in the second, in order to add more vibrance to the world. Kristina Nguyen, who worked on environmental designs during Volume 1, was the Art Director for Volume 2, and worked closely with the modellers on the environment models and textures.

Returning voice actors included the voice cast of Volume 1, including cosplayer Jessica Nigri, who had a widely expanded role as primary antagonist Cinder, for whom she also performed the motion capture.

Notable additions to the voice cast for Volume 2 included J.J. Castillo as Mercury Black, Katie Newville (animator Shane Newville's wife) as Emerald Sustrai and Ashley Jenkins as Coco Adel. Series writer and co-director Kerry Shawcross was cast as Neptune Vasilias. Jason Rose, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker who had always wanted to work with Monty on a project, also joined the cast as James Ironwood.

Volume 2 again premiered at RTX 2014, which took place from July 4th–6th, 2014.

Japanese Release


In 2014, it was announced that Warner Bros. Japan had received distribution rights for a Japanese release of RWBY – the first time an American-made anime would be marketed and released in Japan, the birthplace of anime.

The Japanese dub, released in 2015 on Blu-Ray and DVD, included several highly notable names in the Japanese anime voice acting scene, such as Saori Hayami, Yū Shimamura and Ami Koshimizu. The Japanese dub of RWBY Volume 1 was also screened in 6 theaters in Japan on November 14th, 2015. The Blu-Ray disc release was ranked #2 in any category in Japan for the week of December 7th-13th. Some of the Japanese merchandise, including the dubbed DVD and Blu-Ray discs and the Japanese soundtrack release, was also made available through the Rooster Teeth store in the United States following the conclusion of Volume 3.

A manga adaptation of RWBY, drawn by Japanese manga artist and writer Shirow Miwa with oversight from Rooster Teeth, was also announced in 2015, with serialization beginning in the Ultra Jump magazine in November 2015. Also released and distributed by Warner Bros. Japan was an official RWBY Fanbook, including art drawn by numerous professional Japanese manga illustrators.

It was announced in July 2016 that Japanese dubs of RWBY Volumes 2 and 3 would be released in 2016. They were also accompanied by theatrical releases in Japan. Volume 2 was released in theaters from October 1st-14th, 2016 and Volume 3 from December 3rd-16th, 2016.

It was announced on June 13th, 2017 on Comic Toranoana's Twitter account, that RWBY Volume 1–3 Blu-ray was set to be released on September 27th, 2017. The RWBY: Best Vocal Album was released on August 30th, 2017 in Japan.

It was announced on July 3rd, 2017 on Warner Bros' YouTube channel that the Japanese dub of RWBY Volume 4 was released on October 7th-20th, 2017.

Volume 3 Production
On January 22nd, 2015, series creator Monty Oum was hospitalized following a severe allergic reaction during a routine medical procedure, rendering him comatose. Monty was unable to awaken from the coma and passed away on February 1st, 2015, at the age of 33.

While the future of the series was briefly in question, it was announced that RWBY would continue, with Volume 3 of the series to premiere in 2015.



In the lead-up to Volume 3, new crew members were brought on board. Dillon Gu, an animator known for creating Project MONTY, a series of fan animations in tribute to Monty, was hired by Rooster Teeth. New production artist Erin Winn designed many of the characters that appeared in Volume 3, including Team ABRN and Team BRNZ. Some fans of the show also received the chance to design their own original characters, Team NDGO, for backing the Indiegogo campaign for Rooster Teeth's new feature film Lazer Team.

As the series gained popularity, it garnered the attention of famous professional voice actor Vic Mignogna, who approached Rooster Teeth to play a role on the show. Vic would be cast as Qrow Branwen in Volume 3. Other famous professional voice actors involved with the show starting with Volume 3 include Elizabeth Maxwell, the voice of Winter Schnee and Yuri Lowenthal, the new voice of Mercury Black. Rapper Flynt Flossy of Turquoise Jeep Records also voiced the character Flynt Coal. Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham also had cameo roles as minor characters. Notably, Jen Taylor reprised her role from the first Volume.

Rooster Teeth would continue to draw from internal talent to voice characters, with Meg Turney, an established Rooster Teeth personality and host of The Know playing Neon Katt, and animator Yssa Badiola as Ciel Soleil, amongst others. Also joining the cast is Monty's brother Neath Oum, who took over the role of Lie Ren. Some voice actors also provided motion capture performances for other characters, with Barbara performing Winter Schnee's motion capture and Miles doing mocap for Qrow Branwen.

The first episode of Volume 3 premiered on October 24th, 2015. As with previous seasons, production continued during the original run, with animation wrapping on January 22nd, 2016. February 12th, 2016 was the last day of production on RWBY Volume 3.

The third volume of RWBY, especially the sixth episode, entitled "Fall", has been widely noted as being a turning point in the series, adopting a darker tone and more mature subject matter. In response, producer Gray G. Haddock released a statement that viewer discretion was advised for future installments of the series, especially for younger audiences. Gray compared RWBY to Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars as being a multi-year spanning series that would mature as it continues.

In January 2016, midway through the original run of Volume 3, lead animator and long-time member of the RWBY crew, Shane Newville, left Rooster Teeth.

Volume 4 & RWBY Chibi


Volume 4 was announced by Gray G. Haddock on April 1st, 2016, the 13th anniversary of Rooster Teeth's founding. At RTX 2016, the release date was announced as October 22nd, 2016. The shot list and initial storyboarding for the first episode of Volume 4 were underway by May 2016. Voice acting recording sessions for key characters also began by May to June 2016.

Also announced as part of the 13th anniversary celebrations was a lighthearted spin-off show, RWBY Chibi, which began airing on May 7th, 2016. As part of Rooster Teeth's 2016 "Summer of Animation", RWBY Chibi continued to air weekly on Saturday mornings until the start of Volume 4 in the Fall. Completely different animation teams worked on RWBY Volume 4 and RWBY Chibi.

RWBY Volume 4 and RWBY Chibi were animated in Autodesk Maya, unlike previous volumes of RWBY, which were animated in Smith Micro's Poser. Kerry Shawcross cites scalability as one of the advantages of the switch, expanding the number of people capable of working on the team. The new software also made real-time lighting, shadows and other effects feasible.

In addition to the improvements in animation, the visual style of the show was also overhauled, with all character models remade and many of the Grimm redesigned by Erin Winn and remodeled. Concept artist Eileen Chang, who worked on the original concepts for the 4 main characters, was also brought back to create their new timeskip outfits and designs.

Volume 5
The Volume 5 online premiere date, October 14th, 2017 was announced at RTX Austin 2017. In addition, theatrical screenings of the premiere were held through Fathom Events across the United States on October 12th.

Also teased at RTX Austin was a first look at the "Volume 5 Weiss Character Short", which premiered on July 17th, 2017. Character shorts for Blake and Yang premiered on September 4th and October 14th, respectively. Each short gives a flashback while also connecting it to the main timeline.

Volume 5 continued to use Autodesk Maya software, but some visual elements were added. Most notably, a third lighting layer is sometimes in use on characters.

Volume 6
The first concept and writing meetings for Volume 6 began a week after the Volume 5 finale aired. Voice acting recording sessions for key characters began in late May 2018. During development, several people were added or promoted to key positions, including Connor Pickens, who replaced Miles Luna and Gray Haddock as co-director.

In an interview at RTX London 2018, Gray Haddock said matte painting backgrounds, a 2D-asset used often in the production of Rooster Teeth's mecha show gen:LOCK, would be introduced in Volume 6.

Volume 7
Work on Volume 7 began shortly before the finale of Volume 6 aired. Eddy Rivas and Kiersi Burkhart were added as co-writers, in addition to Miles and Kerry.