RTX Sydney 2017 – Interview: Gus Sorola
Call it blind luck, but we managed to steal Co-Founder of Rooster Teeth, Gus Sorola, away from his hectic schedule during RTX Sydney to have a chat with us about RTX, Rooster Teeth and the disappointment of losing the opportunity of being naked on a movie set.
Adam Hi Gus, welcome back, year two of RTX. Are you surprised about the crowd numbers this year at all?
Gus Oh yeah, we’re really happy with it, it’s about where we wanted it to be, crowd wise. The reason we came to Sydney is that we knew the ICC (International Convention Centre) was opening up and we knew it was the kind of facility we could grow into, so last year was kind of like, just get to get started, get our foot in and we know that this will hopefully be the first of many years until we slowly fill this whole convention centre!
A So you actually are planning to come back next year?
G Yeah, that’s a little spoiler but we will be back next year.
A So what were the challenges this year as opposed to last year?
G Just having to re-think the space, re-think the layout, it’s a lot of weird logistic things when you look at the showroom floor. Centre stage is on the back wall which is great for getting attendees to walk through the floor, but there’s no easy way for talent or guests to get back there without getting mobbed by people. So logistics on how you move people around in discrete ways is always a challenge.
A So besides air-conditioning …
G Yeah the air-conditioning is great! *laughs*
A So besides that, what’s something you’ve been able to do this year that you weren’t able to last year?
G There’s been a lot of things, the panel rooms allow us to program bigger panels and having Nintendo come down and bring the Switch and even having Kojima come down and do a presentation. We didn’t have the right space for that last year, there wasn’t enough scale and now we have enough scale to be able to support things like that.
A It’s a big surprise to have Hideo Kojima down here in Australia, how did that all happen?!
G That was one of those crazy ideas like ‘oh why don’t we invite him?’ but that was a lot of hard work by Hanabee talking to a lot of people and working out scheduling and in my mind I was like ‘it’s never going to happen’. And I guess the scheduling just worked out!
A I know that in the USA events you have an after-hours thing that’s run by the Screwattack guys, are you planning to expand that at all?
G I think it’s really good, I think there’s definitely die-hard members who go to events that was stuff to do after-hours and want that culture. And I think there’s a good number of attendees that want that as an option for them.
A Are you at all surprised by the growth of these events?
G I’m really happy with it, it’s what I always wanted to do. We have a lot of faith put into us by the community to do these things right and that’s what helps us go forward and do these things. We know that if we go forward and do an event in Sydney, we know that we have enough community here that will support and make it a success. We know we have a community in London and same thing with Austin (Texas), so really without that community support we couldn’t do it, so it’s all thanks to them.
A You brought out Lazer Team last year, are you planning to do any more movies?
G Yeah it has been announced that we’re doing a Lazer Team 2 at some point. So that will come out at some point. We have goals and aspiration to do other features, they are in the works, we definitely have several in the works.
A Are we going to see another shirtless Gus Sorola in the movie?
G Hopefully! I was supposed to be fully nude in Lazer Team! I showed up to set expecting to be fully nude and then they told me it was just shirtless. Yeah I was supposed to rub my genitals up against Gavin’s helmet in that one scene. But they shied away.
A I suppose they wanted to stick to a rating?
G Well they could have the unrated directors cut!
A We’re nearly out of time, is there a message you want to give to the community?
G I think we’re just super appreciative of all the support, even from the beginning. Looking at our sub-reddit this morning, someone posted a photo of Geoff and I from the second event we ever went to. It was an anime convention in Chicago, and I started reminiscing about it. We had a huge amount of people come out to our panel and we showed up with two suitcases filled with T-Shirts to sell, because we didn’t know what we were doing. And it’s because of that community support that we’ve been able to go from that to now having three events all around the world. Without their support and trust in us we wouldn’t be able to do any of this stuff.
A It’s been an absolute please to be able to interview you again, thank you so much
G Thank you very much, I really appreciate it, have a good show!
