Interview with Rooster Teeth’s own Barbara Dunkelman at RTX 2015

Aug 13, 2015

Barbara began as a fan of Rooster Teeth, who then followed her dream down to Austin where she is now one of the faces of Rooster Teeth and holds an impressive resume. From Community Director to Voice Acting, she does it all.

GeeksWorldWide sat down with her to discuss her role as well as the steps it takes to put such a large scale production like RTX together.

GWW: Congrats on the announcement of Pizza Hut becoming the first large-scale sponsor for RTX. 

Barbara Dunkelman: That’s a really cool thing for us. We have never had a top-line sponsor line that, not an official one. It legitimizes the event and we like Pizza Hut so it’s a really good fit.

GWW: Pizza and Gamers, you can’t beat that. 

Barbara: Right?

GWW: You are the Community Manager, you are the voice on multiple RT series, essentially one of the faces, if not THE face of Rooster Teeth. I’d like to know what the typical work day is for you?

Barbara: Well I dont know if a typical day exists for me. I do wear a lot of hats. I’m the co-director of RTX, I’m the community manager, I do all of our social media management, I do voice work for RWBY, Red vs Blue, X-Ray and Vav, I’m on the podcast, I do shorts so it’s just a slew of things. Any given day is different from the last one.

GWW: Of all those things, do you have one job or task that you kind of favor over the others? One that you wouldn’t mind doing over and over?

Barbara: Getting to be on camera and voice work is definitely a lot more fun but really like doing the social media and being the voice of Rooster Teeth. I get to interact with the audiences and it’s a Vol2_Yang_ProfilePic_Normalcool job.

GWW: Which do you get the most recognized for?

Barbara: I think it’s a tie between RWBY and the Podcast. Actually at first it was the podcast but now that RWBY has grown beyond any of our expectations, so a lot of people do know me as ‘Yang‘. Yeah, leaning more towards the RWBY side.

GWW: I know prior to working for Rooster Teeth, you had actually volunteered to work the first RTX. What drew you to wanting to work for RT?

Barbara: I started watching Red vs Blue when I was 14 and instantly became hooked on Rooster Teeth’s content. I would join the community shortly after. I also got hooked on that. I loved everyone I met, I also met the RT guys at a couple of community events and became friends with them. So when the first RTX came around I said “Hey, I would love to come down for this.” They said, “Cool, would you want to help out?” I was like yeah, absolutely, if you are letting me stay with you for free. I stayed with Geoff and Griff that year and I somehow became in charge of all the volunteers.

GWW: What is the process of putting together RTX, how long does it take to plan an event of this stature? 

Barbara: Well, we are going to start 2016 on Monday. It’s a full-time commitment, not only for me and Gus but this has grown beyond both of us to the point to where we can’t manage it on our own anymore. We actually hired a new events manager that has been kicking ass and we love her. So that will be a lot better. RTX is definitely a full years process if not more.

GWW: Aside from the usual Rooster Teeth crew who attend, how do you guys put together who is attending the events? 

Barbara: We always make sure to know who is really popular in the gaming and web culture community. We tend to invite those guests. We also have a lot of friends in the industry like The Creatures, Mega64, and Kinda Funny. FunHaus, now they are a part of us. We love those guys.

GWW: This year I noticed you guys are incorporating both Twitch and Youtube streaming. Is this new? This wasn’t something you did last year, was it?

Barbara: We only did Twitch last year, this year YouTube is our partner. We are streaming all the panels. It’s a big tech undertaking.

GWW: Is there anyone you would love to see here at RTX or would love to work with but just hasn’t quite panned out?

Barbara: I don’t think she has ever been here before and she is a good friend of ours, Jessica Nigri. I would love to have her. Our event has usually fallen on the same weekend as Anime Expo which is where she goes and I just think the timing hasn’t worked this year. Hopefully we can get her next year.

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Barbara can be found on Twitter as well as the Rooster Teeth Youtube and official site.

Rooster Teeth has also recently announced they are bringing RTX to Australia as well. For more information on that check out RTXAU.com and their Twitter.

 

 

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