Church (Red vs. Blue)

Template:Infobox RvB character Private Leonard L. Church is a main fictional character in Rooster Teeth Productions' machinima comic science fiction video series Red vs. Blue. Voiced by Burnie Burns, co-creator and main writer of the series, he is the de facto leader of the Template:Rvbmap Blue Team, a group of soldiers engaged in a futuristic civil war against the Red Team. Rooster Teeth often uses Church, who has an irate disposition, to advance the plot by managing the situation at hand.

To provide a twist in character development, Burns decided to kill Church early in the series and to return as a ghost. However, this posed filming and post-production challenges for the creators. The series is filmed by capturing video from computer and video games; Church has been filmed in four different games representing the three different eras of the story.

Role in the plot

Church first appears in episode 1, spying on the Red Team with his teammate, Tucker. The series establishes Church's disposition quickly; annoyed with Tucker's questions about the Red Team, he responds, "You know what? I fucking hate you." After Donut, the Red Team's new recruit, takes the Blue Team's flag in episode 4, Church chases him. However, in episode 8, Caboose, the Blue Team rookie, loses control of Sheila, the Blue Team's tank, and accidentally kills Church. Church reappears as a ghost in episode 10 to warn his teammates about Tex, the mercenary hired by Vic, the team's contact at Blue Command. Tex retrieves the Blue flag in episode 12 but is captured by the Reds. Church reappears and explains that Tex is his former girlfriend, now under the control of an evil, psychotic artificial intelligence. He rescues Tex in episode 14. However, to slow Tex's progress so that he can remove the AI from her head, he attempts to warn the Reds of Tex's second attack by possessing the Reds' Spanish-speaking robot, Lopez , in the season finale, episode 19. However, he fails, and Tex dies at Donut's hands.

In season 2, set three months later, Church is still attempting to adjust to his stolen robot body. Eventually, however, he loses control after the body is damaged and he leaves it, to see if Lopez will repair himself. At the end of episode 29, Tex takes control of Lopez's body. She uses it as a bargaining chip to convince Church to help her destroy her evil AI, O'Malley. O'Malley had possessed Caboose just before her death. When the team learns of this, Church and Tex remove him from Caboose's mind. In the process, O'Malley escapes into a medic named Doc. Using a captured Donut as leverage, Church forces Sarge, the Red Team leader to build permanent robot bodies for Tex and himself. However, Sarge installs a bomb inside Church's body. It explodes in episode 43 and sends all the characters into the future except Church, who is sent into the distant past. In episodes 50 and 51, Church travels to his recent past and attempt to prevent the events of the first two seasons. The situation is revealed as a predestination paradox, in which he causes not only the events of the first and second seasons, but also the death of his former captain, Butch Flowers. Eventually, Church manages to break the time loop and to travel forward in time to join the other characters.

Later in season 3, Church and the Blues meet Andy, a talking, sentient bomb built by Tex. Church attempts to learn more about a prophecy from a computer, Gary, that he first encountered in the distant past. Episode 57, the last of season 3, ends as Church, unaware that a creature is approaching him, responds to Gary's knock-knock joke with, "Who's there?" episode 58 reveals that Church has been scared out of his body. After recovering his body, Church meets the Alien and learns about his quest, which involves Tucker's sword. After his teammates leave to help the Alien in his quest, Church returns to Blood Gulch in episode 68. He saves Simmons from execution by Sarge, assuming leadership over him. Church takes the Red Team's jeep before Simmons returns to the Reds. In episode 71, Church accidentally contacts Vic Jr. (Burns) via radio. This new character scoffs at the mention of Blue Command; as the episode ends, he says that he has much to tell, but the information is not revealed to the viewer.

After Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to Blood Gulch in episode 73, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church calls Doc for help. In episode 76, Doc reveals that Tucker is pregnant, but Church refuses to believe him until he learns from Andy that the Alien impregnated Tucker with a parasitic embryo. Church then returns to the Blue Base to help Tucker. When the ship that Blue Command sends to Blood Gulch crashes, he claims it as his own, threatening the Reds with Sheila. However, Sheila abruptly leaves, forcing Church to abandon the ship.In episode 80 Church meets Junior for the first time, and quickly says that he should be killed. Believing the Reds may have reinforcements or weapons on the ship, he unsuccessfully attempts to contact Vic Jr.

Some time after, however, Grif brings over Sister who was the new recruit on the Red team, explaining that she is actually a Blue, and Church accepts her as part of the Blue team. Following this, Church, with Caboose and a newly-returned Tex in tow, attempts to fix Sheila by rebooting her; when turning her back on proves to be impossible, he makes the decision to move her into the ship.

While moving Sheila into the ship, Vic contacts Church and orders them to kill the Reds. Church sends Doc, Sister, and Junior through the caves as per the orders, and he infiltrates Red Base with Tex and Tucker. After a brief search of the base, they find it empty. Tex is contacted by Caboose and, after an unheard conversation, points her gun at Church demmanding that O'Malley not move. Church quickly learns that Caboose and Sheila identified O'Malley as inside the Blue leader, which cannot be him as he was never officially promoted. He then accurately guesses that the real host of O'Malley is a revived Captain Flowers. Church proceeds to battle bounty hunter Wyoming and hunt down O'Malley, but ultimately fails as O'Malley enters Tex's mind and takes off in a spaceship, which then explodes in episode 100. This episode also has three different endings in which Church has various roles:

• In one ending Church and Tucker shoot Sarge, and an all-out battle between the characters begin. Church orders Caboose to back them up with the tank and to make sure not to kill him this time, which Caboose promptly does anyway.
• In one ending, the series is revealed to be a game session of Halo 2. Church insults Caboose for teamkilling him, and agrees to play another session.
• In one ending, Church goes back to the base and discusses reasons to dislike other people with Caboose, while being watched by the Reds.

Characteristics

From the outset, Rooster Teeth establishes that Church is often angry. Burns has said that, in this way, Church was modeled after Gustavo Sorola, who voices the character Simmons; at the time, Sorola was frustrated with his job. To emphasize this trait, Caboose, for whom Rooster Teeth did not have a plan originally, was basically "a catalyst for getting Church pissed off." When Church and Tex explore Caboose's mind as ghosts, Caboose's mental image of Church, Leonard, is portrayed as over-the-top, vulgar, and Caboose's best friend. During season 1, Rooster Teeth made a conscious decision to reduce vulgarity in Red vs. Blue, partly inspired by Homestar Runner and partly in response to requests to make the videos safe for work. However, response to this change was worse, and Leonard's excessive vulgarity was Rooster Teeth's response to criticism that they had eliminated too much foul language. In the audio commentary for the season 4 DVD, Rooster Teeth has noted, however, that they had portrayed Church as less angry in later episodes.

Church is emotionally and socially distant from the rest of the Blues, with the exception of Tex. Church apparently still loves her, though he is loath to admit it when both Tucker and Gary accuse him of such. In Season 3, he apologised to her for not being a better man. He often expresses contempt for both Caboose and (especially) Tucker, but was also quite concerned when Tucker was injured in Season 2, and fell ill in Season 5. He also expressed great sorrow when Caboose was killed by Wyoming in episode 98; Burnie Burns explains this as genuine sadness, although Matt Hullum notes it may be because Church never killed Caboose himself.

Church often wields a sniper rifle, but mainly for observation purposes, since he is a very poor shot, a fact which has been demonstrated on numerous occasions. He only had one successful shot, shooting Wyoming in the crotch in episode 98, much to his surprise and delight; however, technically this shot didn't happen due to a time-loop caused by Wyoming. Another occasion of note is at the end of one of the three versions of Episode 100, when Sarge is making fun of the Blue and of the fact that Tex is apparently dead, Sarge is shot twice by two sniper rifles. The scene then switches to Church and Tucker aiming their rifles. It is not apparent if Church actually shot but it is assumed so because only two sniper "cracks" were heard and both hit Sarge. However, at the time of writing this, it is not known which of the three versions is the "real" episode. It would not have been very hard to hit him though since he was only about fifteen feat away and was not moving.

Being dead has sparked a number of developments in Church's character. At first, it only added to Church's irate personality. Church even once remarked "I can't believe I died for this war". Though his abilities as a ghost have proven useful, Church has no intention of remaining a ghost and merely focuses on maintaining his possession of his new robot body. Due to his long possession of his body, Church seems to forget that he's dead sometimes, often expressing acts of fear or self-preservation in dangerous situations as though he still had a life to lose. In Season 3, Church finally forgave Shiela for killing him, as he accidentally caused it by turning Sheila’s Friendly Fire Protocol off, but becomes annoyed again when she apologizes for enjoying so much.

Filming

File:RvB Church ghost.jpg

In episode 10, shown here, Church first appears as a ghost. This effect required additional filming by Rooster Teeth.

In the commentary for season 1 DVD, Burns recalls that he decided to have Church killed in episode 8 because he thought that having a dead character return as a ghost would give that character more personality. Writing for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Wilma Jandoc stated that this turn of events made it apparent that Red vs. Blue was no "normal army story." However, this plot twist made filming more difficult. To achieve the transparency effect, Rooster Teeth filmed the scene once with Church and once without him. The video from the two takes was then dissolved together. However, this process caused other characters in the scene to appear transparent as well. To correct this, they had to be edited back in as fully opaque at the end. Sometimes, Rooster Teeth forgot to shoot the second take before moving to the next scene. As it was nearly impossible to return to the exact camera position, this required the entire scene to be filmed twice more. Another complication was that dissolution worked poorly against certain backgrounds.

Voice acting

When Burns decided to have Church possess other characters as a ghost, he debated whether he should attempt to sound like the character, or have the other character's voice actor attempt to sound like Church. When the possession occurs in episode 14, he found that having Hullum tweak his Southern accent normally used for Sarge was too complicated and thus attempted to sound like Sarge during the possession. On the other hand, he found that attempting to mimic Donut's voice result in a voice too similar to the one used for Vic; as such, when he had Church possess Donut in episode 37, he merely used Church's voice.

Other Rooster Teeth personnel have commented that some sound effects that Burns made while voicing Church were noticeably exaggerated. In commenting on episode 6, Geoff Ramsey, who voices the character Grif, noted the heavy breathing that Church makes while running. Another sound that Rooster Teeth noted was a grunt made while jumping off a ledge in episode 33.

References

• Burns, Burnie (Writer, Director) et al. (2003). Red vs. Blue Season One (DVD). Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions. {{cite AV media}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |authors= (help)
• Burns, Burnie (Writer, Director) et al. (2004). Red vs. Blue Season Two (DVD). Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions. {{cite AV media}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |authors= (help)
• Burns, Burnie (Writer, Director) et al. (2005). Red vs. Blue Season Three (DVD). Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions. {{cite AV media}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |authors= (help)
• Burns, Burnie (Writer, Director) et al. (2006). Red vs. Blue Season Four (DVD). Buda, Texas: Rooster Teeth Productions. {{cite AV media}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |authors= (help)
• Jandoc, Wilma (December 5, 2004). ""Red vs. Blue" mines game for comedy gold". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Retrieved 2006-10-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Smith, Bryan (February 21, 2006). "Burnie Burns Interview". HaloGrid.com. Retrieved 2006-07-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)