Halo Movie May be Shot on Red

[Zac C]

Ok, this is my thinking, Peter Jackson has fallen in love with RED, and hes not executive producer of the hopeful Halo Movie (based on the award winning game Halo 1,2,and soon 3)

So he would prob urge the Director to shoot with Red to show off its capabilities, i mean if the Halo Movie were to be released, every game fan would see it... (and all the game fans who bought Halo 2 opening night and it made more money that Spiderman 2 did) So it would be a bonus for RED by getting so much publicity... scifi movie shot on a scifi camera


Ill try and find some proof for what i said... but you guys help me

[Bruce Allen]

Neill Blomkamp played with the Red on Crossing the Line so that would lend credence to your theory.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Robert Sanders]

I thought "Halo" was in turnaround.

[Clayton Harper]

I heard that PJ and Microsoft want too many points and so no movie.

Neil B is the perfect choice for HALO, btw. I was REALLY sad when the project stalled out.

[Zack Birlew]

I'm sure that by the time they get the Halo project running again the RED will be, no question, the best format of choice. Especially since they can preview, color correct, and edit as they go along. Would save the budget quite a bit in the long run I think and the budget concern is exactly what the issue was with the movie and why they stalled it.

So, the RED's not even released and it still saves the day!

[PaulClements]

I remember reading somewhere about the possibility of the film being reexamined after the release of the Halo 3 ad and the storm that followed it. I believe some discussions resumed due to the obvious potential.

Personally I can't stand the games or the idea of a film of it. I mean... you create a weapon and on it you store the most deadly aliens in one room that if they escape and take over the ship the universe will be destroyed? If they were that deadly how did you get them all in one room? and why did you put them on the most destructive weapon in the universe? I've probably got the story all wrong mind you, but I fancy Peter Jackson actually played the original one day and realised what a pathetic story it really is.

[Bruce Allen]

Yup, haven't played Halo. Just know about the movie because I like to keep up on what South African directors are up to - there aren't many of us, so it's pretty easy to do ;)

Sounds like the way Microsoft presented the script to the studios rubbed them up the wrong way a bit though... what with the couriers dressed in Master Chief outfits who delivered the script, then waited in the building so that they could take the scripts back, demanding the studio folk stop whatever they were doing, read it, and make them an offer... or at least that was the distorted rumor that I heard!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Brook Willard]

I'll still never forgive Bungie for selling out and not making it a Mac-only title like it was originally supposed to be when it was introduced at MacWorld.

But hey, I'm just bitter. :)

[Steven M. Bailey]

Halo's genius was in its progressive AI design. The enemy was smarter and more reactive than most previous games. The story however was the kind of stuff that legends are made of. Really bad legends. The kind of legends that you don't tell your kids about for fear the rest of the world will find out and think your a smuck.

I like the game for the mechanics of it as a multi player fps, I play it with my kids from time to time. If Jackson can put an original spin on a broken a$$ story than more power too him. The characters are good, its the over-all premise that sucks like a brand-new vacuum cleaner.

L8ter

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I agree.

In the end, a Halo movie will make money. It will fare about the same as most other game-based movies like DOOM, Super Mario Bros., and for sure better than Double Dragon. In fact, if handled properly, even with it's sucky story, it could do better than DOOM, possibly. And that's what all this is really about at the end of the day -- turning a profit.

Never really liked Halo as a game. The game AI was pretty phony, even for the time. It tried to be adaptive, but it was rather easy to beat or use it's "adaptive" nature to your advantage once you figure out how it "thinks". I never had any interest in the sequels, mostly because the story behind the game and the gameplay itself just didn't "do it" for me. And like pretty much every other fps game out there, playing through the single-player story puts me to sleep. It's like a carnival fun-house ride. Although, DOOM3 has to be the biggest disappointment in that respect, ever. ...That's a different story though. I don't have time to play games these days anyway.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I'll still never forgive Bungie for selling out and not making it a Mac-only title like it was originally supposed to be when it was introduced at MacWorld.

But hey, I'm just bitter. :)

Uhhh... if by Mac-Only you mean Mac, PC and possibly Linux then that statement is correct.

[Zack Birlew]

Actually, the story of Halo the game isn't too bad, it's just that they left the beginning of it out so that you couldn't understand what was going on. The books based on Halo explain a lot and are very film-friendly, that is if they were going to use the books at all anyways. The beginning story of how the Spartans came to be and what happened before Halo broke out was enough to be its own movie, which would make sense since it was its own book after all. The Halo that we saw in the game was book 2 and, even then, the book had a whole backstory mixed into it that we didn't see in the game.

So, I would hope they would stick to the books at least and not go off somewhere else and potentially ruin it.

[PaulClements]

...I don't have time to play games these days anyway.

I'm in the same boat. There fun from time to time but i don't really have much time these days.

One game that has taken my interest is Crysis though. I like it because they've begun to understand what makes a good film look good. Other video games look like... well video. With Crysis however they're putting in depth of field and other such measures in an attempt to emulate the look of film a little more, something I'm suprised hasn't been done far far more in games. I don't think they're there just yet. They could really do with employing a few DP's when producing these graphic engines and tutoring the games designers on the look of particular lenses and how they'd act in the different situations etc. Games and films share a lot of the same qualities but for some reason they rarely seem to use certain individuals from either genre. CG artists come closest to crossing over seemlessly.

[Zac C]

I remember reading somewhere about the possibility of the film being reexamined after the release of the Halo 3 ad and the storm that followed it. I believe some discussions resumed due to the obvious potential.


i read that somewhere also, ive been trying to find the article. But seeing as Halo 2 beat out everything in Entertainment industry for getting the most money opening day/night. I don't see how a studio could turn it down, well they could see another Doom, but seriously, you have PJ on this, the nobody who made lord of the rings

[Andrew Kimery]

I'm in the same boat. There fun from time to time but i don't really have much time these days.

One game that has taken my interest is Crysis though. I like it because they've begun to understand what makes a good film look good. Other video games look like... well video. With Crysis however they're putting in depth of field and other such measures in an attempt to emulate the look of film a little more, something I'm suprised hasn't been done far far more in games. I don't think they're there just yet. They could really do with employing a few DP's when producing these graphic engines and tutoring the games designers on the look of particular lenses and how they'd act in the different situations etc. Games and films share a lot of the same qualities but for some reason they rarely seem to use certain individuals from either genre. CG artists come closest to crossing over seemlessly.

Technologically speaking adding things like depth of field to a video game is very demanding which is why it hasn't happened yet. Pre-rendering a CG movie at 24fps is quite a different thing from rendering an interactive video/computer game on the fly at 60-120fps using a video game console or off-the-shelf computer. There are a billion things game designers would love to do but can't because the technology isn't there to make it possible w/in the confines of a video/computer game.


-A

[Simon Blackledge]

One games place I know has just had dop's in to show the artists how to set up effective replay cameras.. for best action shots..

DOF.. they put it in the wrong place and stuff looks like a model. Nor do they animate it for pull focus.. shame !

give me a CC and a glow and a grain with some math and games can be made to look better.. just some people really do like the clean sharp look.

.edit..
just seen the above post..
DOF is in.. it's just basically multiple offset renders of the same frame. From looking at the last one I saw.. the motion blur was 4 samples.. dof when subtle, used this.. when not was positional with a mask blur.. but live on replays :-/ just it was in the wrong place to be effective.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Screw DoPs, hire some compositors. Compositors already know what it takes to make CG footage look real-ish. Not to mention absolutely unsurpassed in their abilities to find quick visual hacks which don't require a lot of rendering.

Give a compositor a bunch of render passes from an average 'next-gen' game and watch can be done to make the visuals shine.