Half-Life Short Film Grabs Attention 72
switchfeet writes "For any of you Half-Life fans out there, this new short film based on the game by The Purchase Brothers is really garnering some attention on pretty much every gaming site out there. 'It's a mixture of live action and game footage, and makes smart use of in-game sound effects, and some really fantastic location hunting. ... The Purchase Bros describe the production as 'guerilla style with no money, no time, no crew, no script, the first two episodes were made from beginning to end on a budget of $500.'"
Re:The problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The movie is not about Gordon Freeman, which elegantly sidesteps that problem.
bad "marketing" angle (Score:5, Insightful)
(Time) First of all, as someone who works in CG, I can say without a doubt, that those effects would have taken a while to do. You don't just whip up cloud vortexes and comp them in a mere hour. It's this kind of talk that helps support the belief that you can push a button, and a computer takes care of all the effects.
So it would be prudent to say that the actual filming of the live action component was done in "no time". The entire film from concept to final would have taken at least a few weeks, if not a couple of months I imagine.
(Money) Second, they would have had to work with legitimate copies of 2D and 3D software. If it was done with anything other than Blender, then that's at least a few thousand dollars right there.
(Script) Third, it's the story that makes films great. Without a good script, a film is meaningless. I mean look how much effort the storytellers of the game put in to tell a great story in an fps shooter. I don't think it's a wise thing to boast that one has no script.
I am not trying to belittle the film, as an amateur short with the given constraints it works as best as it can. But I just wanted to expand on the angle that they are trying to push their film from.
Money where my mouth is. (Score:3, Insightful)
I will pay for this on DVD/BluRay/Download.
I would love to see this taken to completion. This is what I have been hoping for in a "HalfLife Movie".
Re:Valve (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, then the Counter-Strike team was hired by Valve. And previously, the Team Fortress team was hired by valve. And then Day of Defeat team was hired by valve. And then the Narbacular Drop team was hired by valve.
There's a pattern here; even if Valve's executives aren't a "group of dedicated gamers", a large proportion of their best staff is. And those executives certainly have a pretty commendable attitude at running a business. They encourage community works (Black Mesa, for example, or this film project) where other large companies would squash them.
And how many other companies have a chief executive who not only encourages customers to e-mail him, but actually responds to many of them? Not enough.
Re:bad "marketing" angle (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Valve (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish other companies would realize that this attitude has made Valve money. Rather than attempting shut down Counterstrike for touching their precious IP, they looked at it, bought it and thereby made lots and lots of money.