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.'"
Very Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe some studio will pick up on the idea and make a feature-length film. We need something better than Doom!
We need these guys to get hired by valve (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:bad "marketing" angle (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes and no. it's easy to hide the bad CG with "shakeycam"(tm) because nothing stands still long enough to allow most viewers to see the poor placement or bad blending. Also their "shakey cam" was not all hanheld shots but some of them were done in composting to add in some camera movement. Unfortunately many people can see that because they used too little of a sample of shakyness and looped it causing a repeating pattern.
for highschool/college newbies This is a great job. but I would consider it a rough edit. It's not complete, the muzzle flashes are horrid simply because they are CG in instead of firing flash blanks. no real squibs, etc.... and for those of you that say you cant to the real stuff on a zero budget.. I say HA. I have rigged squibs for less than $1.00 each that are as safe as the $150.00 each hollywierd ones. and using blanks is as safe as the hollywood shots. it's all in camera angles you never actually aim the guns at the other actors.
It's a great fanfilm from someone brand new in the filming industry. but it needs a lot more editing and clean up the sg so they don't have to use shakeycam to hide the rough placement.
Just a part time pro that has been doing what they do for far far longer. They have an awesome start. If they keep refining their skills they will do FANTASTIC things.
Re:Very Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)
The rights for making a feature-length of Half-Life (1) were sold back in 2003.
But when a company sells the movie rights to a franchise, isn't such a contract usually written to expire within five years or so? Do you have a citation that we could look at?
Re:bad "marketing" angle (Score:3, Interesting)
Hollywood blanks are easy to make yourself. All you need is reloading equipment and the right stuff all bought at your local gun shop. I can make a pistol look like it fired a rocket because it has so much muzzle flash and leftover fireball.
No I wont tell you how. But it's not hard to do once you understand gunpowder and wadding.
Re:Very Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)
If Valve is smart, they sold the rights to the plot and characters, not the setting. That would allow something like this, set in City 17 and featuring known of the main Half-life characters, to be done without effecting those rights.