Deliver Hope - Halo Reach
This was the advert shown on TV for Microsoft's latest Xbox game, Halo reach back in 2010. The idea behind this was to take the game's iconic figures such as the alien covenant and human marine soldiers, extract them out of the game and put them into live action. The ad is designed to still show features and characters of the game but to have it filmed in live action allowing for better special effects, a wider target market with a bigger and more impressive scope.
The ad opens with the game's age rating (17+) logo for a couple of seconds, from here it then cuts into the live action video. The ad shows a lone soldier with a bomb running through a battlefield while aircraft fly through the sky and aliens are fighting with the humans. The soldier then arms the bomb with in a POV (Point of view) shot and looks up at the large alien craft hovering overhead, indicating this is the target. Some more shots of the battlefield appear along with a POV shot and some slow motion. The soldier is shot down and we move to a close up on the bomb, reminding us the mission still needs completing. Another soldier arrives dressed in similar armour and flies the bomb to the alien ship. While inside the ship we have a long shot showing us everything that will be destroyed in the explosion, the bomb is thrown in and the soldier runs. This then cuts to a bird's eye view of the ship and zooms out as the ship explodes until you can see the whole planet, the game's tag lines appear "Remember where it all began. Remember Reach". The video cuts completely and the game's title, release date and company information is displayed. After this you see the Xbox 360 indent and a special offer for the game and console.
The advert is quite fast paced but does have it's slower moments giving the director the chance to use multiple different camera angles. To start with the first 4 shots you see are long angle shots, this allows you to establish what's going on and where the advert is taking place, the other advantage of a long shot is that the viewer or audience can see most if not all of what's going on. The POV shots show the main character's perspective, showing us her mission to destroy the overhead ship. In my opinion these were good opening shots as they quickly establish the surrounding area and you get a good sense of what is happening all done within the first 15 seconds. Another good effect used in the ad is the use of slow motion, this can be seen when our main character (Kat) is jumping, running and even falling as she is shot down by an aircraft. This could possibly be to add some grace amongst the chaos and death amidst the open battlefield around here.
For the music as far as I could tell it's only name is "Deliver Hope" and was created specifically for the TV ad. The music is quite and calm with a piano, drums and voices (no lyrics) which has been put up against the busy, fast and chaotic scenes the battlefield. The two have been juxtaposed as the vocals work well making the slow motion look graceful, and create a haunting effect when seen on the battlefield as many soldiers are dying. When the drums are played with the vocals it creates a heroic feel instead of a haunting one, this is used when the main characters (Kat and Thom) are on screen as they are the heroes of this short story.
The story is linear so it doesn't jump around in it's own timeline and follows two characters (Kat and Thom). There is no direct notion telling the audience, this is the start, middle and end of a significant event but I think this is supposed to be a small scene from a much larger event as indicated by the last shot of the planet showing multiple diffident battles making the victory and sacrifice seen in the advert small and insignificant.
In the ad there are many special effects used, these include Lasers, explosions, scenery, Aliens, aircraft HUD's (Heads up display), other digital displays and nozzle flashes on guns. Although these are all CGI there is still a large part that is live action. All the soldiers, weapons and locations are all real. From what I've seen in other adverts (Sony - Bouncy balls ad) things are better when they are done in live action, which lets the special effects enhance the video. All of the costumes, weapons and armour are taken the the designs in the game making it very accurate.
The adverts success is mainly on the internet as the game has a large fan-base and has made over two million view on Youtube. The ad gives an incite into what types of events the player/audience may experience in the game, this is further expressed with the use of POV shots. Overall I think this is a good advert because it shows a large scale scene made up of good CGI and a very big a big cast, the story is simple and includes two protagonists, heroism and sacrifice.
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