Halo: Reach - Story & Cinematic Notebooks
Halo: Reach was my first game project where I drove the story AND the cinematics. It was by far one of my favorite productions to work on, mostly because it had fantastic leadership; the production grew organically, starting with a small core team; and that we pretty much shipped what we had set out to make (which can be somewhat rare in AAA).
The task was to make a Halo game that would appeal to the fans but NOT feature Master Chief (that trilogy had literally been put to bed). It would be a full title and Bungie's Halo swan song. I'm very proud that we delivered.
From my perspective, a prequel made sense - something that could expand the universe by looking inwards. I loved the idea of focusing on what it felt like to be a Spartan with their boots firmly on the ground. Themes of kinship and self-sacrifice led to decisions to remove Spartan helmets on poignant occasions and to shoot the cinematics in a grounded style where every camera was justified.
When it comes to these very rough notes and scribbles of mine, you may notice that many of the shots are out of order. This was due to me often having a crystal clear picture of shots in mind but had yet to figure out the sequence at the first pass stage. I also chose to draw everything in pen (a Pilot Razor Point) so as not to labor anything just to make it look good. And, they didn't need to look good because when we first started out previsualizing the cinematics we were a cinematics team of two, who were also learning how to use Motion Capture for the first time. We even built a trackable virtual camera out of a marked up 2X4. Crazy.
You'll also notice that I made a lot of character blocking diagrams - they were not just used for working out camera placement but also for our motion capture sessions. Since we only had two suits, any scenes that featured more than two characters required careful choreography. On most occasions, I donned the spandex and played all the male characters. Believe me, the novelty soon wore off.
I hope you enjoy browsing through this sampling of Behind the Scenes sketches. You may even shed a tear for the two Spartans (Rosenda and Thom) that never made it into the final game, along with an awesome boat mission that was too technically expensive at the time.
Spartans never die. They're just missing in action.
Exploring individual character poses
Rosenda's Death page 1
Rosenda was a Spartan team member who was cut due to budget. Her design proposal was to have her be a little shorter than the others to contrast with Jorge with whom she had a close mentor-mentee bond.
Rosenda's Death page 2
I had always planned for the main antagonist to kill a beloved team member in a sudden way. Had we kept Rosenda, Kat would have lived to escort Halsey instead of Jun.
Our link between the past and the present was the player's helmet
Not only was the player a replacement for a fallen teammate in a tight-knit team, I also liked the idea of the player feeling like they had shown up to the party late and needed to catch up.
Jorge broke the rule of removing his helmet in front of a civilian in order to gain trust. He too was a Reach native. The tragedy of Jorge is that he would have wanted to die on Reach, which he never got to do.
This layout still had Sara being handed over to Halsey
These were some of the moves for the Sniper Mission opening cinematic
The Tip of the Spear mission was intentionally in complete contrast to the previous night time stealthy mission. This was huge, bright and loud.
In order to smoothly transition from one environment to the next without a load time, this cinematic space was hidden away in the following mission space.
The analogy I used for Kat's plan of setting off a slipspace drive on a Covenant ship was to add a Mentos to a Diet Coke bottle.
Ahh, rope deploying to the boat would have been fun. Alas, the boat mission was cut. Water physics was a real challenge back then.
While there was plenty of important information in this cinematic, including that revelation that Reach is lost, the intention was to load it with details that made Kat's death inevitable while still being a surprise.
Dialogue edits. It needed to flow and gain momentum.
We've all been in a hurry and miss-hit the elevator button - that very human moment was the inspiration for Kat's rare connection with the player, just moments before she is sniped because she trailed the group by a split second.
The age-old question of where to stick the most important package for humanity to a Spartan with no pockets.
I had fun with giving the Carter all the power in this cinematic. Making Halsey low in frame and implying that Jun was ordered to shoot her rather than have her fall into enemy hands, should the time come.
Not sure why I drew Keyes looking like Bernie Sanders. The idea was to hopefully convince 3D that he needed a coat, to suggest that he conducted an exterior inspection of the Pillar of Autumn prior to departure.
The idea for the Player last stand mission came late in production. It really was not within budget, but it was so important that everyone came together and made it work.
It was always the intention to complete the circle by including the opening of the first Halo. It also served as an invitation for new Halo players to consider playing the trilogy.
