Making of Shooting a Hero

Making of Shooting a Hero was a behind-the-scenes video detailing the production of the Shooting a Hero marketing campaign as part of Halo 3's broader Believe campaign.

Transcript

DO YOU BELIEVE?

Footage from the Halo 3 announcement trailer plays, with the Master Chief walking out of a smokey ruin, then cuts to the Portal at Voi as it is activated.

• Narrator: Halo 3 was one of the most anticipated game launches ever.

Footage from the Starry Night trailer plays, with the Master Chief crouched on the sand of the battlefield. It then cuts to live-action footage of a crowd, presumably gamers during Halo 3's launch.

• Narrator: Beyond the traditional gamer market, Xbox wanted to target a more sophisticated demographic.

Footage of the Museum of Humanity from the Museum trailer plays, including veteran Pawel Czernek looking through a glass case.

• Narrator: The large idea was to create a Museum of Humanity, a space and concept devoted to those that lost their lives fighting in this war.

Footage of the Jake Courage website as seen on Xbox.com.

• Narrator: As an extension of this idea, a fictional war photographer was created, called Jake Courage.

Two snapshots of select scenes in the John-117 Monument, cutting to footage of figurines' production, including digital rendering and clay sculpture.

• Narrator: Academy Award-winning model-maker Stan Winston was commissioned to make an army of game character models.

The camera pans to framed photos of scenes from the John-117 Monument as part of the exhibition.

• Narrator: Photographs of these scenes were taken, and a black-and-white exhibition was held in 62 cinemas across the UK.

Members of the public walk through an exhibition of Jake Courage's photos. It then cuts to the beginning of the Shooting a Hero short documentary.

Shooting a Hero
An exhibition of photographs by Jake Courage

• Narrator: A two-minute documentary about Jake Courage and his exhibition, "Shooting a Hero", was produced and ran in cinema and online.

Footage of the Shooting a Hero trailer airing on small TVs that hang over a cinema's concession stand. It then cuts back to the Jake Courage website on Xbox.com, including a video panning across a room filled with hanged photographs.

• Narrator: JakeCourage.com fielded over 60,000 hits in its first week. The exhibition was so successful that every single one of the 800 framed images produced were stolen. Many found their way onto Ebay and are now legitimate collector's items.

Three listings on Ebay of original prints from Jake Courage exhibits, including photos of a Marine carrying his wounded comrade, a headshot of the Master Chief—Courage's final photo, and a headshot of a Marine in anguish. It then cuts to forum boards discussing the Jake Courage marketing campaign, a news article from The Guardian about the campaign, and Jake Courage's article on Halopedia, written by the advertising team behind the campaign.

• Narrator: Jake Courage and his photographic exhibition went beyond advertising, exciting both gamer and non-gamer communities — and went on to become an integral part of Xbox and Halo's brand history.

A montage of various scenes from the John-117 Monument that were photographed, before fading to black.

HALO 3 WAS THE HIGHEST-GROSSING ENTERTAINMENT LAUNCH OF ALL TIME

OPENING WEEKEND SALES SURPASSED ANY FILM OR MUSIC LAUNCH EVER

JAKECOURAGE.COM

Production Notes

The video was narrated by the same person who narrated Shooting a Hero as Jake Courage's son John. Like many other parts of the Believe campaign, "Preludes #15, Raindrop" by Frédéric Chopin plays throughout the video.