Live-action in Cinematics: A look at the Halo franchise

I'm not much of a gamer.  I play games occasionally, but no where near to the extent of how often I use to play, maybe 10 years ago.   So when thinking about incorporating live-action in a game cinematic I was curious as to whether this was done often within the industry.  I wanted to find some examples of game cinematics which utilise live-action as a major part of their promotion.

It seems that using live action in cinematics is growing in popularity, with many games releasing both animated and live action promotion.   

The Halo franchise is a pretty good example.  Starting with Halo 3, the franchise began to use live-action trailers and shorts for the promotion of the Halo games.


Halo 3 Promotion:
Starry night: Live action/ CGI cinematic
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, VFX by Digital Domain.

This short cinematic uses live-action only for the two children seen at the beginning.  As seen in the making of that follows the cinematic everything else is completely digital.  The realistic look of the environments helps to blend the live-action into the CG very well so that the change between the two is not jolting.

For such a short clip this cinematic does a good job of helping the viewer to relate to the characters, with the introduction providing a very human element to the story.





Landfall:
Another promotion for Halo 3 was a small series of video teasers directed by Neill Blomkamp which were released together as Landfall.  Landfall depicts the Halo universe in a live-action setting.  While it is interesting to see, I felt that for the majority of the teaser I really didn't care about characters, aside from passing moments of interest (the wounded soldier being pulled from the vehicle began to add some humanity ) it wasn't until the last 2 minutes that I actually felt connected at all.  Personally I feel that the teaser would have been more successful to me had that emotional connection been established earlier on.




Believe Campaign:
The Believe campaign is a series of 5 live-action ads directed by Rupert Sanders to promote Halo 3.  I think that this is a really interesting and innovative promotion.  The interview/ documentary style works well to expand the world in which Halo is set, and build the stories of the people who inhabit that world- rather than regurgitating cut-scenes from within the game.




The diorama seen in the last ad is really spectacular, so I also had to share it's making of here as well.  The making of carries on in the same documentary style as the ads- talk about consistency!




Halo 3: ODST promotion
Moving on from Halo 3, the next installment in the series also utilised Live-Action for its cinematic.  This cinematic has a really strong narrative throughout




Halo 4 promotion:

Forward Unto Dawn (2012):
Halo 4 was promoted with a live-action webseries, which was directed by Stewart Hendler.
The series is set prior to the Halo 4 game, and ties in with it.  I have watched only the first part, so far it builds emotional connections to the characters well, and seems to put emphasis on continued character development.




Halo 4 'The Commissioning' 2012 E3 trailer:
Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig.

The trailer starts out with a live-action segment which develops the backstory before switching over to more of a gameplay trailer. 




Halo 4 'Scanned' - Live Action launch Trailer 2012:
Directed by Tim Miller, Produced by David Fincher

I was quite impressed with this live-action cinematic for its strong sense of narrative.  It feels like an origin story, and manages to show master chief as a child, then a soldier without feeling rushed. 
The cinematic also makes good use of POV shots, which reflect the first person shooter style of gameplay in a way that doesn't detract from the cinematic or turn it into a gameplay trailer.