The Halo Community is filled with a never ending amount of wonderful people and creations. The Featured Artist section of Halo United focuses solely on art, the Featured Content Creator section focuses solely on an individual and now, there’s the Featured Project section of Halo United. The Featured Project section focuses on all times of mods, music and more.
The Halo Community Featured Project section of Halo United is a place for projects of any size and scale to be highlighted. Whether it’s a solo creator making a mod, or an entire team working towards something big, each Halo Community Featured Project will help answer some questions and shed some light as to where the project started and where it is going.
In this featured project, we’ll explore Project: REBIRTH. Being produced by Corona Interactive, the team want to create a cinematic series based on the Battle of Earth (more specifically, Sydney). I spoke with Jack, also known as SierraI07, about the project he is currently helping lead.
Q1. Could you give me some detail on what Project Rebirth Is?
REBIRTH is a passion project that, until very recently had been in development hell for many years. It’s a story which, like most others in the Halo universe revolves around war – but seeks to explore many different aspects of it, as well as the mental and physical toll it can take on humanity’s best. Set during the penultimate days of the Human-Covenant War, it follows several perspectives from both the civilian and military sides of the conflict during the Battle of Earth.
We don’t want to reveal everything about them yet, but, expect to see some familiar faces – and some new ones. SPARTAN Team Gold, recently re-activated in order to hold the line and protect humanity’s last bastion. Strike Force Omega, a combined military task force led by the finest of the UNSC’s Special Operations Forces. A Section 3 commander, risking his career and life to win the war. A civilian, left behind by her family – who falls under the wing of a battle hardened ODST Sergeant. A Brute Chieftain – eager to wipe out the ants beneath him, and begin the great journey.
Q2. What was the inspiration the project?
I quite honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you how many – but there are a lot! Several members of my family have served in the greatest military conflicts in recent Human history, and I wanted to explore the many aspects of conflict just as they had. Ranging from North Africa, Papua New Guinea, and the Western Front – their collective experiences, handed down to me by the stories they would tell (verbally or written) showed me the true and enduring spirit of the many men and women who served in these conflicts.
Sabotage, rescue, facing overwhelming odds in the face of adversity; just some of the things that inspired the story we aim to tell. Additionally, we have only seen bare glimpses of the Battle of Earth, whether through Halo 2 and 3, Ghosts of Onyx, the opening moments of the Kilo-Five trilogy, or Uprising. But, we’ve never actually seen it visually, how hard fought it was for Humanity to keep a hold of their cities, defending their people. Reach barely scratched the surface of what that effort looked like, and we intend to scratch that surface further.
Q3. How did the team come together and is there many people on the team?
Originally, myself and two others (@whereisdanielle and @AndAmber) were planning on making several short, live action films using ideas from both Destiny, and Halo. While those ultimately didn’t pan out, it led the way for us to think up Project: REBIRTH, and after several years (and making many new friends in the Halo community) we had many new and extremely talented artists join the team.
Some of these artists the community likely already knows, such as @RatDadJoe, @Rythayze, @GerardsJulien, as well as many, MANY others whose passion for the project leads us ever further towards fully realising our goal.
Q4. What is the scope of the project? Is there a set amount of episodes or episode lengths?
We don’t intend to hold anything back, whether it relates to the story we tell, the environments we create, or the characters we animate. We are obviously not a team that could pump out work to the same level of polish and quality as Blur Studios, but we hope to come as close as we can without burning ourselves in the process.
At this point in time, we have around 7 episodes planned, ranging from 18 to 25 minutes in length. Each episode will cover the conflict in ways that we hope will gain the interest of the community (that, and a project on this level has never been attempted before – so we hope people do intend on seeing it!)
Q5. How long has the project been in development and how long do you expect it to take until completion?
I would roughly say it’s been just over 5 years that we’ve had it cooking. Granted, that we did flip from idea to idea on how we would accomplish it (live action, to animated, to comic form, then novel form, now Octane Rendered), but we estimate it will take us some time to have everything ready.
We don’t feel comfortable in putting it out there until we’re absolutely confident that we’ve expended all our efforts into making it the best it can be. We are aiming to push out a trailer to advertise the project further closer to E3 2020, with the first episode potentially being ready for release by early to late November.
Q6. For those wanting to help out on the project, will there be any positions on the team available now or in the future?
We have several positions open for any inspired or interested parties to work with us to achieve the goal we have in mind! These positions, as well as the means to apply to them – are contained in the link below! https://t.co/pd0XWwsYTv?amp=1
Q7. Where can people find out more about the project? Do you have any pages and socials?
As we want to keep the internal development as secretive as possible, we will only disperse information, art, and other related aspects via our Twitter account – @Corona_Eternal, or by following the many artists mentioned beforehand. Those will be the only reliable ways to learn further information about the project – aside from joining on with us to work on it!
After hearing about the sheer amount of work and passion the team plans to put into this project, I really cannot wait to hear and see more. If you join me in feeling this wave of excitement, I encourage you to follow their twitter account given above for any updates.
You can check out more featured community members and fan content on Halo United. If you want to talk to the team, answer some polls, have a discussion or just post some memes, you can also find the Halo United team on Twitter. We also have a Halo United Discord for those who would like a more personal discussion, or just some Halo memes. You can also check out my Twitter, if you want to suggest or nominate anyone or anything for future features.
