HollywoodHalo - Behind the Helmets

[imSuck]

HollywoodHalo, one of the first amateur Halo Machinima groups to make it big in the gaming community and proved that any average Joe can make great movies on a budget.

HollywoodHalo's humble beginnings
Clan HollywoodHalo was created on 1/29/05 by myself (imSuck) and several other members, most of which are no longer around. For around four years, it served the purpose of housing a group of Machinima enthusiasts to easily come together on Bungie's Halo game series to make movies (Machinima), play Halo and just have fun.

How did we get started?
It started with my love for making movies. I used to make cinematic short movies using Warcraft 3 rather than making playable customer games like so many others in that community. In that community I was known as "Sinema", contrary to my current alias "imSuck". I began playing Halo 1 at LAN tournaments with friends and got hooked on the game. Not long after, I stumbled upon the most popular Machinima series "Red vs. Blue". Of course I was instantly hooked and like many other Machinima-enthusiasts... I wanted to make movies like they did.

My best friend and former roommate gave me a, now quite dated; Panasonic TV-Tuner card which I came to find could record video and audio input on my PC. I started making short movies of fooling around in Halo doing stunts in Warthogs, among other things. Once I realized my great interest in filming, directing and editing; I decided to continue making these short films while recruiting friends along the way. With the help of my roommate, we set up a personal server to host my first site, Lazyspoon.com (don't ask).

Not having any money to spare for server expenses, we put the home-made server on a friend's home internet connection. From the site, I shared short Halo movies I made with friends; much to the dismay of that internet connection which was buckling under the increasing download speed from site visitors.

After my movies started to gain popularity on sites like Halo.Bungie.org and Highimpacthalo.org we formed a Machinima clan devoted to making Halo movies, called HollywoodHalo. The clan name itself was thought up by an old friend by the name OutspokenChimp who was one of the first members. We've lost and gained many amazing members and friends along the way, as well as traversed through some very tough times both in and outside of our online-lives.

Around this time, I joined forced with a new found friend Arabian Camel who owned the domain HaloGrid.com which was hardly being put to use. I ditched the Lazyspoon site endeavor and began a partnership with Camel. HaloGrid would become the home of Clan HollywoodHalo. I created movies branded with both the HH and HG name and Camel managed the domain, server and forum software, and so began the community of HaloGrid.com revolving around fans of Halo Machinima and HollywoodHalo. Some years later (closer to present date), Camel became increasingly absent due to college and work, so I took over managing the server with the help of friends (now site admins) made along the way. We moved the site from host to host trying to balance our high demand in users for server speed and the cost of hosting such a community.

Present day, HollywoodHalo has been on an extended hiatus from production for quite some time now... with the exception of creating a few films here and there to show appreciation for our friends and fans. The delay in production is primarily contributed by my job which is now the majority of my day to day life.

Plans are being made to produce new movies in the upcoming prequel release to the Halo series Halo: Reach. We've even created a film teasing our friends and fans of our could-be "comeback" entitled Halo: Reach Tips & Tricks, complete with Bloopers.

Veteran HollywoodHalo members (those who were around the longest):

• imSuck
• blackouTT
• FrankSixer
• BastardlyDanny
• Mike W Caizza
• Gilean

To see a great collection of HollywoodHalo's Machinima, visit imSuck's YouTube page.


Some milestones along the way:

• HaloGrid.com has been mentioned on G4TV's Net to Know list.
• Weezer.com (official band site) mentioned our music video for their song Beverly Hills in their news updates which was a first in the Halo community.
• HollywoodHalo competed against (and beat) Bungie in their own Humpday Tournament
• Bungie mentioned our Webring JPhan7om and I created in the community news.
• We were nominated for over 10 movies in the 3rd Annual Rockets on Prisoners awards
• We took home the Best Cinematography 3rd Annual Rockets on Prisoners awards
• We even managed to land an interview with Burnie Burns (Creator of Red vs. Blue) which came as a great surprise to both us and the community.
• Two of our key voice actors BastardlyDanny and FrankSixer were interviewed at MLG New York by CNBC for a segment called 'On the money'
• imSuck was featured in Bungie's Community Spotlight
• Beautiful Needler was mentioned in Bungie.net community news
• 10 ways to tell if you're a noob at Halo 3 was mentioned in Bungie.net community news
• Countless mentions on Halo.Bungie.org
• First place submission for the official Bungie Mythic Map Pack Contest

[Viper]

I love this clan I have a few of the movies on my computer!

--Viper

[Nova]

Veteran break down.

imSuck: I remember the first time I played with you. It was a random action replay game on lockout and everyone was sitting in green room on lockout with "glowsticks" (plasma pistols) and "laser pointers" (sentinel beams), creating a rave while someone played music over their mic. It was a pretty big deal to me at the time because I loved all of your movies and I thought you were a big star. Second time I played with you, I was way less shy and I remember making everyone in the party laugh after yelling "WE GET IT BRYAN SMITH, YOU SHOOT THE GAUSS CANNON TO MAKE THE SCREEN SHAKE, WAY TO FUCKING REVOLUTIONIZE MACHINIMA". The friend request came soon after, and the rest is history. You suck at drawing pringles on omgpop, and I thank you for getting me in to Aion. :)


blackouTT: Always loved your voice acting. Never really talked with you personally, but your on my XBL friends list (or were, not sure if you're still on there) and we -usually- see eye to eye with most forum discussions. I never have had anything bad to say about you.


FrankSixer: Your voice acting always made me laugh my ass off. I always saw you as the truly funny guy of the entire group, and I recently discovered that you can do so many different voices, it's ridiculous. Plus, there is always this.



BastardlyDanny: Played MLG with you a few times, never really talked to you much. Don't have really anything to say about you other than your parts in Hollywood Halo's films consistently had me laughing.


Mike W Caizza: Never talked to you, always wished I had before you disappeared. You still have the best scream in machinima to date. And there have been a LOT of machinima screams.

Gilean: Mr. Moridian. My bro. You make me laugh constantly, we play shadowrun together, and you are one of the only people I can go to to bitch about MLG things that agrees with me and, hell, even understands what i'm talking about. You're one of my favorite puppeteer/voice actors ever, and you definitely know how to shoot a mean pistol. StackTrollFirstRound strat forever. :)

There you go. :)

[AxMan]

Ahhh Hollywood Halo. The soul inspiration for me to start machinima. I loved HH, and I always will.

I became very close friends with the HH staff. Including: imSuck. blackouTT, Frank Sixer, Gilean, and many more. And it's all thanks to HH. Thanks again you bk's :D

[Claz]

Many thanks to you guys for jump starting my interests in the world of machinima, and later on cinematography. Wouldn't be who I am today if it were not for you (:

[Lazy]

You guys fucking inspired so many people!

I remember when i had halo 2 and i was just playing for fun, then i had friends telling me about HaloGrid.com
You guys changed my viewing of gaming, i F-ING love Machinima and i wouldnt have been into it if it weren't for you guys.

I remember i played with you Suck, my gt WAS LaZyHaLoMaStEr, and we played MLG FFA with like 14 other people.
sucks i couldnt have met BlackouTT, Frank, Danny, etc.

Thanks alot and Im glad to still be part of this community.

HG <3

[Diggy.B]

Although I've played a few games with all of you guys, I've never had any real discussions with any of you. Hopefully that will change someday soon. But in the meanwhile, I've got to say that HH has probably been one of the biggest factors to my life. Without it, I wouldn't have realized my interest in design.

[Senor]

You should add playing in the Bungie Hump day to the list.

[FourOneTwo]

HollywoodHalo = the best clan ever. Red vs Who?

[Underdawg253]

You guys are cool I guess.