The Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge isn’t the only fan film contest in the news this week. Halo video games are played all around the world, and as if to prove the point, the European arm of Microsoft announced the winner of its Halo: Recut fan film contest on Monday.
The top entry is Master Chief’s Day Off, a slick piece of machinima by Scott Robertson, 25, of Cardiff, UK. While all eight European finalists won an Xbox 360 Elite System and a copy of Halo 3, Robertson also received the grand prize: an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to study at the New York Film Academy.
Master Chief’s Day Off is a funny little flick, portraying the game’s hero as unable to deal with the challenges of everyday life—like using a bathroom in his big metal suit or trying to change a lightbulb. While the movie clearly won for its merits, it sounds like Robertson really deserved his lucky break; in a press statement, he remarked, “I spent six years battling a serious illness which resulted in several major operations, the last being in November 2007. It was during my recovery from this final operation that I heard about the Halo: Recut competition, and working on this video really helped me through this difficult time.”
Now healthy again, Robertson will head off from his day job at British Gas in Cardiff for L.A. “I studied Animation at the University of Glamorgan,” he said, “and this is great chance for me to throw myself back into the world of film—where better than the home of cinema to do this! I just want to say a huge thank you to Xbox, Bungie and, of course, Master Chief for all the help this competition gave me, and above all the opportunity to live out my dream.”
Robertson used a Master Chief model from www.linefour.com, while he nabbed sound effects from www.sounddogs.com. Other finalist entries in the contest came from Austria, France, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Spain and Sweden; some of those other flicks include Master Chief’s exploits as a TV chef, a Spartan high school reunion, and even the hero breakdancing to MC Hammer. You can check out all the flicks at the Halo: Recut website.
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