While the characterization isn't entirely accurate and the story re-arranged for the purposes of time and entertainment, I have to say that the new live-action short film for Deus Ex: Human Revolution from director Moe Charif and featuring the sound design from HOBO Audio is pretty darn sweet.
It's a very brisk-moving 12 minute video that takes a snippet of some of the most iconic imagery from Eidos' latest home console title and translates it into something equally iconic as far as live-action visuals go.
The film uses a lot of the same cues from the game that were composed by Michael McCann – a soundtrack, by the way, that has now become absolutely legendary in its own way, much in the same way that Vangelis' Blade Runner score has now gone down in history as one of the best sci-fi soundtracks of all time.
The short film's clean look and amazingly directed action sequences keep viewers very well engaged, and there's never a dull moment. There's also a surprisingly amount of attention paid to the small details of the game, from Jensen's HUD to his arm blades to those awesome explosives that you get later on in the game that are used to disperse a room full of baddies. It's all (mostly) there.
I'm sure there are some die-hards who probably are a bit incensed that the video portrays Jensen as a killing machine – even though technically, it was entirely the player's choice as to whether or not they made Adam into a kill-on-sight infiltrator like Robocop or an easy-going stealth artist like Johnny No. 5.
Anyway, HOBO's president Howard Bowler was pretty pleased with the end results of the short film, saying...
“When I saw the rough cut of Moe’s initial trailer, I knew this was something we were going to be proud of,” ... “It looked incredible, and this film gives us the opportunity to put our sound design capabilities toward something totally different. Moe’s action sequences were extremely well thought out visually and we were gratified that he was open to some experimentation sonically.”
The video is definitely making the rounds and getting some necessary exposure as it closes in on nearly 450,000 total views since recently going live. The feedback has definitely been positive, but I'm sure Machinima Prime is looking for the real big numbers... the seven digit figures. I would hope they'll go about promoting the video in an honest way to avoid something like the Xbox One fiasco from happening again.
Regardless of Machinima's politics, Moe Charif, the video's director, was just happy to get the project out there, writing in the press release that...
“When I work with good artists, I always give them the freedom to be creative, and we experimented a bit until we got something that worked. I was looking for a specific sound that depicted the robotic and electronic nature of the characters while sounding cool and realistic. I’m very happy with the end result -- HOBO was great to work with and I think Diego's work speaks for itself. “
You can learn more about the making of the short film and the credits by paying a kind visit to the official DCode Films website. Let's just hope that the Hollywood movie based on Human Revolution is as high quality and consistent as this short film.
