The Life (advertisement)
Encyclopedia
The Life, also known as We Are ODST is a television and cinema advertisement
launched in 2009 by Microsoft
to promote the Xbox 360
-exclusive video game Halo 3: ODST in the United States. The 120-second piece follows a young soldier through enlistment, training, and battle. The Life was created by advertising agency
T.A.G., an offshoot of McCann Erickson
. Production of the commercial itself was handled by production company
Morton/Jankel/Zander (MJZ). It was directed by Rupert Sanders, and post-production
was conducted by Asylum. The commercial and its associated campaign, proved hugely successful; on the week of its launch, Halo 3: ODST became the top-selling game for the Xbox 360 worldwide, and over 2.5 million copies were sold within the first few weeks of release. The Life went on to win a number of honours from the advertising and entertainment industries, including two Clio Awards, a London International Advertising Award and several honours from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising industry.
. The cloth is ceremonially folded and passed to an old woman among the mourners. A singer begins to sing in Welsh
, as the attending officer orders a gun salute in Hungarian
. The camera cuts to another scene; the young man, Tarkov, is having his head shaved. A montage
of scenes begins showing Tarkov undergoing recruit training
, moving along courses under razor wire
or underwater. Again, the camera cuts ahead. Tarkov is in a one-man "drop pod", entering the atmosphere above a battlefield. He emerges under fire and enters battle alongside several other soldiers, moving over corpses and through plasma fire until he encounters a Covenant Brute
. The Brute knocks him aside, sending his helmet flying and scarring Tarkov's face, before the debris from a falling Banshee aircraft kills the Brute. The film jumps ahead again; Tarkov is now a veteran soldier, and oversees a memorial service for one of his fallen comrades amidst burning ruins, before the sound of gunfire draws him and his team back to the fight.
made the decision to consolidate its marketing efforts with a single advertising agency
, after several years of partnership with different agencies for each of its product line. They entertained pitches from each of the agencies on their roster, and ultimately assigned the global account to McCann Erickson
. Two years later, after the launch of Microsoft's first video game console
, the Xbox
, McCann was assigned the task of promoting what would become the "killer app" of the Xbox, the video game Halo: Combat Evolved
. The launch campaign (titled Saviour) was hugely successful, selling over five million copies of the game worldwide. The success of Halo: Combat Evolved led to a series of sequels
and tie-in merchandise including books and action figures.
In 2007, McCann launched a multi-platform global advertising campaign titled Believe to promote the latest game in the Halo series, Halo 3
. Believe proved a tremendous popular, critical, and financial hit. Over £
84 million of sales were made on the first day of release alone, the highest-grossing opening sale of an entertainment product ever. Believe received dozens of awards from the advertising community, including eight Clio Awards
, Best in Show at the ANDY Awards, and two Grand Prix (for Film and Integrated campaigns) at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising industry. According to the Gunn Report
, Believe was the second-most-awarded integrated advertising campaign of 2008, behind Earth Hour
for the World Wide Fund for Nature
.
, a first-person shooter
called Halo 3: ODST. It would be the first game in the franchise not to feature the series' protagonist, the Master Chief
. McCann returned with a pitch
for a campaign in the same vein as Believe, aiming to humanize the soldiers featured in the Halo universe. The project was greenlit, and McCann brought back several collaborators from Believe to handle this new campaign, now given the working title of The Life.
Director Rupert Sanders, known for his work with production company
MJZ on campaigns such as Lava for Guinness
and Great Return for Nike, Inc.
, was given five weeks to produce the commercial, with three days set aside for filming. Several locations were scouted
for shooting, with an eye towards an "Eastern Bloc
" aesthetic. These included several areas around Chernobyl, Ukraine
. However, the tight schedule precluded using locations too distant from one another for different scenes and, in the end, three spots outside of Budapest, Hungary
were settled upon: the cooling tower
of an active nuclear power station was dressed to act as the backdrop to the opening funeral scene; an open-pit
coal mine
served as the setting for the battle scenes, and an abandoned aluminum factory was used to stage the closing funeral scene.
Sanders drew inspiration for the shooting style and aesthetic of the commercial from a variety of sources, including news footage from journalists embedded with military forces in Afghanistan
, and Russian feature films such as Stalker
and Come and See
. To keep the details within the commercial consistent with established Halo canon
, the creators of the Halo series, Bungie Studios, provided Sanders with information on aspects ranging from appropriate fur color and rank insignia for the Brute, to the armor and weaponry of the ODST soldiers.
company Asylum to begin work on the substantial visual effects
component of The Life. The team, which tripled in size as the scale of the work required became apparent, were given a deadline of three weeks. Work on the opening funeral scene was relatively easy, requiring the creation of only minor elements such as additional tombstones in the foreground and color correction
on the actors. The same was true for the training sequence, where only minimal tracking work
and compositing of matte backgrounds
was required. The bulk of the video effects work was in the battle sequence. This ranged from simple work such as wire removal
to the creation of dynamic lighting and reflections from visors and armor, to particle effects for the background smoke and dust, plasma weapon fire and alterations to some of the filmed explosions to lend them the appearance given to plasma explosions within the Halo games. While the Brute was animatronic, minor adjustments such as scaling and the improvement of fine muscle movements
of the creature were made. Other elements, such as the Banshee aircraft and the drop-pods, were created entirely through the use of CGI
. Software used by Asylum included Nuke
for compositing
, Maya
for animation, RenderMan and Mantra for rendering, SynthEyes for tracking, Silhouette Pro for rotoscoping work, and Flame
.
for Human Worldwide. The music, an arrangement of Light of Aidan's "Lament", was created specifically for the ad, and featured a wide variety of instruments. Percussive
elements included military snare drum
s, a hand drum
, Samoan log drum
s and stones tapped against one another. These were joined by a Great Highland Bagpipe
and traditional string orchestration such as a double bass
and cello
. Vocals were provided by Kathy Fisher
who, despite not being a native speaker of the language, sang the Welsh
lyrics provided by Williams.
and news and review website IGN
. This was followed by its first appearance on U.S. national television
as a 150-second spot three days later, during a commercial break in Spike's airing of World War II miniseries Band of Brothers. Additional 90-second spaces were purchased on a variety of television network
s, including Adult Swim
, Comedy Central
, ESPN
, FX, G4
, History, and Spike. The Life was made available for download through Xbox Live
on September 8, and continued to air on television through the release of Halo 3: ODST on September 22, 2009 and into the Christmas period. The launch was accompanied by print advertisements and a new interactive website featuring a making-of documentary for The Life, interviews with the director and other crew members, and an unaired scene cut from the ending of the commercial, as well as interactive elements exploring features of the game itself, such as an "evaluation" application offering profiles on several of the game's characters.
The commercial, and its associated campaign, was a huge popular, critical and financial success. Upon its release on September 22, Halo 3: ODST immediately became the best-selling title for the Xbox 360 worldwide. Within two weeks, over 2.5 million copies had been sold. The Life went on to win a number of awards from the advertising and television industries, including honors from the Visual Effects Society Awards
, the ANDY Awards, the London International Advertising Awards, and the Clio Awards
. The Life received several nominations at the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising community, going on to win Gold for Cinematography, Silver for Direction, and a Bronze in the Film category.
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
launched in 2009 by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
to promote the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
-exclusive video game Halo 3: ODST in the United States. The 120-second piece follows a young soldier through enlistment, training, and battle. The Life was created by advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
T.A.G., an offshoot of McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson is a global advertising agency network, with offices in more than 130 countries. McCann is a subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the four large holding companies in the advertising industry....
. Production of the commercial itself was handled by production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
Morton/Jankel/Zander (MJZ). It was directed by Rupert Sanders, and post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
was conducted by Asylum. The commercial and its associated campaign, proved hugely successful; on the week of its launch, Halo 3: ODST became the top-selling game for the Xbox 360 worldwide, and over 2.5 million copies were sold within the first few weeks of release. The Life went on to win a number of honours from the advertising and entertainment industries, including two Clio Awards, a London International Advertising Award and several honours from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising industry.
Sequence
The Life opens to a military funeral. Rows of candles arranged along the floor burn as a bagpiper plays a dirge. The assembled mourners, a mix of military personnel and civilians, attend the casket as a red cloth is removed, revealing the name of the deceased, his rank, and his serial numberSerial number
A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...
. The cloth is ceremonially folded and passed to an old woman among the mourners. A singer begins to sing in Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, as the attending officer orders a gun salute in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
. The camera cuts to another scene; the young man, Tarkov, is having his head shaved. A montage
Montage
-Filmmaking:*Montage , a technique which uses rapid editing, special effects and music to present compressed narrative information*Soviet montage theory in the 1920s-Other:* Montage , Documentary television series from 1960s and 1970s...
of scenes begins showing Tarkov undergoing recruit training
Recruit training
Recruit training, more commonly known as Basic Training and colloquially called Boot Camp, is the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel, enlisted and officer...
, moving along courses under razor wire
Razor wire
Barbed tape or razor wire is a mesh of metal strips with sharp edges whose purpose is to prevent passage by humans. The term "razor wire", through long usage, has generally been used to describe barbed tape products...
or underwater. Again, the camera cuts ahead. Tarkov is in a one-man "drop pod", entering the atmosphere above a battlefield. He emerges under fire and enters battle alongside several other soldiers, moving over corpses and through plasma fire until he encounters a Covenant Brute
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...
. The Brute knocks him aside, sending his helmet flying and scarring Tarkov's face, before the debris from a falling Banshee aircraft kills the Brute. The film jumps ahead again; Tarkov is now a veteran soldier, and oversees a memorial service for one of his fallen comrades amidst burning ruins, before the sound of gunfire draws him and his team back to the fight.
Background
In 1999, MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
made the decision to consolidate its marketing efforts with a single advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
, after several years of partnership with different agencies for each of its product line. They entertained pitches from each of the agencies on their roster, and ultimately assigned the global account to McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson is a global advertising agency network, with offices in more than 130 countries. McCann is a subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the four large holding companies in the advertising industry....
. Two years later, after the launch of Microsoft's first video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
, the Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
, McCann was assigned the task of promoting what would become the "killer app" of the Xbox, the video game Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...
. The launch campaign (titled Saviour) was hugely successful, selling over five million copies of the game worldwide. The success of Halo: Combat Evolved led to a series of sequels
Halo (series)
Halo is a multi-million dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant...
and tie-in merchandise including books and action figures.
In 2007, McCann launched a multi-platform global advertising campaign titled Believe to promote the latest game in the Halo series, Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...
. Believe proved a tremendous popular, critical, and financial hit. Over £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
84 million of sales were made on the first day of release alone, the highest-grossing opening sale of an entertainment product ever. Believe received dozens of awards from the advertising community, including eight Clio Awards
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
, Best in Show at the ANDY Awards, and two Grand Prix (for Film and Integrated campaigns) at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising industry. According to the Gunn Report
Gunn Report
The Gunn Report and Showreel of the Year is an annual publication detailing the most successful print and television advertising campaigns of the year. It is authored by Donald Gunn and Emma Wilkie...
, Believe was the second-most-awarded integrated advertising campaign of 2008, behind Earth Hour
Earth Hour
Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change...
for the World Wide Fund for Nature
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...
.
Filming
In early 2009, McCann received a brief to create a new campaign for the latest entrant into the Halo seriesHalo (series)
Halo is a multi-million dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant...
, a first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
called Halo 3: ODST. It would be the first game in the franchise not to feature the series' protagonist, the Master Chief
Master Chief (Halo)
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo fictional universe, created by Bungie. Master Chief is a player character in the trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter video games Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 and will appear in the...
. McCann returned with a pitch
Pitch (film)
A pitch is a concise verbal presentation of an idea for a film or TV series generally made by a screenwriter or director to a producer or studio executive in the hope of attracting development finance to pay for the writing of a screenplay."Pitch" is a contraction of the phrase "sales pitch"...
for a campaign in the same vein as Believe, aiming to humanize the soldiers featured in the Halo universe. The project was greenlit, and McCann brought back several collaborators from Believe to handle this new campaign, now given the working title of The Life.
Director Rupert Sanders, known for his work with production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
MJZ on campaigns such as Lava for Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
and Great Return for Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
, was given five weeks to produce the commercial, with three days set aside for filming. Several locations were scouted
Location scouting
Location scouting is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work that is shot outside of the studio, the search for a...
for shooting, with an eye towards an "Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
" aesthetic. These included several areas around Chernobyl, Ukraine
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
. However, the tight schedule precluded using locations too distant from one another for different scenes and, in the end, three spots outside of Budapest, Hungary
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
were settled upon: the cooling tower
Cooling tower
Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature or in the case of closed circuit dry cooling towers rely...
of an active nuclear power station was dressed to act as the backdrop to the opening funeral scene; an open-pit
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
coal mine
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
served as the setting for the battle scenes, and an abandoned aluminum factory was used to stage the closing funeral scene.
Sanders drew inspiration for the shooting style and aesthetic of the commercial from a variety of sources, including news footage from journalists embedded with military forces in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, and Russian feature films such as Stalker
Stalker (film)
Stalker is a 1979 science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, with a screenplay written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, loosely based on their novel Roadside Picnic...
and Come and See
Come and See
Come and See directed by Elem Klimov, is a 1985 Soviet war movie and psychological horror drama about and occurring during the Nazi German occupation of the Byelorussian SSR. Aleksei Kravchenko and Olga Mironova star as the protagonists Florya and Glasha. The screenplay is by Ales Adamovich and...
. To keep the details within the commercial consistent with established Halo canon
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
, the creators of the Halo series, Bungie Studios, provided Sanders with information on aspects ranging from appropriate fur color and rank insignia for the Brute, to the armor and weaponry of the ODST soldiers.
Post-production
With filming complete, MJZ contacted post-productionPost-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
company Asylum to begin work on the substantial visual effects
Visual effects
Visual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
component of The Life. The team, which tripled in size as the scale of the work required became apparent, were given a deadline of three weeks. Work on the opening funeral scene was relatively easy, requiring the creation of only minor elements such as additional tombstones in the foreground and color correction
Color correction
Color correction by using color gels, or filters, is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography and other disciplines, the intention of which is to alter the overall color of the light; typically the light color is measured on a scale known as color temperature, as...
on the actors. The same was true for the training sequence, where only minimal tracking work
Match moving
In cinematography, match moving is a visual-effects, cinematic techniques that allows the insertion of computer graphics into live-action footage with correct position, scale, orientation, and motion relative to the photographed objects in the shot...
and compositing of matte backgrounds
Matte (filmmaking)
Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...
was required. The bulk of the video effects work was in the battle sequence. This ranged from simple work such as wire removal
Wire removal
Wire removal is a visual effects technique used to remove wires in films, usually as a safety precaution or to simulate flying in actors or miniatures....
to the creation of dynamic lighting and reflections from visors and armor, to particle effects for the background smoke and dust, plasma weapon fire and alterations to some of the filmed explosions to lend them the appearance given to plasma explosions within the Halo games. While the Brute was animatronic, minor adjustments such as scaling and the improvement of fine muscle movements
Fine motor skill
Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur e.g., in the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. In application to motor skills of hands the term dexterity is commonly used....
of the creature were made. Other elements, such as the Banshee aircraft and the drop-pods, were created entirely through the use of CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
. Software used by Asylum included Nuke
Nuke (software)
Nuke is a node-based compositor produced by The Foundry, and used for film and television post-production. Nuke is cross-platform, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux...
for compositing
Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
, Maya
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...
for animation, RenderMan and Mantra for rendering, SynthEyes for tracking, Silhouette Pro for rotoscoping work, and Flame
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...
.
Music
The Life was scored by Gareth Williams, a composerComposer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
for Human Worldwide. The music, an arrangement of Light of Aidan's "Lament", was created specifically for the ad, and featured a wide variety of instruments. Percussive
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
elements included military snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
s, a hand drum
Hand drum
A hand drum is any type of drum that is typically played with the bare hand rather than a stick, mallet, hammer, or other type of beater. The simplest type of hand drum is the frame drum, which consists of a shallow, cylindrical shell with a drumhead attached to one of the open ends.-Types:The...
, Samoan log drum
Log drum
A log drum is a type of unpitched percussion instrument.*see drum for the history of log drum and information on the log drum as a means of communication in ancient cultures* see also:**Tongue drum**Slit drum**Bosalabos**Wood block...
s and stones tapped against one another. These were joined by a Great Highland Bagpipe
Great Highland Bagpipe
The Great Highland Bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland. It has achieved widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world. It is closely related to the Great Irish Warpipes....
and traditional string orchestration such as a double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
and cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
. Vocals were provided by Kathy Fisher
Fisher (band)
Fisher is a band consisting of songwriter Ron Wasserman and vocalist Kathy Fisher. Fisher has enjoyed some mainstream success. "I Will Love You" was featured in a 2001 episode of Roswell and in the 2007 film Death Sentence...
who, despite not being a native speaker of the language, sang the Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
lyrics provided by Williams.
Release and reception
The Life premiered online as a 90-second cut on September 4, 2009, on both the social networking website MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and news and review website IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
. This was followed by its first appearance on U.S. national television
Television in the United States
Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one...
as a 150-second spot three days later, during a commercial break in Spike's airing of World War II miniseries Band of Brothers. Additional 90-second spaces were purchased on a variety of television network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
s, including Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
, Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
, ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
, FX, G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
, History, and Spike. The Life was made available for download through Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
on September 8, and continued to air on television through the release of Halo 3: ODST on September 22, 2009 and into the Christmas period. The launch was accompanied by print advertisements and a new interactive website featuring a making-of documentary for The Life, interviews with the director and other crew members, and an unaired scene cut from the ending of the commercial, as well as interactive elements exploring features of the game itself, such as an "evaluation" application offering profiles on several of the game's characters.
The commercial, and its associated campaign, was a huge popular, critical and financial success. Upon its release on September 22, Halo 3: ODST immediately became the best-selling title for the Xbox 360 worldwide. Within two weeks, over 2.5 million copies had been sold. The Life went on to win a number of awards from the advertising and television industries, including honors from the Visual Effects Society Awards
Visual Effects Society
The Visual Effects Society is the entertainment industry's only organization representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including artists, animators, technologists, model makers, educators, studio leaders, supervisors, PR/marketing specialists and producers in all areas of...
, the ANDY Awards, the London International Advertising Awards, and the Clio Awards
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
. The Life received several nominations at the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising community, going on to win Gold for Cinematography, Silver for Direction, and a Bronze in the Film category.