What Happened to the Machinima?

(Crossposted from Halo Fanon)

A few years ago, RelentlessRecusant and I got together to make Halo Fanon’s very own machinima called Common Denominator. We wrote a bit, recruited some other guys, acted out scenes, filmed our scenes… and nothing really came of it. We basically got one scene ready, a trailer, some concept credits, and that was it. What happened to Halo Fanon’s machinima? Do we have any hope of making one now?

Current Character Colorization Chart

The following is a chart of the various armor colors and variants used by each character in the Halo 3 machinima-style graphic novel.

Shoulder armor is kept the same for consistency.

• AP = Armor's primary color
• AS = Armor's secondary color
• AD = Armor's detailing color
• EP = Emblem's primary color
• ES = Emblem's secondary color
• EB = Emblem's background color

	Armor	Head	Shoulders	Body	AP	AS	AD	Emblem	EP	ES	EB
Simone	Spartan	Scout	E.V.A.	E.O.D.	Brown	Gold	White	None	N/A	N/A	N/A
Michelle	Spartan	Scout	E.V.A.	E.O.D.	Gold	Brown	White	Smiley face	Brown	Gold	N/A
Derek	Spartan	Mark VI	Mark VI	Mark VI	Red	Red	White	Wasp on buzzsaw	Crimson	Gold	White
Alpod	Elite	Flight	Assault	Assault	Green	Sage	Green	7th Column on circle	N/A	Steel	White
SDF	Elite	Assault	Assault	Assault	Gold	Gold	Orange	Crossed en. swords	Violet	Violet	N/A
Woodberry	Spartan	E.O.D	Hayabusa	Mark VI	Sage	Sage	Sage	Phoenix on banner	Red	Yellow	Blue
Pressley	Spartan	E.V.A.	Mark VI	Mark VI	Blue	Steel	White	Marathon on circle	Red	Steel	Gold
Stoics	Elite	Combat	Combat	Combat	Violet	Violet	Rubine	Mark of Shame	Violet	Violet	N/A
Wakes	Spartan	Scout	E.O.D.	Scout	Steel	Steel	Blue	Crosshairs	White	Red	N/A
Lakatos	Spartan	E.V.A.	E.V.A.	E.V.A	Steel	Steel	Cobalt	Number 7	Cobalt	N/A	N/A
Harvey	Spartan	C.Q.B.	C.Q.B.	Mark VI	Brown	Brown	Steel	Clubs	Blue	White	N/A
April	Spartan	Scout	E.V.A.	E.O.D.	Orchid	Pink	Rubine	Hearts	Red	White	N/A
Alana	Spartan	Mark VI	Mark VI	Mark VI	Blue	Cobalt	Aqua	Wolf on circle	Violet	Silver	Violet

Comic: Book 1, Page 4

Comic: Book 1, Page 3

Comic: Book 1, Page 2

Comic: Book 1, Page 1

What is it, anyway?

Okay, so Common Denominator was a Halo machinima project started a few years ago. Me, RelentlessRecusant, and Rotaratilbo were working on the story, and we got some actors together, along with a video/audio guy. We recorded lines, recorded puppet work, and even got a scene together. And then it died. I blame the fact that we started filming before we finished the story, let alone the script. We kept making revisions and kept scrapping work.

One of the big problems was that we couldn't decide what kind of character to make the protagonist. We talked about making it like 24, but I wanted David Palmer and they wanted Jack Bauer. So we went with Jack Bauer. Then it was like, they wanted him to be a psychopath. So we wrote him as a psychopath. Then it was too dark. Revision, revision, revision.

Anyway, after years of inactivity, I started the project going again with a comic version of the story. Some of the comic uses the exact script, but a lot of it is my own work based loosely on my original concept for the show. I posted this comic on Halo Fanfiction Wiki, but at this point the images are dead. Did Wikia not like what I was doing, or are they just glitchy? No matter, I'll post them here, where it's more stable than Wikia. That's basically why I made this blog, as well as to post what I can remember of the machinima project, because as disastrous as it was we had a good time.