Machinima Monday: Dawn Under Heaven

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Writing Spartan

This Machinima Monday is a little bit different than usual, in the sense that this weeks feature is a real life Halo production, rather than an in game one. We’re happy to feature the Halo Fan Film ‘Dawn Under Heaven’.

‘Dawn Under Heaven’ is a 30 minute fan film that took nearly 10 years to make, if we’re going from when the film was originally thought of. The film wasn’t created by a specific studio. Just a bunch of passionate fans, all of which you can find credited on the fan film’s website.

The description of ‘Dawn Under Heaven’ is as follows:

A futuristic war film based on the Halo franchise, Dawn Under Heaven takes place during the fall of planet Reach by the Covenant armada in the year 2552. It’s a story about friendship, hope, and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds.

The project began in Lee Anderson’s garage in the summer of 2010 during the emerging era of Halo cosplay, YouTube culture, and affordable digital filmmaking tools. At the time there was a surprising lack of live-action Halo storytelling, which drove us (and many other fan films) to build our own piece of the Halo universe.

Over on the ‘Dawn Under Heaven’ YouTube channel are a ton of behind the scenes videos and vlogs which really help show off the amount of passion and love that went into the project. You can find more on the channel here.

Video Published by: Dawn Under Heaven

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Podtacular 736: Nightmare Fluid

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Dust Storm

We’re back with another week of fan project updates, this week focusing on the fan mods on Halo: Custom Edition and ones that incorporate Halo into other games. There’s also an update to Halo 3 coming to the Halo Insiders next month and our usual official and community news updates.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:47:08 — 73.6MB)

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Podtacular Special: What Makes Halo, Halo

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Dust Storm

Inspired by the question posed to Halo content creators on YouTube by Installation 00, we’re happy to present this special collaboration among many different Halo podcasts to answer the question, “What makes Halo, Halo.” Every person who’s played Halo or stepped foot into the universe has some piece that tugs on their heartstrings the most and keeps them invested in the franchise. Joining us in this discussion are Podcast Evolved, Composer’s Abyss, Halo Outreach Podcast, HCS Pro Talk and Forward Unto Dawn Podcast. Hopefully through this collaboration we strike a few chords and perhaps inspire you to share your thoughts on the question with your podcast community of choice.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:39 — 36.9MB)

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Machinima Monday: PLAYTIME

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Writing Spartan

The weekend has come and gone and now it’s time for another Monday. The good news is, there’s a Machinima to start off the week. This weeks feature is a series that has stood the test of time and brought laughs for nearly 10 years. Spread over a number of seasons is the hilarious Machinima ‘PLAYTIME’.

Created by CruelLEGACEY Productions and uploaded onto the YouTube Channel PlaytimeShow, ‘PLAYTIME’ is an incredible 4 season long Machinima. The comedy in this series feels similar to famous shows such as Red Vs Blue, but with a more down to earth take.

The description of ‘PLAYTIME – The Complete 1st Season’ is as follows:

Watch the entire first season of the hit Halo machinima series from CruelLEGACEY Productions in a single, continuous video! Playtime Season 1 tells the story of two friends: Warren and Cobra. In an effort to help Cobra improve his combat skills, Warren leads him through a series of training events… none of which go as planned.

This isn’t the first time PLAYTIME has appeared on the Podtacular site. There was a small piece about the series posted a whole 9 years ago, and can be found here. It’s really nice to see that the legacy of the series has lasted so long.

Each season is luckily quite short in time, so finishing all 4 seasons doesn’t take too long. You can find the full playlist for all 4 seasons here. Unfortunately, the original website for the website (http://playtimeshow.com/) is no longer in use, so it seems the YouTube channel is the only place to find this series.

Video Published by: PlaytimeShow

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Streamer Showcase: DJBluePDX

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Dust Storm

Another month goes by and hopefully we’ll be more regular going forward, but it’s some to highlight another streamer. While the spotlight might be shining on one of our own, this streamer has been promoting Halo on stream for a long time. We’re so fortunate to have him a part of the Podtacular family, let alone the greater Halo community.

Outside of some of the YouTubers and Halo pros, DJBluePDX is probably one of the most recognizable and most beloved personalities within the Halo community. He made his grand entry into the Halo community back in the Halo 3 Grifball days becoming the voice of Grifball as his voice and personality became an instant sensation for the community. His positive and cartoony attitude captures his all-about-fun attitude towards playing Halo, but give him a Gravity Hammer and prepare to meet his hardcore side. He was also the Event Programming Manager for Halo: Outpost Discovery. If you watch his streams, you’ll be met with a variety of games and activities from reading books on stream, playing a variety of games, DJ sessions (yes, he’s an actual disk jockey), but every week he’s playing Halo on stream with fans. He’s been a Mixer partner for just about three years and has over 18,000 followers.

DJ streams just about every day and kicks things off in the afternoons/evenings (US/UK time). You can subscribe to him on Mixer and follow them on Twitter.

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Podtacular 735: Alien Interests

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Dust Storm

It’s that time again where we take a look at all the updates the community projects have had over the past couple of months. This week, we look at the fan games and miscellaneous projects as we’ll take a look at fan mods next week. This week’s community poll also has us looking at the Covenant races and there were a few unexpected responses we gathered from the community. If you caught the latest ONI Archives video, you may have heard something at the end that has the community tingling with Hunt the Truth vibes again.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:09:31 — 89.0MB)

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Machinima Monday: Dawn of the Titans

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Writing Spartan

It’s Monday time, which means it’s of course Machinima time. Every Machinima Monday a Halo Machinima is featured, whether it be a full series or a one off video. This weeks feature is an awesome one off video named ‘Dawn of the Titans’.

‘Dawn of the Titans’ was created by Digital Virus and directed by Stephen Hancock. This Machinima was uploaded back in 2015, which was 5 years ago at the time of writing this piece (Crazy I know). However, the Halo game used for this Machinima is actually Halo Reach, which is known for it’s easy to use theatre mode and gritty looking visuals.

The description of ‘Dawn of the Titans’ is as follows:

When The Hierarches of Sanghelios are overthrown by the covenant extremist, Nakai, he carries out a conquest to locate the Mantle of Responsibility. From 2558-2567 he was able to conquer 3/4 of the human colonies, including the purge of ONI’s newly reinstated Spartan forces. With the UNSC being out of options, ONI turns to a retired Spartan I, Ki, to develop an advanced genetic augmentation to allow the remaining Spartan II’s to go above and beyond their original capabilities. This was known as, “Project Olympian”. Only 3 Spartans qualified, they are now referred to as, Titans.

“Not based on the actual Halo Story”
Directed by: Stephen Hancock

The run time for this incredible Machinima is just over 2 hours, so breaking down the story bit by bit would take some time. My recommendation? Grab some popcorn and a drink and get ready to watch a Machinima that’s the equivalent of a full length feature film. It certainly has the story and quality of one for sure.

After you finish ‘Dawn of the Titans’, you could also check out the other awesome Machinima by Digital Virus too. That’s all for this week. See you all again next week for another Machinima Monday.

Video Published by: Digital Virus

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