Link: A Bittersweet Reverie music video.
Quickly, what is this about?
Hi, my name is Charles, and my Xbox Live gamer tag is RockStarChief. I wrote a song that was inspired by Halo. It’s in E Dorian like a lot of the earlier Halo music. Since I put it on YouTube I figured I should give people something visual to look at while listening to it, so I made a video to go with it. It’s a Halo music video! Please check it out, and let me know what you think.
Background
I’ve played Halo since Combat Evolved on the original Xbox. Halo is one of the all time greatest gaming franchises to have ever been made. I’ve also been a fan of a lot of the Halo music over the years. Of course I still play a lot of Halo. I also play a lot of guitar. I mostly like to write music, but I also like to perform. I used to have a band (rock genre). I remember Marty O’Donnell in interviews talking about using the key of E Dorian in creating music for Halo, so I wrote something based in E Dorian.
Description
The song starts out with a slow, soft, and slightly sad piano melody backed up by strings. This video represents viewing (from a third person perspective) a dream that Master Chief is having. The Chief’s world is sad. Everything is in greyscale. He has lot close friends in battles throughout the years. He sees an image of Cortana in the sky that represents that she is out of reach (is there a pun here? Maybe). The drums purposely kick in when the first glimpses of Chief are shown. He decides to drive to the shore of the beach to try and catch another glimpse of Cortana. He hops into a Warthog and makes his way to the spot where she appears. The song breaks down into some chords played on the piano. Then as Chief looks at the sky Cortana appears, and simultaneously color is restored (the dreamy Juicy filter of Halo 5’s Forge mode). Along with color being restored the guitar solo (my favorite part!!) is timed to kick in with Cortana’s appearance. Chief is experiencing happiness again even if it isn’t complete. The video and music fade out with a closeup of Chief.
How
I used my blue Peavey Wolfgang guitar plugged into an iRig that went directly into my iPhone 6 Plus. I used the Peavey AmpKit app for the guitar sounds (6505 amp model which is based on the 5150). From there I used iOS GarageBand for all of the music recording and editing. The pictures and videos came from Halo 5 using the forge mode to add filters and clear the Basin map, custom games to act out the scenes, and theater mode to record it using the Xbox One’s built in game video and screenshot capturing tool (“Xbox record that!”). They were then uploaded to my OneDrive and then downloaded to my phone. I used Adobe Photoshop Mix app to put Cortana in some of the shots I took of Halo 5. Then the video was edited in the iMovie app.
Closing
I thank everyone that takes the time to view it. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Thanks again,
Charles
gamertag RockStarChief