The Deus Ex: Human Revolution fan film teased last week is now out in all its 13-minute glory.
The live-action short film inspired by Deus Ex: Human Revolution we got a glimpse of last week has been released in full, and it is, as I’d hoped, quite fantastic indeed. It’s a very thin slice of the full story that covers just a few minutes of Adam Jensen’s attempted rescue of his ex-lover, Megan Reed, but doesn’t take long before it becomes obvious that this isn’t a blow-by-blow recreation of the game.
“We never intended on duplicating the exact storyline from the game. It’s set in the world of the game and remains true to the theme with a slightly different approach,” director Moe Charif explained. “Having played the game myself, I wanted to interpret the Adam/Megan relationship differently. I know people might get confused, but it’s one of the things I wish was different in the game, so we went for it in the film.”
The project actually began a few years ago after Charif’s DCode Films finished shooting some 30-second promos for TNT. “A few weeks after wrapping that project, we started thinking of shooting a short film that has good narrative, strong CGI and is longer than the 30 second spots we’ve been mostly working on,” he continued. “I’m a big fan of the game Human Revolution. I love the world it’s set in. The character of Adam Jensen really intrigues me, so it was only natural to go in that direction. We felt like we could technically pull off the CGI, so we decided to go for it.”
Charif wrote the script and then partnered with Machinima to make the film; Eidos Montreal got wind of it after the first teasers were launched (he actually posted photos of the shoot on his Facebook page back in early 2012) but instead of issuing a cease-and-desist, the studio backed it up, giving Charif “absolute artistic freedom,” access to the soundtrack and even free publicity. Everything seen on the screen, however, came from the DCode Films team.
“Everything else was made by us,” he said. “The stun gun was completely modeled from scratch by Maruo Rondan, who did the VFX on the project. The costumes were built by JR Martinez and Gordon Tarpley.”
The net result is very impressive. The “empty guns” thing is a little cliched but obviously necessary, and the ending is a legitimate surprise. Maybe it doesn’t surpass the latest $200 million Michael Bay blast-o-rama, but as a labor of love, given freely to all? Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot.
