The making of our “Leave A Message” trailer started with a simple concept and a very straightforward execution.
Everyone involved in creating the trailer was in complete agreement from the very beginning. We had three simple goals. We wanted to be authentic, we wanted to be respectful, and most of all, we wanted to give a special nod to Steven Spielberg, who created the Medal of Honor franchise over a decade ago.
The best way we knew how to do this, was to recreate the Omaha Beach landing with Jimmy Patterson. Except now, instead of arriving on the shores of occupied France in the hull of a Higgins boat, our Ranger would arrive in the Shahi-Kot Valley, in Afghanistan’s Paktia province, in the modern day equivalent, the CH-47 Chinook helicopter. Basically, Normandy in the desert.
Since the entire piece is taken directly from the opening of the first Ranger mission in our game, creating the first pass of our trailer was quick and easy. We simply slowed the animation down and removed a few scenes that didn’t fit within the message. The entire untouched scene at regular speed remains in the final product.
There is a wonderful gag in the middle of the scene where one of the Rangers actually begins to realize that things seem very familiar to him. When it finally dawns on him that he is basically reliving the D-Day landing from “Saving Private Ryan” he quickly notices that he is sitting closest to the loading ramp at the rear of the fuselage. He then taps one of his teammates on the shoulder and says, “Hey, I’ve seen this movie, you sit here!” and then trades places with the young Ranger.
The actual phone message Jim leaves for his family back home changed after we showed it to one of our military consultants. When he first heard the message, he offered up a dose of reality. He explained to us that when you are deployed and in harm’s way, you tell your loved ones whatever they need to hear to keep them from worrying. Even when you are moments away from stepping outside the wire to conduct a raid or begin a major offensive, you never disclose anything. You assure them that you are fine and that you will be fine, knowing it will help them sleep at night. We let this information settle in for a few hours and then we rewrote the dialog to what you hear now.
After the trailer was completed we showed it to a select group of individuals to get their reaction. We showed it to the wife of a Marine who had recently returned home. We showed it to our significant others and our families. We then showed it to senior officials within the U.S. Army. It was late one afternoon and our liaison, Lieutenant Colonel Greg Bishop, had brought a colleague of his from the U.S Army Public Affairs Office to meet with us, see our game and get a tour of our facility. We stopped by the theater and I surprised them with a private viewing of the trailer. At the end of the piece, the room was silent. He then stood, pointed at the screen and said very matter-of-factly, “That right there gentleman is the reason we are working with this team, and why the U.S. Army will continue to support Medal of Honor.”