Zero Hour

Back in 2004 before the Xbox 360 released, Microsoft hosted a contest called Zero Hour (Zero Hour) (Zero Hour #2).  The rules were simple - work individually or in a group of five to create a video/picture of something that's out of the ordinary.  Out of all of the submissions, a total of 360 videos/pictures were chosen by a panel of experts and the winners were given an all expense paid trip to California for the Xbox 360 launch event.  Oh, did I mention that all of the winners would be sent 360's along with 3 games?   Yea, pretty sweet.

My journey began when a friend and I found out about the contest - at the time were were both working in downtown Minneapolis and we decided to get together over lunch and brainstorm some ideas.  After meeting for an hour, one comment stuck with us; "we have access to SIX wiener dogs, how can we NOT take advantage of that??".

My idea revolved around the T3000 from Terminator 2.  What if a wiener dog had a flashback of war, and then started chasing people through the streets similar to the way T3000 chased Jon Conner?  This is certainly something "out of the ordinary".

We had the perfect combination of talent - I'm the idea generating Marketing guy and we also had a graphic designer, graphic animator, local actor, and two others.  We ended up doing all the filming on a Saturday morning/afternoon on the streets of a suburb in Minneapolis.  Long story short, we were one of a few teams that won the contest.

When we arrived at LAX, we were greeted by a Microsoft representative who guided us to a bus that would bring us to a nearby hotel.  Once we got to the hotel, we were once again greeted by Microsoft staff and given $20 for dinner and was told to be outside the following morning.  The next morning, we got onto a bus and were driven to another hotel in the Mohave desert where we were asked to quickly check into the room, get back onto the bus, and were brought to what appeared to be an abandoned airplane hanger.  

By this time, it was beginning to get dark and I was really starting to wonder what the hell was going on.  Just then, the airplane hanger doors were illuminated with a green Xbox 360 logo and a group of people wearing all white starting playing drums.

After a short speech by a Microsoft executive, the airplane hanger doors opened.  What I saw was, in a word, amazing.  Over 200 flat screen TV's, over 200 Xbox 360's, and over 200 games that have never been played by the public.  The next 48 hours was a blur - playing game after game - meeting some Mark Rein and Cliffy B, and probably most exciting, seeing Gears of War in person.

Mark Rein and I - really cool and down to earth guy

Marcus Fenix - AWESOME

Cliffy B and Mark Rein

I had the opportunity to get on stage and shoot the breeze with Cliffy B.  Also got him to sign my 360 memory card.

Me

Adam

Brendan - have to give him a lot of credit for winning the contest.  Fantastic animator.

Neil - he's my brainstorm buddy.  If it wasn't for Neil, I wouldn't have found out about Zero Hour.  He looks like a mad scientist in this picture.

-BC-