Big valley for such a small trooper. Let's hope he doesn't get lost!

(6:56) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. For my 600th movie (cue trumpets) I present a grunty special. Enjoy the adventure as a rogue Grunt goes exploring in the valley, in the second half of the level. If you're wondering how I actually got all this footage, I'm using a conveniently passive Grunt, courtesy of the trick I showed in BCM313, and I moved him around by carefully pushing him with a Warthog. PS: for another grunty special, see my 500th movie.

Released October 25th 2025, gameplay recorded October 12th-22nd 2025.

00:02 (Passage exit) Just to clarify from the outset, I'm using a conveniently passive Grunt, courtesy of the inactive covies trick I showed in BCM313, and I'm getting him to places by carefully pushing with a Warthog, a rather delicate operation because he's so easily killed. As the Grunt was originally close to the passage leading out to the valley, I chose to start things at the outer exit as seen here, with the valley stretching out before him. Also, my captioning gets the narrative going. Grunt going AWOL for a look around!

00:26 (Found a stream) Intermediate spot 1. As mentioned in my closing remarks where I describe the project development, there were some Grunt locations I added in later, at intermediate points between those already established in his journey. This is the first of those.

00:35 (Dead Grunt) Intermediate spot 2. This addition gave me the opportunity to involve a red Grunt I'd killed in advance (I'd also made his dropship depart). Makes for a nice little incident, and it's one of only three clips involving other personnel.

00:42 (Top end of the valley) We now reach the first major destination I'd targeted: the top end of the valley. It was an obvious place to head for, for potentially striking footage. Two clips for this spot on the grass, as I was getting such appealing views. Managed to get some blue beam action in the second.

01:02 (Stream nearby) He's not far from the last spot here, but now he's in the stream and doing a bit more hopping. A relatively long clip this, with nice views in both directions. At the very start, the camera is even lower than usual relative to the Grunt, because I'm slightly down over the curve of the small 'step waterfall' just behind him.

01:20 (Heading upstream) Intermediate spot 3. This spot let me establish that he's now heading back upstream. Nice view of another step waterfall just ahead.

01:26 (Good scouting spot) Intermediate spot 4, up on a rock at the three-way stream intersection. This is his first rock perch in the movie. Getting him up onto a rock tended to need special care. Delicate business! As I recall, with this rock I finished things off by zapping him with my plasma pistol to fine-tune his position. In regard to the camera work, I make a point of panning around, in line with the caption "A good scouting spot!"

01:37 (Central area) He's in the central area at last, and since he does a sniffing animation, I've added a caption to match. He does a nice double hop too. Definitely happy to be there!

01:47 (Big tree) This is one of two bonus spots added in later after my foundational work. I'm glad I thought to try putting him by this tree. Got a bit of comedy out of it, and it makes for something quite different.

02:02 (Big mound) He had to get up on top of the big mound of course; that's a notable feature. Two clips for this. With the first, I took care to get the sun in the shot, at least briefly, along with a brief bit of lens flare. Picturesque! The second clip was recorded a few minutes after the first. Came out quite nicely that sniper footage, I think. Made for something different too. Good bit of Grunt hopping, including a triple hop.

02:26 (Heading down) Another triple hop here, as the Grunt heads down the valley. Guess he's excited!

02:34 (Another rocky perch) Aside from standing in streams, this Grunt really likes to get up on a good rock. He goes rock climbing five times in the movie, and here's his second rocky perch, just next to a step waterfall. Two clips here, as he looked so cute. In the first clip, I was careful to get a tower beam firing in the background. Picturesque and striking.

02:53 (Onwards) A bit further on now. Away from the stream, he looks down the valley and seems to focus quizzically on the tunnel entrance, the way his head moves. We'll see that entrance again later!

03:04 (Rapids) Two clips now, in the rapids where the stream shoots off the edge. The first one was part of my early work. The second is at a bonus spot I added in later. It's only a short way away, but I got a very different sort of clip from it. A rather hazardous looking spot, which made for some comedy! I used some fast camera movements in this clip, meant to suggest alarm.

03:26 (Made it to the bottom) About halfway through the movie now and he's back to a safer location, near a tree at the bottom of the valley. Grunty 'Valley Explorer' achievement unlocked! (Silver space-suit costume now available; he'll enjoy that.)

03:44 (Tunnel entrance) The Grunt takes another quizzical look at the tunnel entrance, which I make some amusement out of. Actually, I'd originally thought to take him down the tunnel, and get him onto a glass floor panel in the light-bridge area, to then shoot it out from under him, providing some sort of comedy ending for the movie. But I found that he freezes at the loading point, deep in the tunnel. That scuppered my ending idea, so I don't have him going into the tunnel at all. I just leave things so he looks at it.

03:56 (Back up) Intermediate spot 5. Actually, this is an old spot reused. He's in the same place as the "Onwards!" clip for heading down, but the camera work here is different of course, and captures a tower firing in the background. I didn't need this addition, as the next clip was already doing a good job of filling in a big jump in his journey, but I added it in as a final extra because it was such a nice shot, with good Grunt action and bird chirping. In fact I'd had this clip in place in an earlier draft of the movie, but had then thought it was a bit lazy to reuse the same spot, so I created and used the next clip instead. But as you see, I eventually restored it.

04:03 (Still full of beans) Intermediate spot 6. A touch further on and near a couple of trees and a rock, the Grunt seems to still be full of energy and eager to continue.

04:11 (Following another stream) He's back in the water now, heading up the remaining stream. Dark rocky tunnel ahead! I'm taking him to the interior waterfall of course.

04:24 (Mountaineering again) Intermediate spot 7. This spot in the rocky tunnel was an especially pleasing addition, providing me with two nice clips in the darkness, including a novel sniper view which catches a tower beam firing in the background. Getting the Grunt into position on the rock wasn't the easiest operation. I pushed him up with the hog, but then zapped him three times to finalise his position, getting him onto the small flat bit where I thought he'd look best. Two zaps from behind him, and one from in front, down on the ground. That did the trick!

04:45 (Know where we're going?) This step waterfall and rock seemed a nice place to pause, and when my caption poses a question, he does a head-shake as if to say no.

04:53 (Interior waterfall) So, we're at the interior waterfall at last, and I get two nice clips out of it, the second one being when he gets up close on top of a big rock. And boy is that crashing water loud!

05:25 (Dead Elite) I'd killed this Elite with a whack from behind, before I got this deep into the area. Subsequently, moving the Grunt up to him gave me this bit of light comedy. Talking of light, this is the only non-sniper clip in which I've got my flashlight off. I kept it off here because otherwise the Elite and his shadow looked too odd (sort of washed out).

05:44 (Final rock perch) We were at this waterfall step a moment ago, but now the Grunt is up on the rock, having a nice hop. For this I was just using a temporary quick modification of the earlier save I'd kept.

05:54 (Back downstream) Intermediate spot 8. His last stream clip, a little downstream from the spot we saw him at earlier when heading upstream.

06:04 (Lifeboat) Intermediate spot 9. I'd brought two Marines along from the first half of the level, and decided it might be nice to work them into the proceedings. This is what I came up with. Owing to the Grunt's odd state, the Marines don't target him.

I didn't have a precise configuration in mind for the three personnel, but I was trying to get them near the lifeboat entrance. After positioning the Grunt, I got the Marines dismounted from the hog not far from him, and then from a checkpoint, I made attempts at tweaking their positions by driving at them. It took a few tries to get what seemed like a promising configuration.

Seconds before getting this clip though, I zapped the Marine on the right with my plasma pistol, to move him away from the Grunt slightly and also to make him look at me, something which I thought would add a bit of impact. By this time I'd also thought of the narrative to go with the situation, alluding to the oddity of the Marines and Grunt being together, seemingly unbothered. The narrative also shaped my camera work.

06:26 (Jackal mound) In my foundational touring with the Grunt, this location was visited right after coming back up from the bottom of the valley. But the footage I got here seemed to be ideal for ending the movie with (suitable captioning came to mind), so I quickly settled on having the Jackal mound as the final destination. In my camera work here, I make sure to get a tower firing in the background, to make things extra picturesque.

Closing remarks This was a movie I'd planned to make for a long time, ever since I realised the movement potential with inactive covies. Back when I made BCM313 I actually did a little trial, pushing a Grunt out into the valley, to gauge how hard things might be. It was quite a job, so the idea of moving him all over the valley was daunting. I guess that's why the project sat on my wish-list for so long. For my 600th movie however, I finally made the effort, and I'm really happy with how it's turned out. I'll talk about the movie's development now.

After deciding to use a curl-backed orange Grunt with a needler, I repeated the trick until I randomly got one. Only took a few tries. I also settled on holding a plasma pistol (fairly unobtrusive for viewing), and I packed a sniper rifle as secondary, for possible zoom use.

For the exploring, I ended up using over thirty saves to cover the various Grunt locations. Each new save was obtained by modifying a copy of an earlier one (whichever was most convenient), thus minimising the amount of laborious pushing I had to do. I wanted saves of the locations so I'd always be able to record further clips later, if desired when refining the movie. And indeed, quite a bit of later recording was used.

I didn't have the locations planned out in advance however. They initially arose gradually, according to where I took the Grunt. Ultimately though, the movie ended up mostly retaining the actual order in which I got him to general areas in my foundational touring (and clip recording) over the first three days. The one exception is with the Jackal mound, which got moved to the end.

After I'd settled the route in a first draft of the movie, there were some jumps from place to place which were rather big, so I added some intermediate spots to improve the journey's flow. Those are all flagged in the main commentary (just in case you're interested), as are two 'bonus' spots I added to give extra coverage in certain areas.

Something I had to accept was that the Grunt was always facing a particular direction. There seemed to be nothing I could do to change that. So he's not always facing in his direction of travel. But that's okay. After all, he was obviously stopping along the way, so he could be looking around. Another aspect is that he has no vocal sounds (unless shot or something, which I don't do here). He's silent throughout. A pity, but never mind. With all the ambient sound, especially the running water, it's not all that noticeable.

The Grunt was so easily killed during the pushing work, that I was generally checkpointing after moving him just another ten to twenty metres, rather than risk pushing him further and ending up splattering him. So, I did a lot of checkpointing. Much of the difficulty in not killing him was because of how the hog slides so easily on even quite a mild slope. Because of that, there were times when I judged it safer to push him with the side of the hog, though it had to be done very gingerly.

I kept the hog out of sight in my recording work, as it wasn't part of the narrative. Also, as you might've noticed, I've got my flashlight on in almost all the clips. I settled on that because it made the Grunt stand out much better, especially the orange. It gave the imagery more punch. One other visual aspect: I eliminated the nav-point which would otherwise have been a distraction. Just needed to visit the rockslide survivor area briefly.

In doing the camera work I always endeavoured to get good appealing views, not just of the Grunt but also of the picturesque scenery. Indeed, to some extent the movie is also a showcase of the sights and sounds of the valley itself. And I have to say, Bungie did an awesome job in that regard.

For a given Grunt position I often tried multiple ways of shooting things (different movement patterns etc.), ending up with plenty of clips to later choose from in forming the movie. And in doing the latter, I naturally made an effort to vary the camera work from clip to clip, so things don't feel repetitive. My camera work was done in the crouched position by the way, except (I think) for the sniper clips. From experience in other movies, I knew that would give the best Grunt views. You're down at Grunt level basically.

Originally I hadn't been completely sure if the basic idea for this movie could make for something engaging enough to watch. However, once I got some narrative going with captions in my early draft, it was clear that things were going to gel and make something coherent. So that aspect turned out fine, even despite the Grunt's limitations of only facing one way and making no sounds.

The movie has ended up with 34 clips in total, covering 29 points along his journey, and with more than half the clips containing clear birdsong. There were actually cases where I made an effort to get birdsong, because it adds to the ambience. I especially wanted some in the opening for example.

Total Grunt hop-count: 50! Surely my hoppiest movie ever. Lot of work, but it was worth it.

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