UK’s “Start Thinking Soldier” recruitment campaign

Over in the UK, they’ve taken a hint from the US Army’s Recruitment site and developed a fully interactive recreation of a wartime environment called the “Start Thinking Soldier” site.  In the site, you’re presented with a 2-minute live action & CG video to setup a situation, and then asked to select the proper solution.

Called “Start Thinking Soldier“, it is the first time live-action video is blended on the web with state-of-the-art computer graphics.

The French-owned company behind the design has spent six months setting it up.

And unlike the much-derided “skiing and snorkelling” ads of the 1990s, scenarios reflect the true nature of desert war, as soldiers call in air strikes, blow holes in walls before storming compounds and search enemy tunnels for arms caches.

Each two-minute episode ends by asking the viewer “What would you do?” and to anticipate the decision of the commander.

“At a time when soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, this had to be as realistic as possible,” explained Will Arnold-Baker, managing director of the company, Publicis.

Start Thinking Soldier, with information from News.Sky.com

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a computer graphics programmer and news junky that's been working in the field for the last 15 years. He's responsible for visualizations generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ytnef, mullion support in ParaView, and VizWorld.com.