I first heard about director Neill Blomkamp when Peter Jackson hired him to direct the movie version of the Halo videogames. That project’s since been put on hold, if not canceled, but that doesn’t mean Blomkamp is any less awesome: A quick look at the guy’s short films and commercials reveals a pretty stunning style and an incredibly promising filmmaker. Seamlessly blending live-action and CG, Blomkamp’s shorts are creepy, beautiful, sad, and strange, and I’d love to see more work from him.

If you haven’t seen his stuff before, I can’t recommend watching this or this enough.

The good news? Even though the Halo film is kaput, it looks like Microsoft has hired Blomkamp to make some commercials for the upcoming Halo 3 game. Here’s one of ‘em.

Better quality here. All this via Bungie.