Not a complete surprise but the announcement for the Director of Halo has been made and it's a first time feature director. Prepare for those instant haters to start hating, the fans to start digging, and the rest of us to take an impartial look at what this really means.

Neill Blomkamp is set to direct. According to Coming Soon he...

...directed the acclaimed 2005 short film, Alive in Joburg, that depicted a future in which extraterrestrials have become refugees. Last year, Blomkamp also received three Clio Awards and a Visual Effects Society Award for his television commercial Citroen-Alive with Technology. In 2004, Blomkamp was recognized as "One of the Top Five Directors to Watch" at the First Boards Awards and was a featured artist at the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase at Cannes. He has also been nominated for an Emmy award for his work on an episode of James Cameron's "Dark Angel."

He's also been a 3D Animator on Smallville, First Wave, Stargate SG-1, as well as other series and two movies, one for TV.

So the haters can instantly, and once again proclaim this film a complete disaster and doomed to failure, while the fans can start digging around and find anything that can pin him to the possibility of being a great choice, and I think that hope lies firmly in his advertisement work and in his mastery of technology and animation.

However there's a nice middle ground here. There are many new directors appearing all the time, and they are not instantly rubbish. There are also many big directorial names that have arrived from the world of advertising, none of these factors is an instant sign of anything. However, they are good indicators that he will understand effects, and bring an exciting visually engaging style to the screen. The real test is if he can pull a story together and effectively tell it to the audience with excitement, tension and passion.

So where do you fall? Hater, hoper, or with me on the middle ground?