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Gamer/filmmaker David Purchase remembers precisely when Half-Life changed his life. “Nov. 22, 1998,” he says. “I bought it the first day it came out, on a Friday, and played a massive marathon the entire weekend.”

Purchase’s younger brother Ian chimes in, calling the release date for Valve Software’s influential first-person shooter “a hallmark day” that would greatly influence the siblings’ cinematic work.

Fast-forward to 2008, when the self-taught Canadian auteurs borrowed a page from the machinima playbook, exporting assets from Half-Life and combining the bleak videogame imagery with photographs and traditional video.

The resulting short film, Half-Life: Escape From City-17, juxtaposes epic sci-fi wasteland shots with live-action sequences captured in Toronto using a handheld camera.

The brothers launched Escape From City-17 in February, hoping to attract lucrative TV commercial work by showcasing their visual effects talents. Instead, the short found instant traction among videogame fanboys, paving the way for a feature film project and two more installments of a projected Half-Life trilogy.

Like Neill Blomkamp’s gritty District 9, which similarly started out as a short film before expanding into a big-screen blockbuster, City-17 is a shining example of grass-roots moviemaking conjured by filmmakers with distinctive vision and no shortage of DIY drive.

The Purchase brothers visit Hollywood on Thursday to present Half-Life: Escape From City-17 at digital moviemaking festival AFI DigiFest.

The brothers spoke with Wired.com by phone to discuss the techniques they experimented with in City-17. For a glimpse at how they created Hollywood-scale spectacle on a $500 budget, check the images below.

Lothar wrote:Pretty good looking. Acting is pretty weak, though.