Frankie in the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer documentary.
Frank O'Connor, also known as Frankie, is the Franchise Development Director for the Halo franchise at 343 Industries. Previously, he has worked as the content manager for Bungie. He was the primary writer of the Bungie Weekly Update through the production of Halo 2 and Halo 3. He announced his departure from Bungie on May 16, 2008 in order to work more closely with Microsoft Studios on Halo-related content.[1] He wrote a short novella titled Halo: Saint's Testimony, which released on July 27, 2015.[2]
Background
O'Connor was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. Growing up, Frankie was obsessed with games and played Pong, 2600, Intellivision, Vectrex, ColecoVision, Sinclair Spectrum, Atari 800, Commodore 64 and so on, up to and including the Xbox 360, as each was released.
He was able to parlay his love of video games into a writing career that involved working at a number of video game magazines, including Ultimate Future Magazine, TOTAL! Nintendo Magazine, and Official Xbox Magazine. He then was taken on by Bungie Studios as content manager for the Halo franchise. When asked about his typical day at the office, Frankie told HIH:
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I'm content manager, which really means, spare monkey. That means I do everything from writing the manual, helping marketing with materials, running the website and going on trips to incredible places, to shoveling pimp turds out of Marty's recording booth. Seriously. Pimps are way worse than cart horses.
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Frankie Facts
Childhood Idol?
- Frankie: Billy Idol, naturally. He's not just my idol, he's the world's idol. Rock!
Do you have any pets?
- Frankie: An enormous cat. Seriously, 22 pounds of rippling feline blubber. In fact, rippling is his only form of exercise.
Anything else you'd like to tell us about yourself?
- Frankie: I am foreign. Like Balky. Or maybe more like Groundskeeper Willie. Also, I have an enormous tattoo of the Scottish flag on my right shoulder, underneath which is inscribed, "Scotland Forever." On account of how stupefyingly awesome Scotland is. Eventually, when the Scottish Empire has finally secured world peace and total domination of the globe, you will appreciate it.
Trivia
- Frankie was usually the only player on Bungie's team wearing full Recon Armor in their Humpday games.
- He appeared in a special episode of This Spartan Life.[citation needed]
- His weapon of choice is the Covenant Carbine.
- He was the arch enemy of Martin O'Donnell.
- O'Connor was a co-author of Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, providing the introduction and the short story "Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian."
- He has a daughter who, as of February 2012, is three years old.
- O'Connor makes a cameo appearance in the webseries Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn as Beamish, the janitor who witnesses the fight between Thomas Lasky and Walter Vickers in the mess hall in Episode 2.
- O'Connor reprised his role as the character Beamish in the 343 Industries video supporting the ALS research also known as ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. O'Connor, staying in character at all times, is seemingly unhappy when he finds water and ice cubes all over the place. Beamish, being the Janitor in the webseries Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, mops and cleans the backyard while a tune of FUD's soundtrack can be heard in the background.[3]
- Beamish returns in Halo 2: Anniversary in the remade opening cinematic of the campaign mission Gravemind. Like the Lonely Soul easter egg, he can only be seen if the player sets the difficulty at Legendary. He appears behind one of the pillars next to the Grunts and Jackals.
- In an interview, Frank O'Connor defended John-117's Mark VI armor appearance change from Halo 3 to Halo 4 by satirizing fans' criticisms: "people be like, 'nanomachines, magic, bullshit.'"[4]
Gallery
