Laurie Landry as "Leslie" courtesy Jon Michael Kondrath

Premiering at E3, Mass Effect 3‘s live action trailer — directed by Neel Upadhye — shows a startling series of news broadcasts documenting the horrors of Earth’s invasion.  Among the dead is Laurie Landry, playing a helicopter pilot downed during the invasion, being scanned by a combat medic in the midst of a battlefield.

The picture gallery below shows the long day/night filming that went into this high-octane, fast-cutting trailer.  As one of the most anticipated games of E3, Mass Effect is an action/roleplaying game that — until now — has taken place on planets other than Earth.  With the new title featuring humanity’s home planet, it seems like it’d be easy to film something about the setting, but as these photos show, it was a nightmarish setting of death, gore, and destruction on an epic scale.

Several photos below also reveal cut sequences that didn’t make it into the E3 trailer, specifically where Laurie — as the character of Leslie — joins two other survivors as they search the streets in hopes of finding safe haven.  Their time is cut short as “Husks” attack the group, tearing apart one of their members…

To find out more, check out the article in Laurie’s video section featuring the Director’s Cut of the trailer, as well as links to a behind-the-scenes featurette courtesy of EA, makers of Mass Effect 3.