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Information

• Member: dj_ultima_the_great
• Title: The Chosen Two
• Premiered: 2006-06-08
• Categories:
  • Serious
  • Horror
• Song:
  • HIM Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly
• Anime:
  • Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (game)
• Comments: My twelfth music video.
  
  For info about the sources, go to section one!
  For info about the video, go to section two!
  For info about the technical points, go to section three!
  If you don’t really give a damn about any of that, download the video!
  
  
  Section 1 – Sources
  Fatal Frame. It kind of has a cult following, but not much beyond that. The three games are creepy in their own unique way, and offer the jump-out-of-your-seat scares that you’d expect from Resident Evil, as well as the constant, pervading uneasiness that you’d find in Silent Hill. It has a balanced mix of horror and an engaging story, but the winning combo just didn’t seem to sit so well with gamers. However, those who gave it a chance saw what an interesting franchise it was. In particular, the second game stood out for me. The story touched me, it wasn’t overly drawn out, and the visuals were beautiful. Moreover, it’s just damn fun to fight with a camera as your only weapon. ^_^ So, overall, the game has been something that has stuck with me, regardless of how many times I replay it.
  
  If you want the basic premise of Fatal Frame II, here’s the reader’s digest version (no spoilers – only what you would see in previews):
  
  In the Lost Village (which remains nameless throughout the game), there is a tradition: at the age of fifteen, the older of a set of twins kills the younger one, who then becomes a crimson butterfly that will “save the village.” In other words, they will be protected from divine wrath, be blessed with health, and have successful crops. The sacrificed twin is honored and respected, while “The Remaining” (the older twin) is essentially kept out of the public eye from then on. However, when a sacrificial ritual was to take place, the shrine maiden twins that were to take part in it ran away. Because of the events following that incident, the village was covered in darkness, killing all of the villagers and effectively freezing the place in time. Countless years later, twins Mio and Mayu are sitting by a river from their childhood, reminiscing about the place a few days before construction and demolition of the area is scheduled to occur. While Mio is lost in thought, Mayu wanders off, following a glowing red butterfly deep into the forest...
  
  This is the point where my video starts – the opening cutscene. If you want to get the general gist of the game, I suggest downloading the video, as it follows the chronology of Fatal Frame II fairly well. But I want to warn you, this has MAJOR spoilers for the game. Download at your own risk.
  
  As for the song, it almost seems too obvious to work, doesn’t it? That’s what I thought when I first heard it, courtesy of my best friend. However, more than the obvious chorus, the verses also matched so well that it was eerie. It almost felt like the song had been written for the game. A video idea formed in my head instantly, and I’ve had some of these parts planned for months. I was also astonished that I never seemed to get sick of listening to this piece either. They say that you should listen to a song until you practically hate it when you want to make an AMV – that way you have it memorized going in. Well, I had this song on nonstop for weeks upon weeks. For most of second semester, I had “Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly” blaring through my speakers, but I consistently enjoyed it each time, and just wanted to make a video that much more. I guess it finally won over.
  
  
  Section 2 – The Video
  How did I get my start on this one? Well, a new DVD drive inspired me to learn ripping – and since videogames are my specialty, I decided to start with those. In fact, Fatal Frame II was the first game I tried. After a couple nights of tinkering and guide-reading, I got a nice gaggle of very large cutscenes at my disposal. However, it wasn’t until I came home from school and realized I had no internet available that I decided to finally start fiddling around with this new editing program I got. Knowing that I hadn’t planned any effects for my FFII video, I figured that this would be a good one to start with. Just something to get my feet wet with Magix. It didn’t take me long to pick up the program, which is a Codsend, considering that this was the last program I was going to try before I finally just said “fuck it” and went back to Windows Movie Maker II.
  
  So, I went ahead, and things seemed to generally just fall in place once I got past the initial ten seconds or so. My biggest roadblock with this video – by FAR – was that half of the game’s scenes use the ingame engine... meaning, I couldn’t rip them. Sucks, really, because I had envisioned a lot of those unusable scenes in place of several of the ones I have in the video now. I did my best with substitution, and I hope it looks okay. Of course, as half of the scenes are unavailable to me, I was a little short on clips. I mean, four of the scenes were just different forms of the same preview, only one of which didn’t have hard subtitles in it. Besides the “low on footage” problem, I really didn’t agonize over clip choice all that much. To be perfectly honest, I realize that the section between the end of the first chorus and the bridge might seem a little dull. Well, there’s nothing wrong with a lull, so long as it picks up, right? That’s what I’ll tell myself anyway.
  
  My favorite part? Probably the opening (once the percussion kicks in) and the bridge of the song. The timing turned out better than I could have hoped for.
  
  Particular points:
  - this video uses, essentially, no effects. Any white flashes you see were already in the footage itself. Also, none of the greyscaling or “old film” effects were done by me. Fatal Frame is just weird like that with its presentation. The ONLY part with effects is between 2:35 and 2:42. I used transparencies (as a sort of overlay) to match the strong beats there.
  - the intro – just a quick thing I did using a still image with text and a clip from the game. Since I couldn’t see an option for overlaying a clip with a title, I just used another transparency to make the text show through the image.
  - the outro – a series of still images that I edited in Photoshop. I imported them into Magix, threw them in the timeline, overlapped the edges the images to make smooth transitions, and then exported it. It took me a while to wrap my brain around how I would have to layer the images to make them look right. >_>;;
  
  
  Section 3 – Technical Points
  Well, this was a totally new experience for me, top to bottom. It’s been a year since I have edited a full video. In that time, I’ve been studying EADFAG more than I did for my finals. ~_~ I bought some new hardware and software, trialed like a bajillion editing programs, and, finally, I decided to put twelve months of learning to the test. This video is the result of that. Keep in mind, many of the things I learned will probably go unnoticed before the casual viewer, but trust me – I’m ten times more informed about this whole AMV making process than I was a year prior. So, here are the main points...
  
  Time spent: roughly thirty hours over the course of two weeks
  Sources/Programs Used:
  Fatal Frame II (Playstation 2 version)
  DVD Decrypter
  The File Splitter 1.31
  Nova Extractor
  DVD2AVI
  HIM – Dark Light
  CDex
  Magix Movie Edit Pro 10
  Avisynth
  Virtual Dub Mod
  
  ***NOTE*** - this video is encoded in XviD. Why not h.264 and/or .mp4 you ask? It plays choppy on my compy, regardless of the codecs. I only use what I can play smoothly.
  
  
  ________________________________________
  
  
  Thank yous...
  
  Thanks to AD and ErMaC for the ever-helpful AV Tech guide. Also, my eternal gratitude to Castor Troy for making a terrific PS2 ripping... thread. Man, when is that ever going to become a real guide and take its rightful place with the others?
  
  Thanks to Ileia-chan and Aqua-chan for encouraging me (with buttsex? o_O ), especially when my faith in my skills dwindled to nothing.
  
  Lastly, and, oddly, most importantly, thanks to trythil and inthesto, who gave me (probably unknowingly) the kick in the ass I needed to take some initiative to learn this stuff on my own, instead of constantly relying on others to answer all of my questions.
  
  As always, Farewell, Good Luck, and Happy AMV-ing!
  
  With that said, please download and enjoy! ^_^
  
  
  - Jen