Quietus

The Quietus

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• published: 19 Apr 2013
• views: 761

This is a semi old project I was working with at the same time I worked with my Loz-videoproject of Kingdom of Heaven, which was a long time project. Indeed, I had some side-projects alongside with it, and this is one of them. This video was first of very much inspired by Epica's song Quietus, a song which at first didn't fall in my taste but later on grew onto me. And when I decided to do this project, I had fallen in love with Quietus and realised how good it really is alongside its uniqe and kinda celtic sound. This was my first inspiring about this song, the next thing which inspired me was the lyrics of this song itself, and the song's story and lyrics reminded me so much of a certain villian and a culprit of a certain game. Yes, Alice Madness Returns. And the villian and culprit is indeed and of course Dr Bumby/Dollmaker and his horrible crimes. The whole song and its lyrics reminded me of Alice's deep grief, pain, and especially the hate for Dr Bumby/Dollmaker once she knew who the real culprit was for the death of her family and the 10-years of confinement of hers at Rutledge.This is how much this song inspired me, plus my love for it, and thus I had to make this. This video, alongside with the song and its lyrics, has a little story to it and here is how it goes: Everyone who knows American McGee's Alice knows how the story goes, both from the first game and the second. And alongside with this song, the story starts futher into the game when Alice, by using and adventuring through Wonderland to find the answers and truths, starts to understand and get clarity over the real truth and who the real culprit is in the tragedy of her family and her life, but also a more twisted and depraved truth and fate of her present life and the circumstances to it, alongside with the other patients/children who are treated by Dr Bumby. Everyone who knows the story knows what kind of twisted and depraved stuff Dr Bumby, or his Wonderland-alter-ego, DollMaker, really is up to. This song in this video is indeed mostly in Alice's perspective, feelings and journey through it all, and it goes in both past, present and til the conclusion. And trough all that we see her still lingering pains and wounds from her past and the abuse and suffering of her at Rutledge. We see her as she is adventuring through Wonderland in the melancholic Mysterious Easts while in real life she goes in a kind of unconscious state and ends up being taken into gaol for a while as the police accuses her of going off her nuts and being rowdy and all again. And we see her as far in her journey in Wonderland in search for the truth, coming across her conclusion of who the real culprit indeed is and that he is starting to suspect what she is up to and therefore is ready to stop her by all means depending on what she chooses, to accept her depraved fate he chooses for her or to remain the struggling rebel who's foolish enough to go all the way and stop him. As she know's all of this she collapses into another hallucination which seems so real and nightmarish. In her hallucination she's back in Rutledge asylum and seems to be doomed, this is because of her great fear plus that she suspects and knows that Bumby would send her back there in real life If she didn't choose to surrender and follow him again. But then she retires for another journey into Wonderland and the real conclusion, uncovering even more dark plus twisted and depraved things. And so the rest that remains is the ultimate showdown between her and the culprit. This is kinda how the story in this video goes and by reading the lyrics and watch the video, it'll be more understanding. A thing I forgot to mention is that in this video I also tried to synch the mouth mimic and movements of Alice's alongside with some of Simone Simon's parts, the lyrics of the song alongside with some other vocal parts. Like Alice is telling us the story and we can actually see her mouth movements and mimics in a some places, singing the story. Yes, the synching alongside to the song's lyrics at a few parts is not perfect but so isn't the characters synch togheter with their mouth movements and mimic in the actual game either at some places. Plus, in classical singing, especially at high notes, the mouth doesn't have to mimic exactly and litteral. It would be in fact very very hard to do in high notes. So yeah, that's my excuse and explaining to why Alice's not-so-perfect synching to the lyrics shouldn't be considered a big deal. Plus, this was also not the main focus in this video also. But this thing is certainly something I might try again in the future as it was pretty fun. ^_^ Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy watching this video as much as I enjoyed making it. :) Song: Quietus-Epica Footage: Alice Madness Returns Video: By me using Adobe Premiere Elements