Behind-The-Scenes: Horror Games

Here's some notes on my Horror Games video!

I think this is, without a doubt, my favorite video I've made. I feel that way about most of the videos I put out, but this one just seems extra special.

Researching the video was like a weeks long process that had me deep diving Wikipedia to find the development history of a bunch of horror games. I then procrastinated a bunch writing the script and getting to record it (family issues and landing a job took priority). And then finally editing it took several days after work.

The video script itself was something I'm super passionate about. I'm very invested in the gaming industry, and seeing all these connections between horror games told me I needed to make this video. And I'm honestly surprised how connected everything was.

Fun fact: I originally brought up both Alone In The Dark AND Silent Hill: Downpour without knowing anything about the developers. I just used them as funny bits in the first half. Then when I deep dived into F.E.A.R I looked into them more to see any similarities. So the discovery that nearly all the games I talked about had similar problems was a shock to me even while writing the video. Crazy how that worked out.

Not using face cam for this video was a hard choice to make, but I've been feeling more confident about my voice-over videos after the Starfield one did well (also the Elden Ring one too I guess). Also it's over 40 minutes long and I just didn't want to record in front of bright lights for that long. I think I want to separate the long video essays and the green screen videos into two different categories. Using the green screen for less scripted and more lighthearted content, and then no face cam for the more serious or video-essayish stuff. I have plans for all of it, so just stay tuned.

Editing

Actually talking about the editing, I found a bunch of good horror game footage on YouTube. Big shoutout to SHN for having HD horror game uploads. I credited them in the description because their videos were the best material to use. The Resident Evil 1 footage I found on another channel was dogshit, which is why you see the remake until I had to actually cover the original. But for the most part all the footage was good. I imported probably 20 or more hours of full-length gameplay footage that I cut down for this.

I also used a bunch of text on screen that was super fun, yet tedious to do. Sizing up custom text to fit on screen and then masking it out word by word took a while, but I think it was worth it because it really adds good emphasis to a lot of my points. It gave the video a sort of consistency that I feel fits well.

The most fun I had editing was almost definitely a tie between all the Chris Redfield boulder punch bits that I cut to music, and the mid-sentence jumpscares that I used for Dead Space 1 and 2. The former was good because I love that scene and think it fits to so many ridiculous metal tracks. The latter was good because I feel it did the games justice.

I wanted to talk about the best parts of the Dead Space games, but didn't want to ruin the experience for anyone who hadn't played them, so I thought putting the intros in full and cutting off my lines with the jumpscares would be a good way to recreate the genuine shock those moments have. I had the same thoughts with P.T. There's no way to really explain how scary that game is without just watching an unbroken clip of it.

Finally, the music I used was probably my best so far, in my opinion. I used my typical collection of synth and future funk tracks for the less serious bits, and found good Resident Evil and Silent Hill ambient music to play when things get spooky. It really adds a lot to the tone of the video, and especially the ending almost became emotional for me to watch.

Thoughts

The whole process of making this video was honestly one long question of whether it would even be good, right up until I was rewatching it with the music in place. I can't tell you how much it brought everything together, and I'm glad I had just a random idea at work to put it in. The music working together with the text on screen and my lines about horror being driven by emotion hit WAY harder than they had any right to.

With all that being said, I burnt out a little bit on gaming videos. I think this pairs well in a sort of trilogy between my open world and stealth games videos, and that might be where I leave it off for a while. I want to make some slightly different content for a bit just to refresh. Probably more anime and other nerdy topics until I find a new gaming rabbit hole to jump down. This will hopefully be my last 40 minute video for a while, because goddamn did it take a lot of work.