by ControlFreak
****Major Spoiler Warning****
If you haven't finished the game, DO NOT read any further!!
This is a direct transcript from the bonus DVD that is included
in European versions of the game. I've tried to include as many images as
I can - click on any image to see the full size.
As a sidenote, Sato is the only person that can speak English (the others
are subtitled), and, as I have written this as accurately as I can, you'll
have to excuse the less-than-perfect English in the sections in which he
speaks.
****Major Spoiler Warning****
If you haven't finished the game, DO NOT read any further!!
Silent Hill 2
Making of
Alchemists of Emotion
Narrator: This is where Silent Hill 2 was created, here in Tokyo - somewhere on the forty-second floor of these buildings. Counting the graphics designers, programmers and musicians, over fifty people worked for nearly 2 years on this project. But Silent Hill 2 would have never come to life without these three; Imamura, the producer, Sato, in charge of designing the characters and cinematic visuals and Yamaoka, who created the sound and music.
All three are very ingenious but they say it's like being married, because they all worked together on the first Silent Hill. But for Silent Hill 2, they've gone much further, because Silent Hill 2 is alot more than just a horror game - more a terrible love story. Every detail of the game is conceived to shake you up mentally and emotionally. This is the artistry of these alchemists of emotions.
Backgrounds
Repulsion and Attraction
Backgrounds of Silent Hill are based on the concept of simultanious repulsion and attraction, as one way to define their impact. Strangely enough, they look nasty and disgust us, but also they have their own kind of charm, which is just the effect that the art director was trying to achieve, of course.
Masahi Tsuboyama - Art director
"I wanted to create something that would really disturb the game players
whilst attracting them. Something with an aura of mystery."
Before creating the images for these grim visual backgrounds, Tsuboyama went to shoot a few stills. It may sound odd, but these stills are perhaps the most important images of all.
The bathroom was the very first room modelled by the art director.
This was the first image created for the background. In a way, it served
as a sort of graphics bible for creating the other visual backgrounds. It's
no accident that the players start the game indoors.
A different rationale is applied to the exterior visual backgrounds.
The idea was to give the impression that the city was larger than you'd imagined. Certain sequences that might seem over-long were inserted deliberately, to convey a feeling of isolation.
Masahi Tsuboyama - Art Director
"At the beginning of the game, we deliberately made the descent through
the forest towards the cemetary longer. It's so long you don't feel like
turning back. At the same time, it makes you realize just how totally isolated
the city is... and you also! We knew it was a bit risky in terms of gameplay,
but we really wanted to take our chances and do it."
In addition, they used a grainy filter to dirty the images and give them character. Here's what Silent Hill 2 would've looked like if the creators had not used this ingenious process.
Always trying to take us by surprise, the graphics designers had fun planting a few disturbing elements throughout the game that go unnoticed at first. For instance, there's that body infront of the television. You don't realise it, but you know that face.
Masahi Tsuboyama - Art Director
"This corpse is James himself! Same face, same polygonal model structure.
Infact, this is an image straight out of James's imagination."
Another image from James's brain; the dress on the taylor's
dummy, revealed in the flashlight - you've seen that dress before. It's
Mary's.
All of these mysterious details come together to form a visual background
ideal for conveying impressions of solitude, suggesting a parallel dimension.
The perfect substrate for showcasing such elaborate and ambiguous characters.
Creation of the Characters
Emotion and Ambiguity
Of course, there's James, the hero of Silent Hill 2, but just
like the first Silent Hill, the main character does not have the key role.
Maria is a facinating woman who epitimises the ambiguity of Silent Hill
2.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"Disturbing and sometimes looks cute. And there is no specific model
of her."
With her disturbing ambivilance, the Maria characer has much more appeal than other heroines. For example, the one of Final Fantasy the movie. Sato explains why.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"The main girl character doesn't have a wrinkle, and doesn't kind of
have a bad point. She is kind of perfect. For example, you know, if you
were attracted by some woman, you know she's not perfect. If you take her
pictures, sometimes, her face is like that. It's not perfect. If she's always
perfect, I guess, you won't love her. You are in love with her because she's
human. She has character. That character has, you know, bad point. and good
point. They didn't make that. It's more real in the second Silent Hill.
From visual and technical point of view. But, I think I made her more realistic."
So Maria is woman who has her weak points, but takes full responsiblity for them. She flaunts her tummy with a little roll of flab, doesn't try to conceal the brown spots on her skin, cheats, with respect to some parts of the body.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"I think she's brunette, she's not blonde. She dyed red, then she dyed,
you know, she bleached."
These details make her seem very real - a woman with appeal.
Sato explains, actually Maria was sexier when we first started out, but
her plunging neckline gave us too many technical problems and we weren't
happy with the way the graphics looked.
A body like that isn't much without a lively, expressive face. So Sato threw himself into his work on this part of the animation.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"I tried to act sexy in front of the mirror and opened half my eyes.
And moved the lip, sexier, you know, like that - in the office! I was pervert!"
(laughs)
As a matter of fact, to obtain better results in the face animation, Sato did not resort ot motion capture.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and character artist
"I couldn't trust face motion capture. That motion capture system -
it just took the position of the skin.
If you open the mouth, the muscles here tighten, and motion capture cannot
capture it. But if I make them, infront of a mirror, I can notice it, I
can capture it. That's the biggest reason."
By doing the animation by hand, you can combine dozens of
expressions and come up with just the right one - even the most absurd.
On the other hand, motion capture was used for the body sequences. In other
words, these motions were carefully thought out, or rather, carefully observed.
The actress playing Maria struck poses to turn the head of any red-blooded
male player.
The animators simply had to transpose these sexy poses. For
the finishing touch, all they needed was a voice that would bring the face
to life. Between fifty and sixty people from Japan and the United States
were auditioned, but only five of them were hired.
By the way, the same persons who made the motion capture. You must be thinking
"Five? Hmm, that's funny there are six characters." That's easy
to explain. The same person played Maria and Mary. Once again, it's no accident.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"Same polygonal structure, of the face. Exactly the same. A little
bit of the skull shape is different. Maria can make Mary's face, and Mary
can make Maria's face. but the muscle structure, they're a bit different."
Now, unlike James, Angela is really bizarre. In the game, she's supposed to be sixteen or seventeen - she doesn't look like a teenager.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"It's not a usual teenager. She has something I think and I tried to,
you know, to make her face special. There's something inside, and that's
why I made these lines, these shadows, she kinda has this short mouth. And
tried to make her facial emotion, face animation, a little bit uncomfortable."
The design team opted to make Angela older, and opted for an older voice.
The actress playing Angela is about forty.
Last but not least, there's Eddie, whose creation was kind of funny.
Imamura Akihiro - Producer
"A friend of mine is Eddie's physical model."
But for your information, doesn't know about it. Fortunately, he only borrowed his friends physical characteristics, because Eddie is maybe the most deranged of all. He appears heavy and clumsy, due to a number of subtle details.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"His pupils are a little bit wider. Open a little bit wider than the
rest of the characters. His eye direction is in the other direction. And
his eyes move a little fast compared to the other characters. And I did
that on purpose."
An indepth study of human emotion, passionate attention to detail and perfect
casting. There lies the secret of the characters in Silent Hill 2.
But the monsters are every bit as ambiguous.
Creation of the Monster
Something Human
The creatures in Silent Hill 2 are not your run-of-the-mill horror game
monsters. They have no horns, no tentacles, no supernatural powers; they're
monsterous because their form suggests human fearures.
Ito Masahiro - Monsters Designer
"My basic idea in creating the monsters of Silent Hill 2 was to give
them a human aspect. In the beginning, the game player would believe they
were human. Then I proceeded to undermine this human aspect, by giving weird
movements to these creatures and by using improbable angles for their bodies,
based on the manerisms and movements of drunk people or the tentative walk
of very young children. "
But sometimes, inspiration strikes when least expected.
Ito Masahiro - Monsters Designer
"The idea for the monster in a straitjacket, hit me as I watched a
programmer friend who works here. One day, he came to see me. I saw him
coming from a long way off. His hands were in his pockets, close to his
body and he was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood. He was also listening
to his walkman and walking in a cool way. That's how I got the idea for
the monster. "
Of course, Ito's references were not merely anacdotal. He also drew inspiration
from his favourtie artist, the Irish painter Francis Bacon, whose tormented
creatures influenced the world of Silent Hill.
But the most striking and original creation has to be undisbutably the triangle
headed monster.
Ito draws with such ease that you might think he got the result he wanted
straightaway, but what he was looking for was a monster with a hidden face.
Like that it was less human and therefore more disturbing. HIs first idea
was this monster...
then he realised it was nothing but a human in a mask. So then he took the concept further, giving him a head in the shape of a triangle.
He explains it this way;
Ito Masahiro - Monsters Designer
"The triangle has right angles and acute edges, their sharpness suggests
the possibility of pain. And the triangle shape also helps explain the monster's
role in the game."
Once the monsters have been created, all they needed was a few bizarre, disturbing monster noises and some choice musical sequences. This was a job for the sound designer, Yamaoka.
Musics and Sounds
Under the Skin
Akira Yamaoka - Sound Director
"Movies didn't inspire my work for creation of Silent Hill 2 music,
that's just my style. For the main theme, I sat down at my place and took
three days to compose it. "
It's a theme that conveys the melancholy of Silent Hill 2, which, like the game itself, plays with unlikely combinations.
Akira Yamaoka - Sound Director
"I don't think that melody is the most important thing in a piece of
music. However, for this theme, I based my music on a sad melody with a
strong beat. Above all, I want to make sure that people feel something listening
to my music."
Yamaoka also produced all of the sound effects - a total of fifty sounds, not counting the nuances. To prevent repetition, he created hundreds of footsteps for the characters. They too break the sound rules applicable to the horror survival game.
Akira Yamaoka - Sound Director
"I think that the sounds in Resident Evil are pretty formal. I would
say that we are used to hearing them. Whereas for Siletn Hill 2, I really
tried to create something that would surprise you. Something that would
challenge your imagination as if the sounds were going under your skin.
What I mean by that is to create a physical reaction for the gameplayer,
such as a feeling of aprehension and unease."
This being said however, Yamaoka is too good a musician not to know that silence is sometimes the best sound of all.
Akira Yamaoka - Sound Director
"The job of a sound designer is not just to create sounds, so to speak.
We also have to know how to use silence. I think that selecting moments
of silence, is another way of producing sound. "
The audio track of Silent Hill 2, like the graphics and animation, succeeds
in creating an oppressive world - mysterious and completely original.
None of these technical exploits should take away from what makes Silent
Hill a work of genious - the fear.
Psychological Horror
Eros and Thanatos
Silent Hill had another major strength, one that invented a new type of
fear.
Imamura Akihiro - Producer
"In Silent Hill 2 fear could be defined in terms of what you don't
see makes you feel afraid. If you know that there is something around that
you can't see you'll be scared, deep down."
The creative people pushed their analysis much further; this feeling of psychological terror, specific to Silent Hill 2, was the product of serious brainstorming about the human mind and heart.
Sato Takayoshi - CG and Character Artist
"Psychological horror has to shake human's heart, deeply. Shaking people's
heart deeply means uncover peoples core emotion and their core motivation
for life. Everybody is thinking and concerning about sex and death and if
we want to scare, or shake or touch the users or spectators then we have
to think about sex and death deeply.
To make a death scene; somebody died or monsters died, if we made that kind
of scene, we try to mix erotic. This is kind of a visual core concept."
You can see it in these images of dead nurses, their short skirts, and low necklines. You can see it in the images of disembodied legs. Or in this suggestive scene.
Angela's tragedy, and of course, Maria's ambiguity; icy cold
like death, and suddenly sensual.
To conclude, let's look at one of the most important scenes in Silent Hill
2, and that's the prison scene.
Scene Decoding
Mary or Maria?
Suguru Murakoshi - Drama Director
"When we wrote the story of Silent Hill 2, we immediatly imagined this
scene. In this scene, Maria is talking to James, but this Maria looks like
Mary, the point was to confuse the game players, to get them thinking that
maybe, after all, she was Mary. Usually, in all the other scenes, Maria
is sexy. But for this scene, I tried to make her less sexy. "
Then we get to the big scene; the one where in the same shot, Maria was
playing at being Mary and becomes Maria again. Notice how the sound of her
voice becomes more carnal, how her gestures become sensuous again.
Never has horror been more poetic, never has our emotional ambiguity been
so skillfully exploited. The creators of Silent Hill are artists, and their
game is a work of art. It's as real as this hand touching your face.
So why not take another look at Silent Hill 2?
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