Before the Dawn: A Tribute to Heather O'Rourke [2025 Remastered Version]

ATTENTION: Some elements of the original video have been changed/altered to better reflect what I would have liked to have accomplished more with this tribute video when I first made it, as well as fixing some of the timing to the music. For those who are die-hard purists, the original video will remain uploaded. =========== During the course of working on my Deluxe Cut of the third Poltergeist film, I figured it was high time that I re-visit my first ever video and give it a major glow-up in quality, considering that the original was uploaded in the early days of YouTube... where 240p to 360p were the highest quality you could make a video. So, at last, I present to you the 2025 Remastered Version of "Before the Dawn: A Tribute to Heather O'Rourke". The following is a tribute to the late child actress Heather O'Rourke, most famous for her portrayal as Carol Anne in the Poltergeist films. She sadly died of health complications during a life-saving surgery in February of 1988. She was only 12 years old at the time. As a fan of hers when I was growing up, I was shattered to learn from my parents in 1992, when I was 7 years old, that the little girl who played Carol Anne was already long passed away. It may sound stupid or silly, but I really resonated with her growing up. I just felt like I could relate to who she was. And of course, learning about how beloved she was by basically everyone who met her or worked with her & how bright she was, it was clear that she was a genuine person through & through... which made it more tragic to know that she had been taken too soon. So, when I finally started to learn how to do video editing, I wanted to give back in some way while paying tribute. I also knew I wanted it to have a theme. Around that time, I was also really into Evanescence and had been playing with one of their unreleased songs in Audacity, where I was tweaking the pitch, etc. Then I realized how much it sounded like a child seeing, even having a bit of Heather's voice cadence, and realizing the bittersweet thematics of the song... it just all came together from there. Anywho, hope you enjoy!