A Night to Remember

"A Night to Remember" is a short story pre-launch trailer for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt animated by Digic Pictures. It was released by CD Projekt RED on May 14, 2015.

Cast

 * Doug Cockle - Geralt of Rivia (voice)
 * Laura Doddington - Orianna (voice)
 * József Fodor - Geralt of Rivia
 * Zsuzsanna Rácz - Orianna
 * Gabor Szeman - Geralt of Rivia

Full cast and crew is available on IMDb.

Plot
In the story, Geralt meets an unnamed woman on the riverbank, who is singing a haunting lullaby. When Geralt approaches and notes that town folk paid him for her, she remarks that in the times past, no amount of coin would convince a witcher to take such contract. She then throws off her clothes transforming into something invisible and disappears in the nearby barn with unnatural speed. Geralt takes the potion in preparation, and enters it.

A fight ensues where she is revealed as some kind of higher vampire. During the fight she manages to bite Geralt, but the potion which happens to be Black Blood affects her, slowing her down. Geralt seriously wounds her and she flees the barn, falling right outside it transforming back into her human form. Geralt follows preparing a trophy hook, but collapses alongside her seeing her agony and her last tear.

When Geralt awakes, it is revealed that the lullaby was about witchers who are paid for killing. He leaves her melting body without taking the trophy and rides away in a hurry towards the city of Beauclair.

Lullaby (in the trailer)
The lullaby and trailer partially use the music from A Hole in the Sun by Two Steps from Hell. Lyrics are original and together with the music arrangement were composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz. Vocal is performed by Laura Doddington.

One of the reconstructed lyrics variants: Wolves asleep amidst the trees, Bats all a-swaying in the breeze, But one soul lies anxious wide awake, Fearing all manner of ghouls, hags and wraiths.

Birds are silent for the night, Cows turned in as daylight dies, But one soul lies anxious wide awake. For the witcher, brave and bold, Paid in coin of gold, He’ll chop and slice you, Cut and dice you. Eat. You. Up. Whole. Eat. You. Whole.

Lullaby (full version)
Full version of the lullaby was released on August 26, 2015 under the name "Lullaby of Woe".''

One of the lyrics reconstructions:'' Wolves asleep amidst the trees, Bats all aswayin' in the breeze, But one soul lies anxious, wide awake, Fearin' all manner of ghouls, hags and wraiths

For your dolly, polly sleep has flown, Don't dare let her tremble alone.

For the witcher Heartless cold, Paid in coin of gold, He comes, he'll go, Leave naught behind, But heartache and woe, Deep deep woe.

Birds are silent for the night, Cows turned in as daylight dies, But one soul lies anxious wide awake, Fearin' all manner of ghouls, hags and wraiths.

My dear dolly, polly shut your eyes, Lie still, lie silent, utter no cries.

As the witcher Brave and bold, Paid in coin of gold. He'll chop and slice you, Gut and dice you, Eat you up whole. Eat you whole.

Story interpretation
The trailer story is presented masterfully, with a lot of elements only hinted, leaving the viewer to guess and deduce the deeper context. Here is one interpretation based on the Witcher stories approach to ambiguity and moral struggle. But it can be understood in a number of ways, and that shows how well the trailer is done. (Note this is an interpretation and it doesn't claim to match the unexpressed intent of authors).

Geralt didn't really know her, and came because town people accused her (presumably for murder). He wasn't fully convinced that she was guilty, that's why he approached her first calmly. She was singing a vampire lullaby (a song which vampires would sing to their children ), describing witchers as monsters from her childhood, those who hunt her kind for coin. It's hinted by the scene when she finds a doll. When Geralt confronted her, she provoked him out of spite, and he took that as an admission of guilt. They fought each other perceiving the other as a monster.

In the end Geralt wanted to take the trophy as a proof in order to get paid by the town people, but collapsed seeing her transforming back to human form and suffering in agony because of Black Blood poison. When Geralt awoke, he realized that he didn't have enough evidence of her guilt and was horrified by what he did. That's why he didn't take the trophy and rode away in a rush. The song in the end stresses that point by saying that "witcher will eat you whole", hinting to Geralt's own darker side taking him over, again asking the question "who is the real monster"?

Interpretation regarding the vampire lullaby and ambiguity of the story were also confirmed by the project director:

"It was also important to show in the trailer, that the Witcher universe was “not about your stereotypical good versus evil characters - everyone has their own side of the story. The lullaby sung by the girl/vampire in the trailer is a great example of this: it is in fact a song that a ‘monster’ would sing to her offspring, about the terrible Witchers, who come and hunt them for money. It is an ambiguous world in this sense, where Geralt is not clearly a positive ‘hero’, and thus the film works deliberately to arouse some sympathy towards the girl/vampire.”"

- Peter Sved, project director (Digic Pictures)

The trailer
High resolution video is also available here.

References and footnotes
A Night to Remember