Alternate Audio Tracks for Movies

Patrick Stein writes "DVD Tracks is a forum for the distribution of home-brew, alternate audio tracks for movies. Inspired by Roger Ebert's column in Yahoo!Internet Life entitled You, Too, Can Be a DVD Movie Critic, DVD Tracks puts you behind the microphone to talk about your favorite flicks." Cool idea, but there's only one track. (Groundhogs day?)

Comments

Calling Joel Hodgson

[bandix]

This sounds like the killer app for DVD. The original and the MST3K audio track on the same disc.

Re:Calling Joel Hodgson

[poot_rootbeer]

The latest batch of MST3K DVDs to have been released have this feature. Or rather, they're double-sided DVD's with the original cut of the movie on one side and the MiSTed cut on the other.

Re:Calling Joel Hodgson

[Sloppy]

MST3k means "Mystery Science Theater 3000". It was a television show where a bad movie was shown in the background, and in the foreground there was a shadow of some recurring characters (Joel/Mike, Crow, Tom Servo) so that it looked like the recurring characters were watching the movie inside a theater. The recurring characters heckled the movie. (It was a lot funnier than it sounds.)

Groundhog Day

[ackthpt]

...I got you babe...

I swear, if I got up every morning to that tune on the radio, I'd drop a toaster into my bathtub, too.

I can't quite figure out how or why I'd want to do my own soundtrack for a movie. Seems there's plenty I like the sound to just fine, and those that I don't, eh... I'm not sure I'm cut out for the MST3K line of work.

"Together I shall rule the world!" -- Tom Servo

Now I do have a lot of experience with running the play-by-play from the radio instead of from the TV during sports broadcasts. :-)

Bandwidth issues

[e1en0r]

I thought about starting a similar site a few months ago, but I think in the end there will be too many bandwidth issues. I would guess the same will go for this site too. The "Groundhog Day" track is 17MB and I'm sure everything else will be pretty big too. Unless they get some kind of revenue source I think they'll have a hard time. And although this sounds like it would be a great thing for the movie industry to get behind, I'm sure they think it'll hurt their profits or infringe on their copyrights (they'll try to find a way) in some way and won't support it. A better idea might be something like Audiogalaxy (minus the spyware).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Average track

[NiftyNews]

"Hey and welcome to the movie. Man, this is cool. Oh hey, anyway, this is Brian Chamberlake III and we're going to watch Tank Girl together. [40 second gap]. Here come the credits. [50 second gap]. Alright...Hey Jim, get me some popcorn! [2 hour gap, end]."

Total Downloads of this clip: 3

Poor, poor Patrick....

[NOT-2-QUICK]

I don't personally know whom the site proprietor, Patrick, is or anything, but for his little site's sake I really hope that this article is either regarded as disinteresting by the masses of /. or that his ISP is in for one hell of a shock...

While this IS certainly an interesting idea and possibly even worth an article on Slashdot, his content is a bit thin and I have his usual site traffic is basicly not existant....until NOW that is!!!

So anyways...Pat, if you are reading this...good luck and I hope you are being charged for bandwidth by the Mb!!! Of course, you could always take a page from this guy and ask that the Slashdot community reimburse you...

Will copyright lawyers squish this?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I hope not. It just occurs to me that this might be a "derivative work" according to the MPAA...

I think most of us rational people realize that "alternate soundtracks" are perfectly harmless if not actually helpful to the bottom line of companies whose DVDs are getting alternate tracks made for them, but I think most of us recognize just how rational the MPAA is...

If they do attack this, at least the the "squashing of free speech" aspect of their current campaigns will be more blatant (if such a thing is possible), and if they DON'T, then we'll have another legitimate reason for 'fair-use' space-shifted copies of DVD movies (to make SVCD's with the alternate soundtracks for personal use on our standalone players, of course.)

This sounds cool but...

[jhaberman]

I have to think... Why would I want to do this? I mean, the reason I listen to the comentary tracks on my DVD's is because they usually are done by someone who had a hand in making the movie (Actors, directors, editors, etc.) See, I want interesting behind the scenes info about that day's shot, how bad the situation was, what they were going for... things they tried to do but didn't work... etc. etc. etc.

I definitely don't want a review of the movie while I'm watching it by some schlub who has no more insight than I do. I can take care of that for myself, thank you very much.

Maybe that's just me, tho...

Jason

Re:This sounds cool but...

[Jonathan]

Well, perhaps the best commentary track I've heard is Roger Ebert's "Dark City" commentary. It is far more interesting than the director's commentary track (also on the DVD). Commentaries can be genuine film scholarship -- they don't just have to be random trivia about making a movie. After listening to the commentary, I felt as if I've attended a film school lecture.

On the other hand, Joe Blow is not going to have the knowledge of both film and literature that Roger Ebert has, so maybe amateur commentaries aren't a great idea.

Groundhog Day commentary

[svferris]

I imagine the Groundhog Day commentary would go something like this:

"Hi this is Pat and welcome to my commentary on Groundhog Day. The movie stars Bill Murray..."

*five minutes later*

"Hi this is Pat and welcome to my commentary on Groundhog Day. The movie stars Bill Murray..."

Critics should not have a unquestioning audience

[ackthpt]

This is the simple practice I have for seeking critical advice on films:

Read a few reviews

Note who wrote them and what they had to say

See the movies, and then reconcile which critic(s) you most often agree with

Look for their review when you're planning how to spend your disposable income

Update list as necessary

I've noticed some reviewers are excellent for films targeted at 18-30 year old, who are completely out of it when reviewing something like A Bugs Life. Keep tabs on where their opinions are off base and on target. Disappointingly many have forgotten what it was like to be young.

Groundhog Day commentary

[svferris]

I imagine the Groundhog Day commentary would go something like this:

"Hi this is Pat and welcome to my commentary on Groundhog Day. The movie stars Bill Murray..."

*five minutes later*

"Hi this is Pat and welcome to my commentary on Groundhog Day. The movie stars Bill Murray..." .

Pink Floyd @ Wizard of Oz

[felipeal]

This schema would allow The Dark Side of the Moon as an alternative soundtrack for
The Wizard of Oz.

Everything Old is New Again.

[vitaflo]

My friends and I used to do this when we were kids. I had a friend bring over an extra VCR and a copy of Star Wars. We'd put the video feed out from the VHS my friend had to the BETA my parents had (yes we had BETA back then), and for the audio we'd use a microphone my parent owned and would rig it up to the sound in to the BETA.

Then we'd just play the movie on the VHS, and record it on the BETA, and adlib voices over the top of it. Sometimes it was lame, but a lot of times it was absolutely hilarious, especially when we had a really good exchange that just came off the top of our head, and synced w/ the actors well.

Darth Vadar saying "Once you go black, you never go back" when he points and Leia and calls her a traitor has never been so funny. ;)

This could be absolutely awesome

[Flounder]

Ordinary fan commentaries would probably be alot of "OH, THIS SCENE IS AWESOME, WATCH FOR TRINITY'S NIPPLE!"

However, I like E-bert's idea. What if you were involved in the movie, and had a particular viewpoint. I had a friend that works for Paramount, and is involved behind the scenes with Star Trek, especially the movies. And he's got stories and behind the scenes insights that would blow your mind. Watched The Wrath of Khan with him and it completely changed my impression of that movie.

Having an expert commentary about a movie based on particular subject matter would be also very worth it. My grandfather was in the first wave at Utah Beach and definitely has alot to say about Saving Pvt Ryan.

Now, if you can have a program to sync the commentary to the PC DVD player, then it'll be the killer app for PC DVD.

Sonny and �her? EFF them

[yerricde]

...I got you babe...

The site's featured track is for the movie Groundhog Day, which repeatedly plays a song by Sonny and Cher (stage name of Salvatore Bono and Cherilyn LaPierre), both of whom have voiced support for perpetual copyright.

If you want to watch the movies dubbed on the site without the revenue from your DVD purchases supporting the political agenda of Hollywood, then for every dollar you spend on entertainment, make a matching contribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (I'm a card-carrying member myself.)

It may have sounded like flamebait...

[Golias]

but the AC has a point.

(For those who read at 1 or higher, the parent to this post said "No one will take the time to listen to this sort of thing. Except for the poster, maybe his girlfriend." Hopefully it will get bumped up soon, but AC's seldom seem to get their props under the current mod system.)

I strongly disagree with what Roger Ebert says about homebrew comentary. I like some director commentary tracks. I like it even better when a DVD comes with comentary by a very well-informed person who writes about movies for a living (such as the comentary on Criterion's edition of Seven Samurai, or the track Mr. Ebert himself did for Dark City). Listening to some of those tracks is like taking a film school seminar, with one of the nation's leading critics as your professor for the day.

That said, there is no way I'm going to spend two hours of my life listening to what the typical talk-backer from Aint-It-Cool-News has to say about his favorite flick. Why would I ever take the time to download a play-by-play breakdown of... oh, say "12 Monkeys"... when, for all I know, it was done by somebody who never saw "La Jette" (which it was based on), nor any of Gilliam's previous body of work, and spends most of the running time of the film talking about Brad Pitt's recent marriage to Jenifer Aniston and how he thought that the Bruce Willis movie "Hudson Hawk" was really underrated.

In Proverbs* it says that there is no man on Earth who you can't learn something from, but that doesn't mean that everybody's nuggets of wisdom are worth the time to mine them.

* Footnote: "Proverbs" is a popular religious text expounding on the virtues of wisdom, for those of you who drive around with those lame "Darwin fish" on the backs of your cars, in spite of having never attended a high school biology class.