Downloadable Film Commentaries Becoming Popular?

FilmFan writes "Now that Kevin Smith is offering a downloadable commentary for Clerks 2, will other Directors follow in his footsteps? Some studios think so and are already offering similar content for shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, and Star Trek: Enterprise. Other websites offer fan-created content and even offer a free DVD player capable of playing these downloaded commentaries in sync with a DVD."

Comments

Scrubs did this too

[the_unknown_soldier]

Scrubs did this too, except while the show was on air. They released the commentary of a repeat and then you were meant to listen to the commentary while it was on NBC. It was a cool idea but I could never quite get it to sync up perfectly. The mp3's are still online too.

iPod + Movie

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

I guess having an iPod would drown out the noise from the crying babies, the ringing cell phones, and the talking loudmouth.

More seriously (and less grumpily) though, it's definitely a neat way for fans who really enjoyed the movie the first time to get more out of it the second time. I give them credit for coming up with a new *positive* experience for watching movies, instead of advertisements and commercials, and etc etc.

Prepare for the next buzzword: Moviecasts!

Second Aduio Program

[redphive]

This would be an excellent use of Second Audio Program (SAP) for TV shows. It would always be in sync, it wouldn't require anything to download/play, and most modern TVs support it any way. Everyone speaks english, so what is the big deal?

Re:Second Aduio Program

[Overloadplanetunreal]

Actually I experienced a creative use of SAP a couple years back. I was channel surfing and landed on some very young children's show. It was one of those ones where it was basically an adaptation of a kids book in to a 10 minute animated show.

Anyway, I can't remember why I switched on SAP, but when I did, I was surprised to find out that all it did was add narration to the whole thing. Whereas the normal show just has the dialog, the SAP added what I assume was the original text from whatever book this was a recreation of.

Great for students

[NeilTheStupidHead]

This is great for those studying filmography, animation, or acting; depending of course on the quality of the commentary. The director talking about what kind of doughnoughts were on the snack table the day they shot a certain scene is obviously no help, but commentaries where the director or other cast/crew talk about the process of making the film can be very insightful to students.

Good idea - gives insight

[kyc]

    I think this is a pretty cool idea. Most of the time, I am sure, most of us try (while watching a film we adore maybe for the 5th time ) to look through the glasses of the director(of an impressive film). I don't think that this will apply to mediocre action films or romantic comedies, however imagine that there is a thorough documentation by Kubrick ( with his lively and agressive style) while you are wathcing Clockwork Orange. OR imagine what Lynch had to say about the bizarre final of Mulholland Drive. And furthermore, imagine you have free access to these after you watch an amazing film, just as the ones described above.

and I am pretty sure that we all prefer DVDs to junky VCDs or poor quality records, not only regarding the quality but also the commentaries, deleted scenes and director's opinions.

I hope it works very well and we have that option for the movies we enjoy

Fantastic.

[TheNoxx]

I don't know about the average man or slashdotter, but one of my favorite things in this world are commentaries on DVDs for good movies.... particularly for Kurosawa movies.

One wierd thing I've noticed on commentaries for movies that were released before the invention of DVDs is that they, too, were recorded years before the DVD came onto market... I've heard several introductions for commentaries mark that they were created in '92 or so. I've always wondered why film studios would go to the trouble of booking notable figures in the film industry as well as prominent actors for commentaries before they knew what the hell kind of format would support them. Just a thought.

Re:Need more commentaries for bad films

[01101101]

You jest about mst3k style commentaries, but with hi capacity DVD's there is no reason they couldn't use the extra room to do a number of commentary tracks, including one by the guys from MST3K. I'd buy more cruddy films on DVD if I knew it had an MST3K track built in. Could be a new revenue stream.

Cue the Peanut Gallery! (no, REALLY! ... read on!)

[thedbp]

Shameless plug for a great piece of software for Mac OS X called Peanut Gallery from RONIN NO SAKURA KAI SOFTRONICS.

Basically, it makes inventive use of some Mac OS X video technologies to allow people to do running MST3K-style commentary in real time over a LAN or the internet, complete w/ shadow avatars and a theatre-like presentation. It even comes with a bunch of public domain movies like Night of the Living Dead and Refer Madness so you can start heckling right away. Unfortunately, my Mac isn't powerful enough to use this software (my old ass 1999 vintage B&W is finally starting to get long in the tooth) but I've seen it demoed and it is KILLER. Tons of fun.

From the site:
"You and up to 7 guests can enjoy video or audio from local files, your .Mac iDisk, or the World Wide web, complete with pre-rolls, intermission and Core Video-Powered theater-like visual effects.
Interact with each other via Maya-rendered 30fps* animated characters, inline real-time text chat, and voice.
Peanut Gallery isn't just a video player - it's a Shared Media Experience!"

Check it out! Its quite a lot of fun.