Giles

I won't name the film since it's adult in nature, but there's a Jerry Butler/Robert Kerman commentary track which is insanely fascinating to listen to but there's a moment during the commentary where the topic veers onto a topic that was deleted for I guess legal reasons, it's a long stretch of dead air and leaves one to wonder what was exactly said - there are other commentaries that delete audio portions, and it's kind of a shame that they can't retain them.

In a similiar vein, it's really interesting that Malcolm McDowell bascially ripped Caligula for nearly it's entire two and half hour running time.

Giles

for the most part, the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is good (but not great) recollection from the 'kids' (now adults) of the film.

davidh777

I think it was on Dawson's Creek that the commentary was spoiling future seasons

7Keys

I was referring to commentators speaking about the specific episode/movie they are commenting on not future episodes. It's the "Well, I won't comment about what is going to happen right now in case you haven't seen it" moments that get me - as if people watch commentaries first before the show. Not spoiling future episodes/sequels would make sense.

I remember watching an XFiles commentary way back when and they through out a couple of spoilers for the movie and future episodes which I hadn't seen yet, so I stop listening to their commentaries until I watched the complete series.

That's why I'm holding off on the Lost commentaries, I'm not sure if they'll drop spoilers or not. I'll wait until I finish the series then go back.

riotinmyskull

the real question is what ISN'T the appeal of commentaries?

That'sAllFolks

I watch a lot of parts of commentaries. I start watching it and my skip around to interesting parts of the movie to see what they say about it. The best commentary I've every listened to was from Recount. It was by Danny Strong of Buffy fame and was very informative on the history of the FL election recount as well as interviewing the real people and filming the movie.

But for the most part, commentaries are not really that interesting unless I really like the movie or the commentators are really funny. I watch most stuff with Seth Green, but I find it amazing how humorless a lot of actors/directiors/etc. really are.

Brian T

Is there a primer anywhere on how to do this for the less tech-savvy, or someone like me who just wants to do it quickly and cleanly? Thanks to a desk job, I've listened to virtually every commentary on every disc I've ever bought, but this has always meant bringing the discs to work with me. It would be much easier if I could rip them and put them on my iPod and listen to them wherever I please.

I do wish that studios/distributors would appreciate the value of commentary tracks (which must now number in the tens of thousands) independent of the films they were recorded for. Anyone listening, especially a scholar or a devoted fan, has either seen the movie or is so intimately familiar with it as to not need to be watching it while the commentary is playing.

Perhaps with the move to downloading/streaming in the future, we'll see "catalog" supplementary features such as these made available for downloading on their own. In fact, I'd be happy to pay a small (small!) fee for a commentary from, say, iTunes, even for films I've maybe seen but don't feel overly compelled to own (or own anymore ). It might be only be a small revenue stream for the companies that produced this stuff in the first place, but it's something. With physical media being liquidated in ever-increasing numbers at stores like Big Lots for as little as a dollar, surviving companies—and those that end up with the rights to materials produced by companies that fold—should really consider keeping this stuff available, affordably, for both current future enthusiasts.

Gatherer

There's two ways to do this, as seen at ask.metafilter.com/37239/DVD-Commentary-to-MP3-Painlessly-On-a-Windows-PC :

- More tech-savvy required: Decrypt and extract the commentary audio directly from the DVD with some of the free programs mentioned there.

- Less tech-savvy required: Play the DVD in commentary mode on your computer, and run the free program Audacity to record the audio in realtime. (To avoid hearing it already while recording it, you can turn off or unplug your computer speakers, but don't mute the sound from onscreen controls or Audacity won't hear it to record it.) This could be done in the background while you do other things on the computer as long as you don't do anything that makes any other sound (watching Youtube videos, etc); or each movie one at a time could be left to run overnight; or you could knock out a bunch of movies over a weekend if you go occupy yourself with something else away from the computer and come back every couple of hours to start another movie.

Brian T

Thanks for the leads. I'll look into these on the weekend. I'm on a Mac, and the linked page is for PC, but perhaps I might get lucky. I do have a program called Mac The Ripper that seems to allow extraction of individual components of discs, although I don't use it for that, so I might just have to do a bit more reading.

Gatherer

Oh, a Mac user!

Audacity does have a Mac version too. audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac

Mac The Ripper is perfect for decrypting if you want to go that route, but I don't know if you'd need another program (and if so, what) to turn the extracted file into an MP3.

There actually happens to be another MeFi page for Mac suggestions too: ask.metafilter.com/23457/DVD-Commentary-to-MP3-Painlessly-On-a-Mac
Including what might be the easiest option of all: iCommentary, a free simple Mac program designed specifically for extracting DVD commentary audio directly into MP3s! It is 5 years old now, so might not work for you, but worth a try.
icommentary.kempa.com/

DJariya

Commentaries are hit or miss for me.

One of the best ones I listened to the entire way was Speed w/ Producer Mark Gordon and Graham Yost. They had alot of fun watching the movie and recalling the production, writing and putting the film together and played off each other really well. I recall one segment where they kind of poked fun at Speed 2, since neither had any involvement with it.

One of the worst I listened to was Terminator 3 with Jonathan Mostow and the actors. Mostow and Claire Daines were actually in the same room together, yet she was awful and stuttered quite a few times and could not put together one coherent thought off Mostow's questions. Lokken and The Governator was spliced in from pre-recorded sessions.

I listen to a few of 24's commentaries on the DVD sets and they are actually quite informative.

If I enjoyed the movie or TV show enough, I will listen to it.

DJariya

There were 2 DVD's that baffled me.

16 Blocks and Terminator Special Edition. Richard Donner and James Cameron did commentaries on the deleted scenes and not the actual movie. I was like okay? You would have thought that Cameron would have done it since that movie helped launch his career. As for Donner, I thought it was funny that there was a video introduction with him sitting in the recording studio introducing the deleted scenes and then it went to the scenes with his commentary, yet he doesn't have time to sit through the entire movie?

Michael Corvin

If you love those you should really pick up Journeys Below the Line: 24 - the Editing Process

It's only 30 minutes, but it is fascinating. I think it's on Netflix as well.

davidh777

Yeah, I know what you meant and agree that it makes no sense. I was just throwing out an example of when it was an actual spoiler (at least for me).

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

This site has a bunch of commentaries you can stream or download http://listentoamovie.com/

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

If you right click Launch Audio Player and copy the link, it contains the path to the mp3. It's the section in the link after file= in the link. Trim off the rest of the stuff after .mp3

cdmac2007

From my experiences in producing discs, commentaries work out the best because when watching the film again, people remember small details of the production when they are there watching it.... things that they might not remember when they are just being interviewed.
So, I like to do commentaries on my releases because of that.

Brian T

Thanks again for the suggestions. Will be checking all of these out!



Hardly surprising someone beat the studios to the punch. Plenty of good ones in the mix there, though I've heard most of them and the titles on offer collectively look like some dude's personal collection . I'd still prefer a paid model that puts some money back into the system that produces this stuff for us in the first place, but since Hollywood has been slow to exploit the full range of possibilities of online media for ALL their archival materials, I suspect we'll see sites like this grow as more discs become harder to find or go out of print.

Gatherer

Cool, how convenient! Thanks for posting that! Obviously doesn't cover every movie (and it looks like most are the original audio rather than commentaries), but it does have a bunch. And the person running it says he accepts submissions of ones he doesn't have, if anyone else making MP3s of commentaries wants to share.

Here's a search for all the commentaries... from 133 movies currently:
listentoamovie.com/list.php?Active=NewMovieList&Filter%5B64%5D=0&Search=commentary&Sort=62

bcd

Big fan of commentaries, I tend to listen to them as I am falling asleep, or cleaning. I don't usually sit down to watch the commentaries exclusively, but I do get a great deal of satisfaction out of them. Some are great, others are easily forgettable but they are my favourite DVD feature.

I also find ones by film historians really interesting because they will offer insight on the movies that actor's commentary usually don't achieve. I think that my favourite is the Ebert Citizen Kane one.

BCD

Darth Maher

I used to do this when my commute was an hour each way before I got laid off. It was a great way to pass the time in the car. Better than most morning radio shows.

Now that I'm working again, I'll probably start ripping commentaries again. But my commute is only like 20 minutes now. I can always listen to them on my lunch break too though.

NoirFan

I'd really like to track down Criterion LD commentaries.

milo bloom

I've been listening to the South Park Season 1 commentaries off and on lately. They were the ones released on 5 cds because they were booted from the DVDs, so it was an easy import into iTunes. They're watching them about 4 years after the fact, so they occasionally go silent while they watch a scene, but then other times they tell some really fascinating stories about putting the show together and working in the TV biz. They're apparently doing them at someone's house since somebody's cat bumps the microphone and meows at one point.

Chrisedge

One of my favorites was Citizen Kane by Roger Ebert...Lots of details on the movie from a movie junky.

Gatherer

I found a few leads you might be interested in...

The "Listen To A Movie" website has MP3s of three controversial 'banned' OOP Criterion laserdisc James Bond commentaries: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger.
listentoamovie.com/list.php?Active=NewMovieList&Filter%5B64%5D=0&Search=criterion+commentary

Here are some digital uploads of a bunch of commentaries (some of which might not be downloadable anymore if they haven't had recent enough downloads), which includes a number of OOP Criterion commentaries.
http://www.katzforums.com/showthread.php?t=600353

This is the website of a person who transferred eleven OOP Criterion laserdisc commentaries to DVD, and is willing to trade them to people for other DVDs. The webpage says "2006" on it so I don't know if the person is still active, but it might be worth a try emailing.
www.freewebs.com/workprints/laserdiscdvdpreservation.htm