Student needs help. Educational DVD commentaries? (1 Viewer)

[Mike*Sch]

I'm surprised that, unless I missed something, no one has mentioned Paul Thomas Anderson's commentary for BOOGIE NIGHTS. Speaking as a film school graduate, I probably got more out of those 2 1/2 hours than I did out of 4 years of classes. It's a great source of info for writing, acting, photography, and editing, as well as direction. His commentary on HARD EIGHT is almost as good.

Also, I was heavily influenced as an editor by the STAR TREK II commentary track.

BRING IT ON and DOWN WITH LOVE, both by Peyton Reed, are good for comedy.

That's all that comes to mind right now.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

The commentaries on the original DVD releases of the Classic Universal Monster films are treasure troves of information from a group of excellent scholars. All of these discs are out of print, but thanks to their reissue in recent and upcoming box-sets, the prices on used copies of these have dropped considerably. None of these tracks feature first hand accounts of the filmmaking, naturally, but much of the information on them is compiled from contemporary studio documents, biographies, interviews and writings. All of these commentators pack a furious amount of information into their tracks, rather than just sitting back and pretentiously analysing the "meaning" of it all.

DRACULA - David J. Skal
FRANKENSTEIN - Rudy Behlmer
THE WOLF MAN - Tom Weaver
THE INVISIBLE MAN - Rudy Behlmer
THE MUMMY - Paul M. Jensen
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN - Scott MacQueen
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - Scott macQueen
CREATURE FRMO THE BLACK LAGOON - Tom Weaver
ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN - Gregory Mank

Another good historian track is on Kino's excellent 2-disc release of the 1925 version of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, with Scott MacQueen: http://www.ratethatcommentary.com/detail.php/951

For some great tracks about working with low budgets, Roger Corman's own line of DVDs, as opposed to his tracks for MGMs releases of his titles, are quite valuble:

GRAND THEFT AUTO (1976) Ron Howard and Roger Corman
PIRAHNA (1978) Joe Dante and Jon Davison
THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972) Jack Hill (great track!)
SAINT JACK (1979) - Peter Bogdanovich

Jack Hill also provides exceedingly good tracks for his Blacksploitation classics FOXY BROWN and COFFY, released through MGM’s Soul Cinema collection.

Anchor Bay's releases of the infamous ILSA movies feature plenty of good info about shooting low-budget exploitation with star Dyanne Thorne, co-star (and husband) Howard Maurer and director Don Edmonds:
ILSA: SHE WOLF OF THE SS (1975)
ILSA: HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHEIKS (1978)
ILSA: THE WICKED WARDEN (1980)
This last one, the sleaziest of the bunch, ditches Edmonds, who didn't direct, in favour of "humourist" Perry Martin and, as such, it's more an informal trip down memory lane, with a fair amount of discussion of director Jess Franco.

Independent International honcho Sam Sherman has provided countless audio commentaries that rarely get mentioned. You can find his exceedingly sharp tracks on dozens of discs for films he produced, including:

DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971)
POSSESSION OF NURSE SHERRI (1978)
SATAN'S SADISTS (1969)
BRIDES OF BLOOD (1968)
MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND (1969)
BEAST OF BLOOD (1970)
BRAIN OF BLOOD (1971)

These are just the ones I have, but I know Troma has also released a tonne of old Sherman stuff with excellent commentaries (I’ve borrowed a couple from friends)

Now on to Something Weird Video. A search of their web site DVD listings (http://www.somethingweird.com/dvdsearch.asp) will provide a plethora of audio commentaries from the true mavericks and bottom-feeders of exploitation cinema. The most reliable and regular participants on their tracks are David F. Friedman, a long-time carny who got into exploitation back in the 40’s after a stint at Paramount, and Herschel Gordon Lewis, the “Godfather of Gore,” an ad man who decided to sideline into exploitation and practiallly created a genre. Friedman can be heard, most often with SW founder Mike Vraney, on fantastic tracks to dozens of the studio’s releases, including:

STREET CORNER
A SMELL OF HONEY, A SWALLOW OF BRINE
SOMETHING WEIRD (with Herschel Gordon Lewis)
WHAM BAM THANK YOU SPACEMAN
SHE-FREAK
MARIJUANA
SPACE THING
TRADER HORNEE
THE DEFILERS

H.G. Lewis comments on nearly all his films on the SW label, always with the participation of the knowledgeable Mike Vraney, including
BLOOD FEAST (with David Friedman)
TASTE OF BLOOD
COLOR ME BLOOD RED (one of his favourites)
THE GORE GORE GIRLS
THE GRUESOME TWOSOME
TWO THOUSAND MANIACS (with David Friedman)
SHE DEVILS ON WHEELS
THE WIZARD OF GORE

You’ll have to forgive my bias towards B-movies, but they’re a personal passion of mine, and I find the commentaries more enlightening than those done for multi-million dollar studio films because, as someone already mentioned, such commentaries take place in a vacuum, whereas exploitation filmmakers, then as now, have to struggle and scrape to produce something that MIGHT make a lasting impression, or be lost to the sands of time were it not for companies like Something Weird, Retromedia, Concorde/New Horizons, Troma and so many others. So much trash, so little time...

 

[Seth Paxton]

I don't see it mentioned but a strong Director's commentary that discusses the thought process of the actual shot/scene rather than who was fun to work with or the general narrative can be found on the Elizabeth disc.

There you get explanations for color choices, shot selections, etc and how the director thought these choices would impact the emotional response. It's a very good "why I would make this type of choice" commentary that would be helpful to a film student trying to learn the "why's" of shooting a film.


Soderbergh has some interesting camera discussion on Out of Sight on focus, lenses, lighting, though its a mixture of comments rather than just technically informative.

The EXTRAS for Traffic include examples/images of the AVID editing bay (video and sound editing), the ability to play with your own cut of a scene IIRC, or at the very least see the different feeds being cut together on the "virtual" AVID, and explanations of some of the very practical sound corrections that had to be made, such as a mike picking up rogue sounds that had to filtered using a different mike's feed.

To me while the equipment might be beyond a low-budget filmmakers grasp, the ISSUES which they are used to deal with can teach/warn a filmmaker about the very practical issues found on a real set.

In that regard it makes this particular extra quite good as a teaching device.


Something to consider, I've taken classes by video feed myself, math and engineering no less. While in person work and hand's on experience can not be replaced, I do think you could easily teach someone filmmaking via a DVD.

Whether or not any current release features a presentation of information to the degree and in the order that would be required to learn the skills is debateable/doubtful, but a person could compile quite a bit of knowledge if they were truly interested, had the time and had access to the RIGHT supplements.

In other words, perhaps if someone sifted through the material out there you could put together a "course" in which a person would listen to commentary A from 5:00 to 11:47, then watched extra B from another film, then read a chapter from a book. Then repeat with various sources for each lesson.

Right now I casually read Malkiewicz's "Cinematography" as a supplement to the extras (as well as books on film theory) and it would work as an ideal source of technical knowledge of cameras and equipment to compliment typical technical oriented DVD extras/commentaries.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I also utilized the Sunrise release extras as a source for a paper on that film. It was perhaps more helpful than the readings I was doing, or at the very least as helpful.

 

[Gabriela Mendez]

Surprised no one has mentioned these:

The Exorcist (25th Anniversary Special Edition) (1973) DVD
Audio commentary by Director William Friedkin & author William Peter Blatty

To Live and Die in L.A. (Special Edition) (1985) DVD
Audio commentary by Director William Friedkin

These are actually the only two audio commentaries where I've turned off the TV and just listen to what Bill Friedkin had to say. Highly recommended.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Lest we leave out TV, I'd heavily recommend the commentaries on Firefly, particularly Objects in Space, which is one of the best philosophical/technique commentaries I've heard.

For comedy, Chappelle's Show seaon one has a lot of discussion about the writing process for a sketch comedy show.

 

[Matt Leigh]

Go to...

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/lab/lectures/index.html

...and watch the lectures by filmmakers. Indispensible for anyone interested in making movies.