an admission

[rose_griffes]

Regarding yesterday's very silly poll: what I find interesting (and by interesting I mean completely hypocritical) is that I feel very much the opposite about exploring the visual aspects of film/television. I have a love/hate relationship with DVD commentaries, for example, Joss Whedon's in particular. HE SAYS TOO MUCH about the camera work, and then I end up knowing about one-shots and zooms and stuff and I can't turn my brain off while watching to enjoy the show. Too much knowledge about what goes into the visual choices and I find myself hyper-aware of those choices.

The bad thing is, if there's a DVD commentary available on something I like well enough to watch more than once, I CANNOT RESIST LISTENING TO IT. I watched the extended Lord of the Rings DVDs and listened to all the available commentary. Yes, even the ones with the costume designers and effects people because I am ridiculous. But the costume people didn't talk about camera work, so it's okay. Happily (uh, I guess, anyway) I haven't purchased anything new with commentary by Joss Whedon lately, so I haven't heard a lot about camera work recently.

Funnily enough, Joss Whedon's thoughtful commentaries have spoiled me for commentaries by stupid RDM other producers.

I'm conflicted. I really do enjoy commentaries. The information about the camera work is fascinating, but I dislike the awareness as a consumer. It makes me too aware of what I'm consuming. Heh.

(In other words, I really do understand not wanting to know too much about the process. For me the process is filming/visual, rather than writing, though.)

P.S. Oh look, I'm winning the poll! Shocking, I never expected that! *g*

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

It depends on the person doing commentary. Joss and Ron? OMGNO.

Claudia Black and Ben Browder? OMG. funniest stuff ever. Ditto a TON of the oldskool Who commentaries.

I watched, um, Resident Evil: Apocalypse with the commentary and it was... vaguely amusing.

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

It depends on the person doing commentary. Joss and Ron? OMGNO.
Hm. Maybe there's a switch or something, because I used to find RDM's commentaries... well, not awesome, but tolerable. Somewhere along the way, that changed. As for Whedon's, I generally enjoyed them, though I get how they wouldn't be for everyone.

Claudia Black and Ben Browder? OMG. funniest stuff ever. Ditto a TON of the oldskool Who commentaries.

Heh. Personally I loved parts of the actor commentaries on the LotR DVDs, mostly because Merry and Pippin were hilarious. Oh! Jack Davenport and Kiera Knightley are also very amusing on the first PotC DVD.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Some of the Stargate commentaries are amusing, too. and I actually like that I can tell which show was shot by which director because of it.

My issue with Ron is his constant tone of "no one has ever in a billion trillion years, done this before". Because there's a metric assload of books, comics, manga, anime and tv that would disagree with his superiority.

I loved the actor commentary on Fellowship, I just haven't ever sat down to watch the others (it's so funny, since some of them are amusing and then there's Orlando, who's sort of not so bright...)

HAH. You've given me an excuse to watch Pirates again. \o/

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

HAH. You've given me an excuse to watch Pirates again. \o/
Unfortunately Knightley and Davenport's commentary is only available for a few scenes. (My favorite bit is when Knightley talks about the amazing cleavage that the makeup department painted on her chest. Hee!)

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Aaaaah, Joss totally ruined me for one-long-take camera shots! Now it's all I can see! :)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I know! So frustrating when I want to appreciate the effect of the shot, rather than noticing how the shot was done.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

I should add that Joss does some of my favorite commentaries. My main reason for avoiding them on most DVDs is that I'm afraid they'll be boring and not give me *enough* information, but he actually seems to think about what he's going to say beforehand.

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd say Whedon approached DVD commentaries with A Plan. Unlike some other commenters. >:/

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

I too love the LOTR commentaries because they're awesome, but I've been sadly disappointed by a lot of other movie commentaries. (Although the one for "The Lives of Others" is very good and very interesting!)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Yes, generally I've found most movie commentaries to be a let-down. Too bad--so many cool possibilities.

I enjoyed the commentary track for Bend it Like Beckham, in part because it was hilarious to find out how many scenes had the director's relatives as extras.