ltfontaine wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:22 pm
But it also must be hard, from the perspective of the DVD producer, to consistely elicit from commentators a track that is exactly what you're looking for. Once having hired a critic for this purpose, based on a certain level of confidence in their prior work, how much leeway does one have in "directing" the content of their commentary? I wonder how often it occurs that producers reject, or demand an overhaul of, a track with which they are not entirely happy? And how often do tracks end up on discs that do not jibe with the producers' initial expectations?
I couldn't have answered this question when it was first posed sixteen years ago, as I'd only overseen one commentary, and as it was a filmmaker one I was naturally minded not to interfere - but I'll have a go at doing it now.
In my own experience on both sides of the fence, it depends on the nature of the project and of course who owns it - some rightsholders are happy to allow a commentator to say anything they like, provided the disc has the usual written disclaimer about their views not necessarily chiming with the rightsholder's and the labels, while some are much more hands-on, to the point of insisting on prior approval (and, in the most extreme case - David Kalat and
Godzilla - of delivering a script upfront that, when approved, couldn't be deviated from in any way.
And even when I don't have restrictions like that, as a UK-based producer I have to make sure the commentary content doesn't exceed the BBFC classification for the main feature - for instance, no "fucks" at all in anything U or PG, and only a couple in a 12-certificate film.
For the most part, though, commentators have complete freedom, and it's pretty rare in my experience (on both sides of the fence) for the content to be interfered with in any way, unless the commentator is a first-timer who needs guidance or there's a factual error that's fixable. But when it comes to a regular like, say, Kat Ellinger, Tim Lucas, Adrian Martin, Kim Newman or Tony Rayns, you should have a pretty good idea what you're getting upfront, and indeed these people get loads of commissions
because they're so reliable. And for the most part they deliver their work as finished tracks, or at least fully-recorded ones ready for mixing.
There have been occasional disappointments - I remember mixing a couple of recent ones that were far too IMDB-tastic for my taste, saying a great deal about the careers of the people involved but very very little about the actual film, but with something like that you'd really have to rethink and re-record the whole thing to improve it, and the commentator can reasonably say that it's an approach taken by many others (more's the pity). I also salvaged a track that the label was minded to reject on the basis of the first ten minutes, but when I listened to the whole thing I thought it was actually pretty decent - it's just that the first-time commentator was so audibly and gabblingly nervous at the start that it got off on the wrong foot. So I rejigged the opening, and left most of the rest intact, and I'm very pleased to say that it got excellent reviews. And there was one toe-curling session that I personally supervised where it became obvious just twenty minutes in that the first-time commentator simply hadn't prepared anywhere close to enough material, but I was able to salvage a decent selected-scene commentary. (I should mention that the overwhelming majority of selected-scene commentaries were planned as such from the start, though!)
With my own commentaries (eleven to date), I've never once had any comments of any kind other than generalised satisfaction - I assume the producer listened to it in full at the QC stage, but I've had very very little feedback outside reviews, and the only time I had to change anything was in a rightsholder-approval situation where a six-minute section had to be rethought because we'd discussed uncredited script contributions (which I hadn't know upfront was forbidden).