The "Behind The Scenes" Thread

[CharlieH.]

It's a pretty common thing. You play a DVD of your favourite movie, and usually there's a little behind-the-scenes look among the extra features. Nowadays, it seems mandatory to have someone covering the making of a movie (either as a full-fledged documentary or a mere souvenir for a crewmember), and almost always, the resulting footage is as interesting as the movie itself... and even more so when it's a classic movie we're talking about.

Here are a few of my favourite examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVZoXI9JLqc
From The Great Dictator. It's interesting to note that they spent on brightly coloured costumes for a black and white film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbA83Fqfh8E
The deleted Jitterbug number from The Wizard Of Oz. This was shot before Jack Haley was cast as the Tin Woodsman.

Anyone seen some interesting examples of vintage BTS?

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I like watching the behind the camera work. Seeing them actually "shooting" the film is nice to watch.

 

[Astrobeej]

I'm interested in hearing what else you guys like to see in "Making of" materials. As I get close to finishing my film, I'm starting to think about what to include in the "Special Features" section. As it stands right now, I'm planning on making a short featurette about the design and building of our main set, and a second piece about Boyd Raeburn, the 1940's Band Leader whose music we are using for the soundtrack.

The danger is that we have so much footage and stills that it would be easy to have double the length of the actual feature in ancillary materials!

Beej