DISC TWO DOCS.

a pick six

by Hunter Jon

There was a moment around the mid 2000s when DVDs went from featuring twenty minute behind-the-scenes ‘featurettes’ to having an entire second disc full of special features, which often included the highly coveted full-length making-of documentary. These became a standard that nearly every movie felt the need to include on their DVD and the bigger the movie, the longer and more in-depth the making-of was. They were always eagerly anticipated by me and I’ve watched quite a few. I’m not talking about the cast and crew looking back on some popular movie they made years ago, though. I’m talking about documentaries that were made alongside the movie itself. The result was often fascinating because the filmmakers didn’t yet know if what they were working on was going to work at all. So you got something that was unlike anything else in the ‘making a movie’ sub-genre of documentaries. And although most of these were/are dismissed as mere B-roll footage stitched together by assistants and slapped onto the DVD to justify calling it a ‘Special Edition’ and therefore hiking up the price, a few of them were surprisingly well made and stand alone as solid movies; some an even better watch than the movie they are documenting. Sadly, as the DVD disappeared, these seemed to do the same. But let’s cast our minds back to an era in which they thrived and salute the best of them.

Here are my six favourite disc two documentaries.

(I’ve included the appropriate amount of honourable mentions)

BEST BIT: Following Favreau around on a day of post-production. We see him review a CGI shot of the suit being assembled and ask that a screw tightening can happen sooner and therefore remain in frame until it’s fully fastened. Then he heads down the hall and tells the sound effects guy that the first time Iron Man fires his repulsor it needs to be like the first time Dirty Harry fires the magnum. He says not to worry about consistency throughout the rest of the movie with that sound - the first time we hear it it needs to make the biggest impact aka be loudest. Then he has a moment to have three sips of coffee and talks to the camera about how the mood and pressure around post have changed since they released the first trailer and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. He admits that now they’re being mentioned in the same breathe as “The Dark Knight” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which of course were the other tentpole releases that summer. He doesn’t go so far as to say that that makes him as excited as it does nervous, but you can see it all on his face. Little does he know that the movie will not only be as big of a success as possible, but that it will kickstart a series that changes the face of the film industry.

BEST BIT: They seem to already be pretty deep in prep when we’re shown Lucas coming out of his office, greeted by a smattering of excited people. In his hand is the first copy of the finished script. He puts it down somewhere and softly says, “Alright, there it is.” The people sort of cheer. He nods. “… some cheating, though. There’s lots of - 'they fight'...” Everyone laughs and he goes back into his office to, presumably, have a nap.

BEST BIT: Verbinski has been shown some of the Tia Dalma auditions (a role Naomie Harris ended up getting) and is almost embarrassed by the quality of the scenes. So he talks with the writers, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and not-so-kindly tells them the writing is awful and unacceptable. They defend themselves, claiming those scenes were never meant to be used in auditions. They were part of the ‘preparatory’ script that was given the crew - a place holder to be used for pre-production while they finishing working on the ‘real’ script. They say all of this was discussed and decided on. Gore doesn’t care how or why or what was discussed prior he just needs the Dalma scenes to be better and, like, immediately. Ted and Terry apologize and scuttle off. Later, while scouting locations, Gore has just read the new pages and asks someone to get Ted and Terry on the phone. He’s handed a phone and tells them he’s very happy with the rewrites. They did the work and it shows. He thanks them. “Really, really great work here, guys,” he says. He hangs up and leads the charge into the Caribbean jungle to continue planning his seven month long shoot.

BEST BIT: In general, this whole thing is like watching a documentary about them proudly building the Titanic. Alright, maybe that’s an extreme and insensitive comparison, but it’s an effective one because now you know exactly what I mean and I don’t have to say one word more.

BEST BIT: One: Watching Zombie, over the course of shooting, abandon the aesthetic he was so committed to as they went into production. He had this idea of the cinematography being not only all handheld but chaotic and wild, constantly whipping all over the place and, ideally, creating a extreme sense of realism. He likened the style and feel he was going for to “The Constant Gardener” and “21 Grams”. But after a week or so of shooting, you hear someone on set say something like, “Oh, we’re not doing that anymore?” Rob, who of course has seen dailies, just says “Nope. It looks insane. Ridiculous. Like there’s something wrong with the camera.” This explains why about a third of the movie looks, for lack of a better term, shakier than the rest. Two: Zombie visits the abandoned house set that he’ll be shooting in the next day. They take him around, showing him each room, ending up in the ‘basement’. The whole time Rob either has his arms crossed, his hand over his mouth, or is just shaking his head. He expresses that none of the house looks ‘bad’ enough. “Guys, this - this is not good. There should be dirt up to, like, here.” He places his hand about five feet up the wall. They just stare at him. He says he’s serious. They spend the rest of the day trying to ‘filth’ up the place as much as possible and are just shovelling dirt into the basement. When the crew arrives the next morning, Rob still doesn’t seem satisfied but has to start shooting anyway.

BEST BIT: That’s a wrap on the principal photography of “Clerks II”. Everyone applauds. Most people hug. Some even cry. Then you hear über producer Scott Mosier’s voice. He says when he was younger perhaps the end of the shoot was a more emotional time for him, and that he would get caught up in the satisfaction and sense of being finished. But now, as he puts it, “I gotta go to fuckin' work tomorrow.” The needle drops and post-production begins.

BEST BIT: Overall just witnessing the sheer time, energy and talent that went into bringing this to life. I honestly can’t pick out one single moment over the rest. The entire thing is like a filmmaking how-to highlight reel. If you’re at all interested in what it takes to make a movie, particularly a blockbuster, than this is absolutely essential viewing. In fact, I’ll go one step further and say that whenever, if ever, you watch Jackson’s “King Kong” you owe it to him, his crew and yourself to watch this right after. Make it a double bill. They’re only 3 hours and 7 minutes each.