It’s no secret that film viewers often cherish the extra content attached to films. Deleted scenes, gag reels, director/actor commentary, behind the scenes footage generally. But, why is that? An article could look at various aspects of this. Do passionate fans just crave as much content as possible? Do film-buffs take a genuine interest in how their favourite media comes to be? Is it a learning tool? Is it a curiosity – perhaps, a curiosity to see how the people behind the serious-faced characters interact with one another? If a film is made to entertain by creating a (usually) fictitious world or story-line, then why are viewers so obsessed with this ‘real-world’ aspect of them? On the other side – what do film makers gain from this? Why do they include the extra content they choose to? This desire for extra content is evident in films like Shrek 2 where they animated an entire American Idol spoof with the characters. Or, the creators of Monsters Inc. animating various blooper scenes. Perhaps examples like this could be discussed. This could also work for TV shows, if so preferred.
Very interesting topic! Perhaps the article could also tackle, or maybe just conclude on or quickly mentioned as it is a different angle, the possible future of such content? Indeed, at least for now and as far as I know, such features are only available on physical supports (DVDs, Blu-rays…). Could behind-the-scene contents, therefore, be used and put forwards to help the film physical supports market? Or, on the contrary, would such content be absorbed (or erased?) by successful VOD platforms, such as Netflix? – Gavroche4 years ago