Looking for production diaries, good making-of-docs, etc.

P

Please

New member
Hey all.

Basically I'm looking for things like Peter Jackson's production diaries or anything else that shows the process of making a film. Usually behind-the-scenes stuff is very lackluster and is used more for marketing than actual education for aspiring filmmakers, etc.

Thanks in advance.
 
Thank you! this is exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for. If anyone has any more recommendations, feel free to post : )
 
Have you checked out any of Robert Rodriguez's 10-minute film schools? I find those have some pretty good info for aspiring filmmakers.
 
Good Taste Made Bad Taste is a great documentary about Jackson's first movie.

Lost in La Mancha is brilliant if you haven't seen that. It's about Terry Gilliam's failed attempt at making Don Quixote.

Otherwise in general, I get way more out of listening to director's commentaries than BTS featurettes.

There's also a great interview with Hitchcock you can get hold of on DVD called A Talk With Hitchcock.
 
Jawa Ex Machina brought up commentaries. Some of these can be excellent, such as the one by the late, great Anthony Minghella on THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, where he provided a wonderful discourse on the process of turning a novel into a movie.
 
All of Universal's Hitchcock DVDs contain documentaries produced by Laurent Bouzereau. Some are a bit lightweight, but PSYCHO and THE BIRDS each has a 90-minute doc that is quite in-depth (I especially liked the one for THE BIRDS, which is also my all-time favorite movie).
 
There's a documentary on THE SHINING which is very good, and also a really insightfull commentary track. THE GODFATHER has another very interesting documentary.

I still haven't seen the one about APOCALYPSE NOW, but I hear it's good.
 
The Apocalypse Now doc is Hearts of Darkness. It's very good. If you ever feel like there's a black cloud over your production, watch that doc and by the end you'll say "eh, maybe mine's not so bad."
 
i wish PTA still did commentaries. he said on both the Boogie Nights and the Hard Eight commentaries that he learned a lot of what he knows about filmmaking from Laserdisc commentaries. But he hasn't done one for his last three movies. Come on Paul!

By the way, he specifically mentions the John Sturges commentary for the criterion laserdisc of Bad Day At Black Rock, which I'm dying to find a copy of.
 
I can also recommend the animated SPAWN series on DVD. I bought a box set years back with all three seasons before it went out of print, but it's possible it's back in print or released on blu or something.

It's got a GREAT and very inspiring commentary track by Todd McFarlane on all three seasons plus other extra stuff where he talks about how he got into the business, what it takes and just talks about usefull stuff. Very inspirational.
 
TheMacB said:
i wish PTA still did commentaries. he said on both the Boogie Nights and the Hard Eight commentaries that he learned a lot of what he knows about filmmaking from Laserdisc commentaries. But he hasn't done one for his last three movies. Come on Paul!
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Actually, he said he learned a lot about ripping off movies by listening to laserdiscs with director's commentary, which always makes me laugh. But I agree, PT Anderson's discs are great resources for filmmakers. But he refuses to analyze his films in commentaries, and I can respect that. Everyone has pretty much recommended what I would have recommended (The Making of The Shining, Hearts of Darkness, etc). The only thing I can add is pretty much any Robert Rodriguez movie. I don't really like a lot of his movies themselves, but the commentaries and making-of featurettes are great.
 
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