Value added content

I would like to contrast the following two Digital items for their added value content

1. The Lord of the rings (The Fellowship of the Ring). Special Edition – New Line Cinema
and
2. Shaun of the Dead – Alliance Atlantis.

I’ll start with LOTR . First of all the obvious thing about added value is that the film
comes with two extra discs ( making four in each edition, as do its companion movies).

The movie has been released in a two disc format in order to provide less compression and better resolution for a film that would not easily fit on one compact disc.

The Lord of the Rings
This movie recants book one of the trilogy written Journey of Frodo the hobbit in his
quest to rid his world of a powerful and evil ring which can only be destroyed in one location.

This edition deals mostly with the forming of friendships and setting up of background story for the rest of the series.

Extra Disc 1 – Book One : From Book to Vision.
The first disc gives a biography of the author J.R.R Tolkien as well as additional clips, interviews with cast and crew as well as designers and family of the author.

This is broken down into numerous sub-titles allowing the user to examine all the main characters in detail , including actors thoughts on the characters they portray, notes on costume designs and makeup/prosthetics.

Other sub titles include story-boards and pre-visualizations, the process of converting book to movie, as well as interviews with the specials effects crews and the work involved in bringing an epic novel to visual reality using CGI, miniatures an costume design.

Extra Disc 2 – Book Two: From Vision to Reality.
The second disc includes information regarding the production of the film, filming issues, the nitty gritty details and short films on how some details of the film were approached.

This like the first disc is broken down into sub-categories including Filming and camera work in New Zealand, a miniatures production short, clips on how scale was approached in the film, post production, Music, soundtracks and soundscapes for the film.

This package completes a very comprehensive description of not only the movie itself but in-depth knowledge into the difficulties and challenges involved in converting one of the most epic, popular and most read books in history (next to the Bible) into film.

I have to add that the additional material provided was produced while the film itself was being produced, this was done in order to provide fans of the film (and books) with a complete view of the steps involved in making this film and has a production value almost equal to the film itself. The extra discs can easily be watched as stand alone documentaries and provide hours of additional story and detail to the original product.

Shaun of the Dead – Alliance Atlantis

I chose this movie to contrast with Lord of the Rings not because it is a bad movie (in
fact a very good movie which quickly gained cult status in some circles) but because I desired to
show a great difference in value-added content.

Shaun of the Dead is a quirky comedy that deals with the relationship troubles Shaun has to deal
with his girlfriend Liz all the while dealing with his slacker roommate, Liz’s pretentious friends,
Oh yeah, and a host of flesh eating zombies.

The added value content in contrast to my other review is quite pathetic and mostly seems to
have been thrown on to the end of the DVD in order to fill space or as a quick stab at providing
a bit more quality to the product.

Extras involve several out-cuts and bloopers, three short low production flash based clips
providing fill-in information for several plot gaps as well as some casting tapes and an interview
with the band that provided some of the soundtrack.

The added content on this DVD does very little to add to the overall experience of the movie and
in some way (even though it is a comedy), I think the extras cheapen the overall experience by
being produced in a hap-hazard and thoughtless way.

Although my comparison of movies (if it were a contest) might be a bit unfair, it does provide a
Stark contrast between what can be an enriching and fulfilling movie experience that can almost
equal the original movie experience and what can amount to an extra five to ten minutes of half
hearted amusement.

Hopefully in the future movie producers with take example and give more thought into the extra
content they provide, in some cases they may be better off not providing any extra content if that
content will take away form the original.

~ by cparmstrong on April 14, 2008.