Fly on the Set
An interesting approach to presenting on-set footage
The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie includes a set of Bonus Features on the DVD labelled “Fly on the Set”
This is in addition to the main BTS Documentary, and serves as a great proof of concept for how on set footage can be utilised even if it doesn’t fit in the main documentary.
These are short vignettes of “fly on the wall” footage showing a scene being filmed. They don’t feature any interviews, and feel somewhat similar to a scene from “The Beginning: The Making of The Phantom Menace”
It’s not just a collection of random shots, rather the clips are put together in a way that’s fairly easy to follow, and give you a feel of what it was like to be on set while that scene was being filmed.
This isn’t something that a general audience would necessarily sit down and watch, but for fans of the film, these are absolute gold. Imagine if you could sit down and watch key scenes from your favourite movie being filmed without any interviews getting in the way. You could see how the director works, what the actors are like before and after the takes, what effects were practical, what ideas were tried in alternate takes. It would be amazing!
I know for myself personally, when I’m a big fan of a film, I really want to be able to go back in time and experience what it would be like working on the set. This format offers a glimpse of that experience.
I think it’s understandable that this type of content isn’t included on every release because the audience is certainly more niche. A faster paced featurette that spells everything out to the viewer is much more accessible to a wider audience, so I feel that this would generally only work in a supplementary capacity.
What you would gain is a much more intimate perspective of what the shoot was like from day to day, and an opportunity to see certain scenes in much more details than what a typical featurette would afford.
From a practical perspective, if someone was there filming the shoot in a documentary style anyway, these types of edits wouldn’t require a whole lot of work, especially if the footage has already been sorted through for the main edit.
There’s something to be said however about the way people want to consume this type of content. For Pirates of the Caribbean, these Fly on the Set featurettes are around 2-3 minutes long each.
Personally, I think a few minutes is an awkward amount of time for this style because it’s hard to get fully immersed in such a short amount of time. I quite like getting in the flow of watching things like this and immersing myself in the experience. It takes a few minutes to get into that headspace to the point where you are more immersed, and at that point I want it to keep going. If you have to stop and navigate to the next clip after 3 minutes, it’s a bit annoying and personally disengages me from the viewing experience.
That’s why I think a feature length “Fly on the Set” documentary would provide a lot more value for fans of the film.
A few examples to point to are:
The Beginning: The Making of The Phantom Menace
On the Set of Raiders of the Lost Ark
Costa Botes’ The Making of The Lord of the Rings
Nomadland
The last example, Nomadland isn’t even a documentary, but I think it’s a great showcase of something that’s shot like a veritè documentary. You’re just watching scenes from a persons life and getting to experience it with them. It’s a film I find quite peaceful to watch as long as I can sit down for a while and immerse myself in it. If you were to try to break it up into 2-3 minute clips I think it would make for a very strange and meaningless experience.
I think there are many untapped formats for presenting this kind of experience to viewers, and I’m excited to see what new avenues may be explored in the future.