On using clips from the final film
In a large majority of BTS documentaries (especially shorter form featurettes), you will see a heavy use of clips from the finished film. Sometimes they are used as a transition to establish a new scene before showing how it was made. Other times it will be used in a more evidentiary way, showing a scene as someone talks about it. At worst in my opinion, clips will sometimes be used in a seemingly random or lazy way to smooth out edits or fill time to fit the music that is being used.
Unless you’re in a situation where you don’t have any other options for footage to cut to, I feel that footage from the finished film should almost never be used in the behind the scenes content, with only two exceptions.
Exception 1: Showing the final result of an effect or a creative decision, that could not be shown through on set footage or alternate takes.
Exception 2: Marketing. I think it makes perfect sense to use clips from the film for marketing featurettes.
One reason I think it has been standard practice historically is from back when Behind the Scenes content was largely limited to TV specials. In this style of content it makes a bit more sense, as these specials were often seen by people who had not watched the film, and sometimes even aired before the a movie was released.
The Making of Twister is an example of this approach. It spends time explaining the premise of the film, and introducing each character, as if the viewers are not familiar with the movie.
This makes sense in the context of marketing, but in my opinion has no place in a bonus feature designed to be viewed by fans after seeing the movie.
One reason I don’t like it, is because it offers no extra value to the audience. They’ve already seen the movie, so what do they get from seeing the same clips again? This is especially the case when the documentary stops and shows a chunk of the film with audio from the scene. Why do we need to watch it again, unless there is something specific being shown that will change our perspective on the clip?
I think there are several alternative options which offer a lot more value to fans of the film, and can make for a much more engaging documentary overall.
Alternative 1: On Set Footage
My preferred option as a viewer is on-set footage. This does the job of establishing the scene as well as giving us a new perspective. If you need to focus on a specific line of dialogue, you can show a BTS angle of it being filmed.
At the very least, the audience gets something they haven’t seen before.
In most cases, it will give some indirect insight into how the scene was filmed. It also gives more of a feeling of being present with the film makers on set, rather than being told about things after the fact.
This is so fundamental to what I want as a viewer. When I take the time to find the bonus features of a movie, I’m hoping to see things like the sets, what the actors are like off camera, and what tools were used for the creative process. Not to see scenes from the film repeated again.
Alternative 2: Raw Takes
In the case that there is no on set footage available, the second best option in most cases is to show raw footage. Visually, you can still do some general colour correction so that you’re not showing a flat log image, but I would personally lean away from using any stylised grading. This way it shows a more authentic representation of what the colours looked like during filming. Sometimes it may be best to show the take that made it to the final edit, but one way to offer the audience more value is to show takes that didn’t make it into the film, or moments that happened outside of “action” and “cut”.
Alternative 3: Unused Takes
Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner is a great example of making use of both deleted scenes and unused takes. Because Blade Runner has such a dedicated fan base, any unseen footage is worth its weight in gold. While there are many times in the doco where they could have just overlayed interviews with shots from the film, they instead used a lot of these opportunities to showcase previously unseen takes and scenes.
There are even ways to use this footage without it directly correlating to what is being spoken about in the interview. Even if you are just “plugging holes” in the edit, at least you’re still giving a small amount of value to the audience by showing new footage that hasn’t been seen elsewhere.
The main principle is to give fans as much value as possible, and only ever repeat content they’ve already seen as a last resort.
Bonus shoutouts for examples to look at.
Inside Pandoras Box - The Making of Yellowstone Season 4 - While this is not a particularly great documentary in my opinion, it does make decent use of on-set footage to show scenes being filmed when most other featurettes would have just used the final scene from the film.
Alien Romulus: Inside the Xenomorph Showdown - This features a decent amount of raw takes from the camera. It is especially nice since fans are aware that there was an IMAX version of the film which only played in very limited locations, meaning some people never got the opportunity to see it. The raw camera footage used in the featurette shows a glimpse of one of the most epic scenes from the film in its original 17:9 aspect ratio.
The Making of American Sniper - Maybe one of the most offensively bad making of documentaries I’ve ever seen, and spends a lot of time showing entire scenes form the film, with random interview snippets shoved in between. (I love the movie, which makes me dislike the lacklustre documentary even more)