Opinion: Is there any point to BTS?

Simon Wyndham argues that BTS segments have ruined the movies.

I get it, you really want to know how that amazing shot was done. Ever since DVD came onto the scene BTS films have become an expected staple of the home movie experience. Sure, BTS existed before this, and as a teenager I pretty much watched the making of Terminator 2 on loop on VHS, although I watched the film itself much more. However, back then, everything was new. We simply didn't know how certain things were achieved, particularly when it came to these new fangled CGI techniques. The methods used in T2 were so effective that they still look better today than some of the latest techniques used on the film's many sequels. In fact when Corridor Crew recently tried to recreate the sequence where the T1000 walks through prison bars, they found it almost impossible to do it convincingly, even with the latest systems at their disposal.

When The Matrix was unleashed into the world it also debuted the most parodied special effect ever created. Bullet Time. Understandably, being such a new and unseen before effect, everyone wanted to know how it was done. These were the days of true SFX innovation, when we literally hadn't seen everything before and become jaded from CGI being used as a method to achieve, well, everything.

Endless BTS

That was then. The mid-2000s then made movies jump the shark, and CGI became the default method for all effects. Want to film a car chase? Make the cars out of CGI with the physical properties of rubber. Want to ruin a jungle chase sequence that actually looked good in a real world, practical sense during actual filming in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull? Yep, CGI the hell out of it and make it all look fake. Then to cap it all off, make a load of BTS films that endlessly show actors performing to a blue screen. In. Every. Film.

Today BTS films are the norm, and expected. They are also, mostly, all the exactly same. I stopped watching them a long time ago, mainly because they are all the same. The CGI techniques are all the same. The filming methods are generally all the same. Save for a few exceptions, such as the Mission: Impossible films, where if you hadn't watched BTS footage you'd assume that Tom Cruise was on a sound stage somewhere with a blue screen behind him. But such things are the exception rather than the rule.

BTS films have, along with OTT physics defying CGI, taken the romance out of the movies. At one time we'd watch films like the original Indiana Jones trilogy, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and other classic adventure/sci-fi movies, and not feel any need whatsoever to find out every detail of how they were made. Most of us just enjoyed the ride, and wondering how they did certain effects was part of the magic. Just like watching a great illusionist or magician, part of the marvel is wondering how the hell they did it! Magicians would be out of a job if they revealed how they did every trick at the end of each one. You might want to know, but you really don't need to know.

When people watch films now, even if they aren't even remotely involved in filmmaking, they can explain or understand how certain effects are done. They know that when the Avengers fight whichever world destroying enemy of the month has made an appearance, that the actors are on a sound stage in front of a blue or green screen. But more than that, because all films now use the same techniques and methods, there really doesn't seem to be any point behind having BTS videos any more. Even the most disinterested layperson now knows every filmmaking trick in the book, it seems.

Fluff

The fact is that unless every detail of the lighting setup is delved into, every filter on the camera described, and every step the colourist takes is gone through, BTS has nowhere to go. And that amount of detail is a bit too much for a family eating a takeaway curry on a sofa on a Friday night.

I'm interested in filmmaking. I'm a filmmaker. Or at least I was at one time. And even I am not remotely interested in fluff BTS programming in all but the most exceptional circumstances. I never even listen to commentaries any more. Sure, there might be the occasional ones that I would like to listen to, for example the recent film 1917. That is an example of a film that really does deserve the BTS treatment. But do I really want to know how a completely dramatic film such as Knives Out, a worthy film in itself I might add, was made?

Am I a stick in the mud? Am I heathen? Surely, Simon, it is your duty as the editor of RedShark to be interested in every single aspect of filmmaking? Well, I am, just not via fluffy, superficial BTS programming. If you enjoy such things, that's great. This is after all an opinion piece. It's just that today there seems to be a need for a BTS for everything. Filming someones flowers in a garden? Needs a BTS. Filming an actor walking along a street? Needs a BTS. Putting a camera on a tripod? Needs a BTS.

Please, if you are going to make a BTS segment, at least make it about something we haven't seen being done before. It might still ruin the magic, but at least it'll be interesting.