Directors Commentary

Directors Commentaries are a standard part of most films and releases today. It all started in December 1984 with an audio commentary on the original King Kong film in a special collection, called the Criterion Collection. The commentary was voiced over by film historian Ronald Haver, here is a quote of what he said:

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Ronald Haver, and I'm here to do something which we feel is rather unique. I'm going to take you on a lecture tour of King Kong as you watch the film. The laserdisc technology offers us this opportunity and we feel it's rather unique — the ability to switch back and forth between the soundtrack and this lecture track...”

The actual definition of an audio commentary, or a directors commentary, is an extra audio track containing single or multiple speakers which can be played over the sound track of a film or other release, where the speakers give in depth details of what is happening at any given moment, so the audience can furthur understand the technicalities and background information in the release. Directors commentaries can be very formal to incredibly light hearted, depending on the character of the person speaking and the type of release it is. Even video games are using audio commentaries today.