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Special Features: DVD Extras

Special features are any additional audio, visual or interactive media that exist beyond the original version of a film on a DVD. These features may be items such as extended versions, director's cuts of the film, audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, documentaries, production stills, cast and crew bios, alternate endings, animatics, interactive games... the list goes on and on. So, if you can dream it up as an added feature, someone somewhere is going to appreciate it. Let's take a closer look at a few common special features you can add to your own DVDs.

Audio commentary is an alternate audio track that plays over the film and discusses other aspects of the movie. The typical commentary is the director discussing specific scenes, motivations or challenges. Often you may find commentaries from the actors, special effects artists, editors or even a whole group of people. Audio commentaries have become standard on most DVD releases, partly because they are incredibly inexpensive to do and easy to add.

You can include an audio commentary on your own discs by recording yourself talking about the film as you watch it and adding it as an alternative audio track to the disc. This is great when bit-budgeting your DVD for space, as it does not need to duplicate any media. In short, you're adding an additional track of audio rather than introducing a second copy of the whole …