How to make a good DVD commentary

Just stepping away from the excessive "Ohh, look at me, I'm a wannabe writer, aren't I all creative... ladies?" that's been in this blog so far, I thought I'd share my geekily acquired knowledge, and put down some pointers on-

DO'S AND DO NOT'S OF DVD COMMENTARY'S

1. DO get a have a mix of perspectives. While an all-actor commentary or all-writer commentary can be quite interesting, there come points in the movie where the people assembled in the room just don't have anything to say about the bit on screen. If you have people from a variety of roles there's always something that can fill the silence, and hearing people from different areas of the industry discuss the trials they had with particular parts of the film is interesting.

2. DO make sure your commentators get along. I'm not saying this because I've heard DVD commentaries where they had screaming arguements or something, but commentaries where the people involved laugh and joke with each other are always more interesting then 'clinical' ones, where no personality shows because everyone feels awkward.

3. DON'T abuse editing. I imagine anyone who listens to commentaries has heard one or two where people from different locations are involved in the commentary, by doing a solo-comm and then having it edited in to a larger one. If there's only one extra person, and if it's done INCREDIBLY well you can get away with it, but most of the time it just makes things too awkward. For the Pirates of the Caribean writers commentary there were about three seperate groups, so there were so many voices, but whenever someone told a story there was so little response it just felt awkward. Then in the Oceans 11 commentary, Andy Garcia and Matt Damon were doing the commentary seperately to Brad Pitt, which made it sound very awkward. Especially when Brad Pitt told a story, and then Andy Garcia told the exact same story twenty minutes later, like Brad wasn't around.

4. DON'T have a single person commentating. It's just a lonely dude stuck in a booth talking about what he worked on. It's alot better when there are two or more people, having a dialogue, asking each other about their thoughts and experiences of the movie.

5. DO keep the atmosphere light and friendly. When the commentators are hanging around having a laugh with each other and obviously getting on, it works alot better.

6. DON'T talk about anything other then the movie for too long. While it's good commentators get on and have alot of interests, it's no fun if you're watching the movie and hearing a couple of people talking about nothing to do with what's on screen. It's like being stuck in a cinema with people talking loudly about nothing behind you. Some tangents are fine, but try to keep it vaguely under control

7. DO encourage 'joke' commedies. Dodge ball and Anchorman have some of the funniest commentaries I've heard in a long time. Not what you normally expect to hear with commentaries, but they're good value.

8. DO do things out of the ordinary. Ghostbuster's commentary had an interesting 'MST3K' look going, where they were visible sitting in the lower right hand side, as if in a theatre, while they did the commentary

Final thoughts: As some people know, my aspiration is to somehow become a Hollywood script writer. If I have the chance, I'd like to propose any movie I work on have a commentary done by the MST3K dudes, including their trademark corner-sitting.