Steve the Owl's Blog

I am an admitted film geek. I didn’t watch movies very much when I was younger, preferring the nature of TV. While I still love TV, I have definitely found that I can devour movies and TV box sets through the power of DVD.

How It Started

I am someone who has never been quick to adopt new technology. (For example, I bought cassettes as recently as 2002, and I always seemed to get a new video game console about a year before the newer model came out.) Perhaps part of this is the idea of never knowing which one will catch on. After all, BetaMax and LaserDisc were both considered to be technically superior to VHS, but neither was able to knock VHS off the top of the movie heap. That, and I just never saw the point of paying a premium price when what I currently have is just as good.

However, my jump from VHS to DVD actually came in 2003. I had just gotten activated and my college career was on hold until my tour of duty in Iraq was done. I had paid $20 in raffle tickets for a drawing for a DVD player at school. To my great surprise, I was the big winner. However, I could not use the DVD player until I got home, so I let my parents use it until then.

When we were overseas, we were able to get fairly decent access to technology considering our circumstances, and every tent had at least one DVD player in it. While I personally did not see the need to buy another one to add to the pile, I always told the people who had the DVD players there that they would be free to use any DVD’s I bought from the PX.

A Change in Perspective

In the desert, you have nothing but time on your hands. I used this time to finish reading a lot of books, but my speed reading abilities meant that I would go through books pretty quickly, and I would always have to go to the PX or wait for books my parents mailed me from so I could get more. (In time, I unlearned speed reading, but not deliberately, so I relearned this skill after I returned from Iraq and resumed academics.)

Because we had nothing but time on our hands, we would often watch the deleted scenes. Then, there were other times when I would find myself watching all kinds of DVD extras, such as commentaries, making-of documentaries, and other features that any DVD lover knows by heart.

The realization of the change in shift came to me in November. One of the movies that I saw in the PX that day was the DVD for the director’s cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I am not a big Trekkie (I don’t say this to insult Trekkies, just to be descriptive.), as I have only seen two or three of the movies, and about half a dozen episodes (all versions combined). When I first saw this movie a year and a half before, the big things that I remembered about the movie at the time were the slow pace and Lt. Ilia. Normally, this would be enough to steer me away, but I noticed that the movie had hours and hours of special features. Because of this, I was more appreciative of the pace and bought the movie.

The Value of Special Features

I don’t have a desire to be a film director, but I have found the features very fascinating, and some of the best have taught me a lot about the art and skill of making movies. Sometimes, I miss the metaphor, or something in the background, and it is interesting to learn about everything that went into the effort and onto the screen. While I don’t go to the theater much (the last movie I saw in the theater was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), I have found that the special features are one of the things that I look forward to the most when I buy a DVD, whether of a movie, or a TV box set.

In your business, what are your unlikely sources of education? I would love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this, please share it with your friends.