Summary

The author reflects on the therapeutic effects of watching behind-the-scenes extras and slow television as a coping mechanism for insomnia and personal trauma.

Abstract

In the era of streaming, the author reminisces about the days of DVD and Blu-ray extras, particularly the behind-the-scenes content that few seemed to watch. They share a personal account of finding comfort in these lengthy, unedited studio tapes during sleepless nights, which provided a calming distraction from their own troubled thoughts and nightmares. The author contrasts the mundane reality of their father's presence and the infidelity of their parent with the escapism offered by these behind-the-scenes glimpses into the lives of others. The piece concludes with the author acknowledging the shift to streaming and their continued reliance on YouTube for similar content to aid sleep, hinting at a broader body of work they've produced on the platform.

Opinions

The author views the act of watching behind-the-scenes extras as a form of therapy, offering a sense of calm and distraction from personal issues.
They express skepticism about the widespread appeal of commentaries and behind-the-scenes features, suggesting that these were primarily enjoyed by dedicated film enthusiasts.
The author implies a sense of nostalgia for the physical media era, where such extras were more prominent and ritualistic.
There is an underlying tone of resentment or sadness regarding the author's childhood experiences, particularly in relation to their father's behavior and the family dynamics.
The author finds solace in the predictability and ordinariness of other people's days, as captured in the behind-the-scenes footage, which serves as a form of slow television.
They suggest that the repetitive nature of the tartan blanket woman's TV-watching habits, including the endless loop of the show "Dream On," was both a source of tension and a familiar backdrop to their youth.
The piece conveys a personal journey of coping and healing, with the author indicating that writing and sharing their experiences has been therapeutic and rewarding.

Dream On

The Therapeutic Effect of Behind-the-Scenes Extras

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We live in the streaming age now, so the proportion of people not watching DVD and Blu-ray extras has gone up quite some way from the nearly everyone it so clearly was before.

I’m not sure I ever met anyone who had listened to a commentary all the way through, and that was even amongst my film-loving friends.

I listened to Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow” commentary all the way through.

In between the periods of aching silence, I seem to remember he talked quite a bit about hats.

And, if commentaries were a bit much for your average DVD-purchaser, then the hours of behind-the-scenes extras would definitely sort the ardent from the amateur.

I would watch the behind-the-scenes extras.

I would watch unedited studio tapes on TV releases.

For the uninitiated, that’s the uncut tape from the studio floor of the rehearsal, recording, and re-recording of scenes. Sometimes multiple times. Interspersed with studio chatter, actors having their make-up touched up, off-screen barely heard gossip, and long stretches of Not Very Much Happening At All.

I would watch this stuff at the end of the night, past midnight, as I tried to convince myself for the 10,000th time that it was worth trying to sleep. Even with the nightmares and the night terrors and the 3am sweats and the stuff in my head that has never been processed but my hippocampi keep trying to process.

There was something calming in watching other people’s days play out in real time.

It’s another form of slow television.

Hours of very nearly getting to the point where the scene might almost perhaps just about be completed without anyone fluffing, dropping a prop, or swearing from the frustration of it all.

I would lie there and watch hours of other people’s days from the mid-1980s or the 1990s and I would somehow not think about what my own unedited studio tape would look like from that same period.

My father (there’s a term I don’t use very often) sitting there in the armchair, either asleep or breaking wind, but generally only scratching himself while he watched the television.

When he was in to watch the television.

When he wasn’t at work or at the house of some other family.

Like the woman who lived on the corner.

There’s a behind-the-scenes tape we could only ever imagine. And did imagine, over and over, during the period leading up to the divorce. And then forever after.

And then there’d be the woman who slept under the tartan blanket with the vodka bottle nearby and the remote control in her hand, the better to continually rewind the half hour sit-com she had been “watching” all night even whilst showing every sign of being asleep.

Here’s the show, if you want to imagine this on a loop all night when you’re ten years old (far too young for the subject matter).

The not at all ironically named “Dream On” was the tartan blanket woman’s “thing” at that time for the same reason that she liked anything. She fancied the lead. It always came down to fancying the lead, and there could be no doubt that he was in her dreams and that she was using the show as white noise to populate them.

Just imagine the tension, every time the end credits rolled, at the thought of possibly easing the remote control from the slack hand dangling from the tartan blanket and perhaps actually turning the damn tape off.

Or turning the volume down.

By one or two in the morning, I’d have given anything just to turn the volume down.

But I barely ever succeeded. The woman under the tartan blanket might well be snoring, but those credits would end and that rewind button would be pressed again on that remote control, and round it would go.

Every time.

We live in the streaming age now, so the behind-the-scenes extras are no longer such a thing.

But I need to sleep one day.

And, luckily, YouTube is full of other people’s non-eventful but also blissfully non-triggering moments.

Dream on.

164 Medium pieces in now (and over 500 since beginning my writing again after the worst happened nearly a decade ago…), I think I am getting the hang of this. If you would like more of the same, here’s a piece about a very…peculiar childhood ambition of mine, and here’s another about theatre and the glory of festival adjudicators.