Glass Onion - The Audio Commentary

I don’t remember who said it (maybe it was Robert Rodriguez?) but there’s a great quote about the only film school you need is director’s commentary tracks for your favourite films. I’ve been an avid commentary listener since my teenage years and can attest that they can indeed be far more insightful and educational than you might expect; a film class on a disc.

Which is why in this streaming era I mourn the loss of the audio commentary. Very few streaming services feature them, despite alternate audio tracks already being supported by almost all of the services. But thankfully some directors are still fighting the good fight and making sure we get those commentaries we love.

Which is why I was so excited when Rian Johnson announced he had in fact recorded a commentary track for the Netflix exclusive Glass Onion. Johnson famously made “in theatre” commentary tracks for some of his previous films, intended for you to load up on your iPod and play in the cinema. Similarly, Netflix and Johnson put out a commentary track through their special podcast series “Watching with Netflix”; you simply download the episode and hit play on both devices when they tell you to. Of course, this is much easier said than done…

I should know, because I spent nearly an hour last night frustratingly trying to get it synced, only to realize that when I wanted to make popcorn, or go to the bathroom I’d have to pause both, and risk things falling out of sync. Plus I could never quite get the balance between the volume of the film and the commentary correct. All in all, it was a less than ideal situation.

So the next day I did what any budding commentary lover would do: I properly synced it to the film. Using a copy of the film I had acquired via… methods I dropped the film into Final Cut Pro, and attached the commentary track. Turns out it wasn’t entirely my fault, the commentary seemed to really drift from the film. Something would line up properly only for it to be out of sync several minutes later, but then fall back into sync again. Back and forth back and forth. So I went ahead and used a few key moments where Johnson specifically called attention to something on screen and used those moments as specific sync points to try and properly sync the commentary. I also took the film’s audio and lowered it to the level one might expect for an audio commentary; no longer do you have dead air when Johnson isn’t talking (granted those moments are few and far between as he delivers an astounding amount of info in this track)

I then exported it as an AAC file, re-muxed it to picture using Subler and now future Adam doesn’t have to worry about faffing about. And now, neither do you… provided you can get a digital copy of the film of course.

Enjoy.

(Rian, please don’t get mad at me for doing this… I’m a big fan.)

P.S. fun little Rian Johnson story; back when I worked at TIFF I produced/directed an episode of Stay-At-Home Cinema with Johnson and he naturally showed up a bit early to make sure all the tech was working. During that time he noticed my signed Phantom of the Opera posted on my wall, and commented on how cool it was, and how he wished he had one, and then proceeded to show the framed prosthetic “Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Bruce Willis” nose he had in his office. Anyways, great dude.