An outtake is a portion of a work (usually a film or music
recording) that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and DVD
reissue
In the music industry, a reissue (also re-release, repackage or re-edition) is the release of an album or Single (music), single which has been released at least once before, sometimes with alterations or additions.
Reasons for reissue
New aud ...
s of many albums and films as
bonus tracks or features, in film often, but not always, for the sake of humor. In terms of photos, an outtake may also mean the ones which are not released in the original set of photos (i.e. photo shoots and digitals).
Film
An outtake is any
take of a movie or a
television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...
that is removed or otherwise not used in the final cut. Some of these takes are humorous mistakes made in the process of filming commonly known to American audiences as
blooper
A blooper is a short clip from a film or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast or news report, usually in terms o ...
s. Multiple takes of each
shot
Shot may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Shot'' (album), by The Jesus Lizard
*''Shot, Illusion, New God'', an EP by Gruntruck
*''Shot Rev 2.0'', a video album by The Sisters of Mercy
* "Shot" (song), by The Rasmus
* ''Shot'' (2017 fi ...
are always taken, for safety. Due to this, the number of outtakes a film has will always vastly outnumber the takes included in the edited, finished product.
An outtake may also be a complete version of a
recording that is dropped in favor of another version.
Often outtakes can be found as special features on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
s and
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
s. Purpose-made "outtakes" can also be found playing over
credits
Credit refers to any form of deferred payment, the granting of a loan and the creation of debt.
Credit may also refer to:
Places
* Credit, Arkansas, a ghost town
* Credit River, a river in Ontario, Canada
* Credit River (Minnesota), a river in ...
at the end of a film or TV program. Well known examples of this are
Jackie Chan
Fang Shilong (born 7 April 1954), known professionally in English as Jackie Chan and in Chinese as Cheng Long ( zh, c=成龍, j=Sing4 Lung4; "becoming the dragon"), is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman known for ...
and
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
/
Pixar films, although in the latter only movies were made with such as ''
A Bug's Life'' (1998), ''
Toy Story 2'' (1999) and ''
Monsters, Inc.
''Monsters, Inc.'' (also known as ''Monsters, Incorporated'') is a 2001 American computer-animated Monster movie, monster comedy film produced by Pixar, Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, B ...
'' (2001).
Pixar films, being
computer-generated, do not feature "real" outtakes, but rather staged ones in which the
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
features "mistakes".
Outtakes may also enter
stock footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...
libraries and appear in future productions. For example, ''
Don't Tell Everything
''Don't Tell Everything'' is a 1921 American silent drama film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid. Wood apparently created this film in part from outtakes left over from Cecil DeMille's ''The Affairs of Anatol'' ...
'' (1921) started as an outtake from ''
The Affairs of Anatol'' (1921) and was then expanded with additional footage.
It is generally considered that the inclusion of outtakes in a film's finished product started with ''
Hooper'' (1978), helmed by stunt-man-turned-director
Hal Needham and starring
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture.
Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as ' ...
. Needham decided to include outtakes in the film's end credit scrawl to highlight alternate camera angles for the impressive
stunts
A stunt is an unusual and difficult physical feat or an act requiring a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually on television, theaters, or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Before computer generated imagery spec ...
performed for the movie. Needham also interspersed
comedic
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
outtakes of the actors as well.
The inclusion was so successful with fans that Needham continued to insert comedic outtakes in his future directorial efforts such as ''
Smokey & The Bandit 2
''Smokey and the Bandit II'' is a 1980 American action comedy film directed by Hal Needham, and starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Jackie Gleason and Dom DeLuise. The film is the sequel to the 1977 film ''Smokey and the Bandit''.
T ...
'' (1980), ''
The Cannonball Run
''The Cannonball Run'' is a 1981 action comedy film. It was directed by Hal Needham, produced by Hong Kong's Golden Harvest films, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Filmed in Panavision, it features an all-star ensemble cast, including Burt ...
'' (1981), ''
Stroker Ace'' (1983) and ''
Cannonball Run 2
''Cannonball Run II'' is a 1984 action comedy film starring Burt Reynolds and an all-star cast, released by Warner Bros. and Golden Harvest. Like the original '' Cannonball Run'', it is set around an illegal cross-country race.
This was the la ...
'' (1984).
Criticism
Film
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...
has been critical of outtakes being played over a film's credits, saying of the film ''
Liar Liar'':
This picture ends over the credits with outtakes. I hate that. I don't even care if they're funny, I still hate it because to me it's almost like an act of desperation from the filmmakers saying "Well we're not sure if we made a funny picture, but we're gonna throw this stuff in and we'll leave you laughing on the way out."
Television
The British programme ''
It'll be Alright on the Night'', has been running on ITV since 1977 featuring outtakes. The BBC's answer to this was ''
Auntie's Bloomers
''Auntie's Bloomers'' is a blooper show hosted by Terry Wogan that ran from 29 December 1991 to 29 December 2001 and aired on BBC One. Most bloopers consisted of homegrown BBC programmes including soaps, sitcoms, dramas and news.
The programm ...
'', eventually replaced by ''
Outtake TV''. Prior to these series, production errors were rarely seen for pre-recorded programmes, since these were edited out before transmission.
Image Dissectors – TV Trends: Conspicuous cameras
/ref> Nowadays, it is common to see outtakes at the end of films, or compiled into programmes like these.
Music
Just like a movie outtake, music outtakes are recordings that are not used in a final version of an album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
. Collections of this sort of material are often compiled and distributed illegally by fans, and known as a bootlegged recording. Sometimes, artists release collections of outtakes, sometimes grouped with other rarities such as demos
Demos may refer to:
Computing
* DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system
* DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR
* Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems
* plural for Demo (computer programming)
...
and unreleased songs.
Occasionally collections of outtakes become recognized as part of an artist's major creative output, especially in cases where an artist is unusually prolific or dies young. One example would be ''The Lillywhite Sessions
''The Lillywhite Sessions'' (tLWS) is a collection of songs recorded by Dave Matthews Band in 1999 and 2000 and produced by Steve Lillywhite. The songs, recorded by the band as a follow-up to their 1998 album '' Before These Crowded Streets'', w ...
'' by Dave Matthews Band, an album that was considered unfinished and not ready to be distributed, yet is widely considered part of the discography of the band by their fans. An example of the former is the fourteen-volume '' Bootleg Series'' from Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, which contains many important Dylan songs omitted from his albums, some of which were made famous by other artists. An example of the latter is the CD '' Time of No Reply'' by Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognit ...
, a British singer-songwriter who died almost unknown at the age of 26 in 1974, but whose music became highly influential on other artists in subsequent decades.
Video games
In a similar vein as a music outtake, video game outtakes are elements (characters, levels, items, cutscenes, etc.) that weren't used in a game's final version. These can be unlocked via hacking or officially through demos
Demos may refer to:
Computing
* DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system
* DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR
* Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems
* plural for Demo (computer programming)
...
.
Examples include '' Crash Bandicoot'', whose notable abandoned level "Stormy Ascent" can be unlocked through hacking. Similarly, Donkey Kong, Silver the Hedgehog, Cream the Rabbit, Jet the Hawk, Espio the Chameleon, Big the Cat and a Goomba can be unlocked via hacking on '' Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games''.
See also
*Blooper
A blooper is a short clip from a film or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast or news report, usually in terms o ...
*Deleted scene
A deleted scene is footage that has been removed from the final version of a film or television show. There are various reasons why these scenes are deleted, which include time constraints, relevance, quality or a dropped story thread. A similar o ...
References
{{Reflist
Home video supplements
Film scenes
Film and video terminology
Television terminology