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CNN Saturday Morning News

Hidden Surprises in DVDs.

Aired December 14, 2002 - 07:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back, I'm Daniel Sieberg. So you buy a DVD or you've rented one and you've watched it once or twice. Maybe you've even watched all the special features, or you've watched it a bunch of times. So that's it, right?
Well, not necessarily. There are some secrets and some surprises that you may not know about.

Joining us this morning is Marc Saltzman, he is a video game journalist and author of a book called "DVD Confidential," to talk to us about something called Easter Eggs.

Marc, why are we thinking of Easter Eggs around this holiday season?

MARC SALTZMAN, TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: Yes, exactly. Well, DVD Eastern Eggs like you touched on are secrets buried in hundreds of today's DVD movies, though most people aren't aware of them.

You have to take the DVD remote and it will vary on what you have to do for a film, and then the reward, the pay off, the Easter Egg itself, could be anything. It could be an alternate ending to a film, it could be a -- a deleted scene, it could be a funny interview. Even a video game or even an isolated audio soundtrack to the entire film.

SIEBERG: Now why are these so hidden, because they're not obvious to somebody when you load in your DVD and people are familiar with those menus you get -- why is so hard for people to find these? Are they meant to be that secret and that hard to find?

SALTZMAN: Yes, they are. Like you said, we're not talking about the special features listed on the back of the DVD box. Easter Eggs are secret, they are planted, they are there to -- I guess -- reward those who are savvy or shall we say determined enough to uncover them.

SIEBERG: All right, well let's give people a quick demonstration here. We've got "Spiderman" loaded into a DVD player here. I've got the remote control. This is of course key to whatever you're going to do. We've gone through a couple of different menu choices here and then we're going to just -- this spider comes up on the left and if we click on that using our remote control here it's going to bring up -- bring up something that is not obvious when you're looking at the DVD. Marc, tell us what we're seeing here. This looks like some bloopers or some outtakes.

SALTZMAN: That's right. You know, again, this goes above and beyond the regular extra features; we're seeing some CGI or some computer graphic outtakes and bloopers and some funny things that of course never made it to the film and this is great for those who -- you know -- if you're going to shell out $25 for a DVD, you're obviously a fan of the film. So this is great for those who enjoy "Spiderman" and want to see some really rare behind the scenes stuff that's pretty funny...

SIEBERG: Go ahead, Marc, sorry.

SALTZMAN: ... yes, no, I'm sorry -- I was just going to say there's about seven Easter Eggs hidden on the "Spiderman" double-disc DVD.

SIEBERG: Right, that leads into what I was going to mention. Your book actually goes through dozens of movies that -- as you say there are sometimes seven or more of these Easter Eggs but how do people go about finding them. How do you know that they're even there?

SALTZMAN: Well, usually they're spread by word of mouth. You know at the water cooler at work or I found out about them because my 14-year-old cousin came over, it was about two years ago now I guess and he said hey I didn't know you had "Gladiator" watch this and he popped in the DVD and unlocked it and he told me that a friend of his from school told him about it and there's some chat rooms and all that but -- and I've also worked with some film studios and in making this book.

SIEBERG: All right well let's talk about some of the other movies then -- I mean, we can run through -- starting with "Monsters, Inc." If you can tell us about just how you find these Easter Eggs.

SALTZMAN: Absolutely. Well you pop in the disc and you choose Monsters Only World and now instead of choosing from these options, hit the right button on your remote and the eye in the middle of the end will illuminate. You press enter and you know you've hit the Easter Egg because there's a -- a -- monkey picking up Easter Eggs followed by some really funny animation outtakes. As you see here, this is a scene when Sully leaves the room and -- oh -- lo and behold, here comes the little 2-D giraffe that saunters in and off the screen. Obviously a lot of fun and the animators when they made "Monsters, Inc." kept all this extra footage just to really please fans of the film.

Here we're looking at "The Sixth Sense." If you look at the bottom of the screen, there's a little keepsake box, it's very faint. However, if you select it with your DVD remote, you'll be treated to the first horror film that M. Night, the director and writer of "The Sixth Sense" made when he was 11 years old. It's very funny and very cheesy and that's him there on the left. And again this is a -- this is an example of where the filmmaker asked to have an Easter Egg planted on the DVD.

SIEBERG: So they certainly participate in this; they're actually quite willing to put these Easter Eggs on their DVDs.

SALTZMAN: In some cases. Often it's the studios themselves. And here's an example of that. Here's "Vanilla Sky." You pop in the DVD, you choose special features, then photo gallery and if you hit the right button on the DVD remote that mask will illuminate and -- and flesh color -- it'll turn flesh color -- press enter and here we are going to see probably not in its entirety but a five-minute scene of bloopers that is very funny.

SIEBERG: Right, well, thank you so much for joining us Marc Saltzman, author of a book called "DVD Confidential." People want to check that out and find out more about Easter Eggs. Thanks again Marc.

SALTZMAN: Thanks Daniel.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 14, 2002 - 07:54   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back, I'm Daniel Sieberg. So you buy a DVD or you've rented one and you've watched it once or twice. Maybe you've even watched all the special features, or you've watched it a bunch of times. So that's it, right?
Well, not necessarily. There are some secrets and some surprises that you may not know about.

Joining us this morning is Marc Saltzman, he is a video game journalist and author of a book called "DVD Confidential," to talk to us about something called Easter Eggs.

Marc, why are we thinking of Easter Eggs around this holiday season?

MARC SALTZMAN, TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: Yes, exactly. Well, DVD Eastern Eggs like you touched on are secrets buried in hundreds of today's DVD movies, though most people aren't aware of them.

You have to take the DVD remote and it will vary on what you have to do for a film, and then the reward, the pay off, the Easter Egg itself, could be anything. It could be an alternate ending to a film, it could be a -- a deleted scene, it could be a funny interview. Even a video game or even an isolated audio soundtrack to the entire film.

SIEBERG: Now why are these so hidden, because they're not obvious to somebody when you load in your DVD and people are familiar with those menus you get -- why is so hard for people to find these? Are they meant to be that secret and that hard to find?

SALTZMAN: Yes, they are. Like you said, we're not talking about the special features listed on the back of the DVD box. Easter Eggs are secret, they are planted, they are there to -- I guess -- reward those who are savvy or shall we say determined enough to uncover them.

SIEBERG: All right, well let's give people a quick demonstration here. We've got "Spiderman" loaded into a DVD player here. I've got the remote control. This is of course key to whatever you're going to do. We've gone through a couple of different menu choices here and then we're going to just -- this spider comes up on the left and if we click on that using our remote control here it's going to bring up -- bring up something that is not obvious when you're looking at the DVD. Marc, tell us what we're seeing here. This looks like some bloopers or some outtakes.

SALTZMAN: That's right. You know, again, this goes above and beyond the regular extra features; we're seeing some CGI or some computer graphic outtakes and bloopers and some funny things that of course never made it to the film and this is great for those who -- you know -- if you're going to shell out $25 for a DVD, you're obviously a fan of the film. So this is great for those who enjoy "Spiderman" and want to see some really rare behind the scenes stuff that's pretty funny...

SIEBERG: Go ahead, Marc, sorry.

SALTZMAN: ... yes, no, I'm sorry -- I was just going to say there's about seven Easter Eggs hidden on the "Spiderman" double-disc DVD.

SIEBERG: Right, that leads into what I was going to mention. Your book actually goes through dozens of movies that -- as you say there are sometimes seven or more of these Easter Eggs but how do people go about finding them. How do you know that they're even there?

SALTZMAN: Well, usually they're spread by word of mouth. You know at the water cooler at work or I found out about them because my 14-year-old cousin came over, it was about two years ago now I guess and he said hey I didn't know you had "Gladiator" watch this and he popped in the DVD and unlocked it and he told me that a friend of his from school told him about it and there's some chat rooms and all that but -- and I've also worked with some film studios and in making this book.

SIEBERG: All right well let's talk about some of the other movies then -- I mean, we can run through -- starting with "Monsters, Inc." If you can tell us about just how you find these Easter Eggs.

SALTZMAN: Absolutely. Well you pop in the disc and you choose Monsters Only World and now instead of choosing from these options, hit the right button on your remote and the eye in the middle of the end will illuminate. You press enter and you know you've hit the Easter Egg because there's a -- a -- monkey picking up Easter Eggs followed by some really funny animation outtakes. As you see here, this is a scene when Sully leaves the room and -- oh -- lo and behold, here comes the little 2-D giraffe that saunters in and off the screen. Obviously a lot of fun and the animators when they made "Monsters, Inc." kept all this extra footage just to really please fans of the film.

Here we're looking at "The Sixth Sense." If you look at the bottom of the screen, there's a little keepsake box, it's very faint. However, if you select it with your DVD remote, you'll be treated to the first horror film that M. Night, the director and writer of "The Sixth Sense" made when he was 11 years old. It's very funny and very cheesy and that's him there on the left. And again this is a -- this is an example of where the filmmaker asked to have an Easter Egg planted on the DVD.

SIEBERG: So they certainly participate in this; they're actually quite willing to put these Easter Eggs on their DVDs.

SALTZMAN: In some cases. Often it's the studios themselves. And here's an example of that. Here's "Vanilla Sky." You pop in the DVD, you choose special features, then photo gallery and if you hit the right button on the DVD remote that mask will illuminate and -- and flesh color -- it'll turn flesh color -- press enter and here we are going to see probably not in its entirety but a five-minute scene of bloopers that is very funny.

SIEBERG: Right, well, thank you so much for joining us Marc Saltzman, author of a book called "DVD Confidential." People want to check that out and find out more about Easter Eggs. Thanks again Marc.

SALTZMAN: Thanks Daniel.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com