A spoiler-y aide de memoire helpful for keeping the villains straight.
A reminiscent peek into the darker corners of the Wizarding World’s media products.
You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters lead off, logically enough, with spreads on horcruxes (horcruces?), dementors, curses, potions, and Hogwarts’ revolving door of Defense Against the Dark Arts faculty following—along with nods to the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore’s Army. Close-ups of Percival Graves/Gellert Grindelwald and the Obscurus fill out a closing section about the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. On each page, concept art (including, notably, an early portrait of He Who Must Not Be Named with a human, rather than ophidian, nose) and film stills mingle with spoiler-laden expository passages. The latter pay scant attention to the original print stories before turning to offer superficial sound bites from some of the actors amid tidbits about sets, makeup, or special effects. A packet of character cards for leading members of the Order, a sticker sheet, and a sparse handful of loosely attached booklets and miniposters add easily lost (and easily missable) extras to the package.
A spoiler-y aide de memoire helpful for keeping the villains straight. (Novelty. 10-13)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9591-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Marketing froth, mostly, but with tidbits for budding fans of cinema's history.
Timed just to precede the scheduled release of the film version of Selznick’s Caldecott-winner, a chubby compendium of stills interspersed with background notes and interviews.
Easy-to-digest single spreads of narrative text are embedded in color photos of sets, cast members and crew (plus occasional illustrations from the original book for comparison) in a manner mimicking the design of the original. Selznick opens with stage-setting comments on his characters and inspirations, then goes on to introduce 40 people involved in the project, from director Martin Scorsese to the lead and supporting actors, set designers, script writer, technical staff and even an “On Set Magician.” He, Scorsese and scholar David Serlin also tuck in capsule historical essays on Paris in 1931, automatons and early French filmmakers—particularly Georges Méliès, whose significant role in the book has evidently been even further magnified for the screen. Readers are expected to be familiar with the tale’s plot, and the interviews are threaded with bland clichés (producer Graham King was “enchanted by Brian Selznick’s book. Immediately we thought it would be a beautiful story for Martin Scorsese to create into a piece of cinema”) and name-check references to old movies. At least the photos provide a sense of how the cast and film will look, and Selznick’s account of how he unexpectedly became an extra in the final scene makes a lively closing bit.
Marketing froth, mostly, but with tidbits for budding fans of cinema's history. (place, movie and website lists, thumbnail biographies of cast and crew) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-33155-5
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
Readers may come away knowing how to talk the talk, as the title promises, but little more.
A quick overview of how movies are made, offering encouragement and generic advice rather than specific information.
Glassbourg, a veteran instructor of film and TV production, breaks the process of creating a movie down into simplified steps—from gathering ideas, creating a script, and learning how to think pictorially with still photography and storyboarding to production management, editing and marketing. Unfortunately, though he drops big names, uses recent and classic films as examples, and gathers comments from working professionals in the industry, the visuals are not stills or shots of actual sets or equipment but retro, graphic-style figures done in a limited range of solid hues that add color but only rarely any useful detail. He presents an almost dizzying array of film-related occupations, but his brief notes on what such arcane folk as location managers, production coordinators, Foley editors, key grips and other specialists do are unlikely to enlighten readers. Moreover, the vague references to CGI (confusingly dubbed “VFX,” which is actually an older, broader term encompassing more than just digital wizardry), electronic press kits, sound design, social media and other topics similarly just skim the surface.
Readers may come away knowing how to talk the talk, as the title promises, but little more. (Nonfiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-926973-84-5
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
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