film production

Tag Archive: film production

The Art of Love Death+Robots chronicles a mash-up of animation genres and styles

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September 5, 2022

Review by C.J. Bunce

Director/producer Tim Miller’s dark genre anthology showcase Love Death+Robots has netted 11 Emmy Awards so far. The series plucks short stories from science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and adapts them using a director and creative team from across the entire industry of animation. Bring them altogether with visual effects house Blur Studios and the broad variety of artwork behind all three seasons of the show are an introduction to the myriad methods of expression available to the 21st century animator. Landing in bookstores everywhere tomorrow, The Art of Love Death+Robots is writer Ramin Zahed’s latest behind the scenes tour of a TV series, and for Love Death+Robots, it’s all about concept art and futuristic style.

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First Lady of Film–For movie buffs and film historians, new biography of film pioneer Alice Guy is a must-read

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August 22, 2022

Review by C.J. Bunce

Were I to offer a college course in film, my textbooks would include TCM’s 20th Century Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Creation of the Modern Film Studio, TCM’s Forbidden Hollywood, Special Effects: The History and Technique, TCM’s Essential Directors, American Visions: The Films of Frank Capra, Roger Christian’s Cinema Alchemist, and Aardman’s A Grand Success, and I’d have students watch Paramount’s The Offer, Prime Video’s The Last Tycoon, and Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World. Add to that the new English translation of French writer José-Luis Bocquet and artist Catel Muller’s new 400-page graphic novel, Alice Guy: First Lady of Film, available this month here at Amazon, a rich, densely layered look at one of the world’s first movie directors, the first woman director (1896), an early movie producer, and the creator of the first film with an all-black cast of actors–way back in 1912. Her life is a chronology of the first decades of the invention of cinema, and she helped mold modern film-making in France and the U.S. as she rubbed elbows with the likes of Gustave Eiffel, Georges Méliès, the Lumière brothers, Rose Pastor Stokes–subject of one of her films–and American film pioneers Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

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Midnight Mass: The Art of Horror–New book documents more than the making of a series

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February 27, 2022

Review by C.J. Bunce

Midnight Mass is Netflix’s follow-on series to its successful horror story, The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. Continuing to employ cast and crew from that series, Midnight Mass was the brainchild and pet project of creator Mike Flanagan, who has amassed his own portfolio of horror thrillers, directing everything from Oculus to the sequel to The Shining to the Ouija Board movie. In Abbie Bernstein’s look behind the movie, Midnight Mass: The Art of Horror, fans of horror and Flanagan’s work will encounter more than the steps to get this series from idea to your television screen.

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Tags: Abbie Bernstein, Annabeth Gish, film production, Hamish Linklater, Henry Thomas, horror series, horror story production, Kate Siegel, Midnight Mass Netflix series, Midnight Mass: The Art of Horror, Midnight Mass: The Art of Horror book review, Mike Flanagan, Netflix, Netflix horror, Rahul Kohli, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Haunting of Hill House, vampires, Zach Gilford

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Meet a world of animated characters in Rumble: The Art and Making of the Movie

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February 15, 2022

Review by C.J. Bunce

A new book on a recent animated movie is a great source for anyone thinking about creating strange new characters and amazing new worlds. Paramount Pictures’ recent animated movie Rumble is the focus of Noela Hueso’s book Rumble: The Art and Making of the Movie. More than a survey of the concept artwork and development of the film, it’s a blueprint for designing creatures, aliens, and monster types. Practically a Monster Manual for dozens of new characters from concept artwork to final film stills as presented on the screen, Rumble: The Art and Making of the Movie is now available here at Amazon in a jacketed, coffee table-type hardcover. Take a look inside the book below.

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Tags: animated movies, CGI animation, character design, Christophe Lautrette, film production, Hamish Grieve, hand-drawn animation, Max Narciso, Monsters University, Noela Hueso, Paramount, Paramount Animation, Rumble movie, Rumble The Art and Making of the Movie, Rumble The Art and Making of the Movie book review, world building, wrestling

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The Moviemaking Magic of Spider-Man–Explore the MCU superhero from development to screen

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January 3, 2022

Review by C.J. Bunce

As with the first three books in Abrams’ Cinemagic book series, The Moviemaking Magic of Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man blends filmmaking techniques with its key franchise star. Author Eleni Roussos combines a quickstart education in filmmaking, applied to Spider-Man’s MCU movies as the latest Spidey sequel, Spider-Man: No Way Home, is released internationally. If you love concept art, props and costumes, and all things Spider-Man, you won’t want to miss this.

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Escape from New York–Go behind the scenes for 40th anniversary of a John Carpenter classic

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December 28, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

Forty years after the release of the sci-fi classic Escape from New York, we finally have a thorough, modern account of the making of the movie. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter’s one-of-a-kind story of Kurt Russell’s future criminal Snake Plissken and his attempt to rescue the President from a downed plane over a locked-down New York City, Escape from New York: The Official Story of the Film pulls from the studio archives a trove of behind the scenes photographs to showcase the creation of the movie. First previewed here at borg back in June, this must-have hardcover book for John Carpenter fans is at last available now here at Amazon.

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The Boys–Ron Howard and Clint Howard recount a family’s child actor success story

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November 10, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

The thing about being a kid in the 1970s and 1980s was that your view of television history is skewed by the advent of reruns. Ron Howard and Clint Howard are much older than me, and yet because of reruns of The Andy Griffith Show and Gentle Ben, and the original Star Trek, I feel like I grew up along with, or maybe only a little bit behind the characters these actors played at a young age. So for anyone who grew up with the Howards on television or those that only think they did by way of reruns, you’re in for a fun insight into the life of these brothers behind the scenes in their new book The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, available now here at Amazon. Long before Ron would direct Solo: A Star Wars Story and Apollo 13 and Clint would populate all of Ron’s movies and act in most of the Star Trek series as characters from Balok to Muk, a young couple in New York tried to make it in the movie biz.

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TCM’s 20th Century-Fox–A beginning-to-end look at the movie studio and the execs that put it on the map

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October 7, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

For a century, 20th Century Fox was a production machine, churning out volumes of motion pictures annually, but never achieving the greatness seen by the likes of MGM and Paramount. Yet its key movie star assets, its box office successes, and award-winning films were few and far between. In 20th Century-Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Creation of the Modern Film Studio, writer Scott Eyman takes movie fans back to the beginning and introduces readers to sometimes successful, sometimes not successful businessmen who built theaters and the movies to screen in them, keying in on the mergers that brought William Fox, formerly immigrant Wilhelm Fuchs, to build a corporation that Darryl F. Zanuck would take through important decades of the 21st century. Both film buffs and historians of the era of film’s Golden Age will find a history in Turner Classic Movies/TCM’s latest film production chronicle, connected by memorable films from its first Oscar-winner, 1927’s Sunrise, to its last, 2019’s Ford v. Ferrari, telling a story of the rise and fall of a movie empire. TCM’s 20th Century-Fox is just out from publisher Running Press and available here at Amazon.

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Tags: 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Fox Fanfare, Alfred Newman, Aliens, Avatar, Bachelor Party, best directors, black and white movies, Call Northside 777, Cleopatra, croquet, Dana Andrews, Darryl F. Zanuck, Die hard, film production, Ford v Ferrari, Ford's Mister Roberts, Fritz Lang, Gene Tierney, Great Depression, history of cinema, Jaws, Jean Renoir, John Ford, John Wayne, Kevin Feige, M*A*S*H, Michael Curtiz, movie moguls, Mr Selfridge, Neil Brand, Poseidon Adventure, Predator, Richard Zanuck, Robert Wagner, Romancing the Stone, Running Press, Scott Eyman, Silver Streak, South Pacific, Star Wars, Sunrise movie, TCM, TCM books, TCM film library, TCM's 20th Century Fox, TCM's 20th Century Fox book review, TCM's 20th Century-Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Creation of the Modern Film Studio, TCM's 20th Century-Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Creation of the Modern Film Studio book review, TCM's Essential Directors, The Abyss, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Fly, The French Connection, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Last Tycoon, The Man with One Red Shoe, The Omen, The Planet of the Apes, The Sand Pebbles, The Sound of Music, Theda Bara, Titanic, Tom Mix, True Lies, Turk 182, Turner Classic Movies, Twelve O' Clock High, Wilhelm Fuchs, William Fox, Young Frankenstein

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TCM’s Essential Directors–A definitive guide to the most influential directors in Hollywood

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September 17, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

For both film buffs and a new generation of a movie fans, a definitive guide to the most influential film directors–spanning a century of Hollywood creativity–will soon be a fixture in libraries everywhere. Turner Classic Movies/TCM and film writer Sloan De Forest, author of TCM’s Dynamic Dames (reviewed here) and TCM’s Must-See Sci-fi (reviewed here), chronicle 58 directors, their works, and influence on the filmmaking in TCM’s The Essential Directors: The Art and Impact of Cinema’s Most Influential Filmmakers. From Charlie Chaplin to Steven Spielberg, these are the directors that film aficionados will be unlikely to quibble with. Some made their marks as household names, others are legendary auteurs, while others provided a singular film or image that has made them synonymous with Hollywood royalty. From epic dramas, to laugh-out-loud comedies, readers will find TCM’s Essential Directors as the go-to source for the heavy-hitters behind the biggest movies in history.

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Dark City–Dig into an excellent history of film noir in latest TCM journey through the movies

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September 1, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

Last month I reviewed TCM’s Summer Movies: 30 Sun-Drenched Classics, the eighth volume reviewed here at borg in the TCM library. TCM is busy with new releases this year, and its look at film noir takes a different approach. Written by Noir Alley host Eddie Muller, The Art of Noir author and proclaimed Czar of Noir, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (available now in bookstores and at Amazon here) is actually an update of his 1998 look at film noir of the same name. It’s an essential look at the genre for both novices and diehard fans, providing just enough about the key films to entice readers to add several movies to their DVR, and giving long-time noir audiences new ways to think about some classic films. Whenever I hear someone referred to as an expert in genre, I make notes. Here I made a list of what those essential and important obscure noir films should make any book on film noir. Muller includes discussions of all of them except one, from Laura and Shadow of a Doubt to DOA, from Sorry, Wrong Number, Sunset Boulevard, and Call Northside 777, to The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Chinatown. So the book by all counts is the real deal and worthy of its accolades for both its original and new edition. Unlike some of the other TCM books I’ve reviewed here at borg, Dark City: The Lost World of Film is not only an annotated guide to a list of recommended movies. What film noir movies would you expect to find inside?