Who doesn’t want to get their eyes on anything about JK Rowling’s Harry Potter “Wizarding World” universe? A book coming soon from Insight Editions is mixing interactive elements with behind-the-scenes content for the theatrical release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. In Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Movie Magic (available for pre-order now here at Amazon), get ready to see how the moviemaking magic is done, complete with replica props and more. Take a look inside the book below.
Ten Hogwarts movies down, one to go. It’s been four years since we posted the trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwaldhere at borg. Now we’re only six weeks away from the final movie in the Fantastic Beasts trilogy, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Will the eleventh movie in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy universe be the last? Six years ago Rowling mentioned she had thoughts on two more movies, but no action has been taken since as far as pre-production goes. So this could be the end.
Professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) knows dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is moving to seize control of the wizarding world. Unable to stop him alone, he entrusts Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to lead an intrepid team where they encounter old and new beasts and clash with Grindelwald’s growing legion of followers. How long can Dumbledore remain on the sidelines?
Here’s the trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore:
This month, a new book examining what makes a great character also takes an in-depth look at Hollywood and film from the silent picture era to today. It’s Turner Classic Movies/TCM′s latest book on film, Dynamic Dames: 50 Leading Ladies Who Made History. I previously reviewed film historian Sloan De Forest′s Must-See Sci-Fi: 50 Movies That Are Out of This Worldhere at borg, a fun read and a fun list that is more a celebration of pop culture than film school companion. De Forest seems to have far more passion for her next subject, selecting a masterful list of 50 women worth reading about–and worth seeing their films. She also connects the dots between actors, their characters, and their personal lives in a way you’ve probably not seen before. In one word, Dynamic Damesis brilliant.
Everyone reading anyone else’s list of 50 people of any pursuit will have quibbles along the way, but De Forest shows an impressive knowledge of film and delivers. Not only a selection of 50 worthy actors–she doesn’t select the roles most movie critics flock to and rave about–she also finds those finer, more nuanced performances where these Dynamic Dames probably should have scored their Oscars. She also divides the book into eight sections and finds perfect examples that exemplify each section, from Pre-Code Bad Girls, to Big Bad Mamas,Women of Mystery, and Strong Survivors. A category not possible until more recently, Superheroines, rounds out the list, and although the performances have not had much of a chance to steep from a historical standpoint, De Forest provides solid rationale for them all.
Authors of a book like this typically will reserve a small percentage of the list for modern readers to have something to be attracted to, but that’s not the case here. De Forest actually embraces recent films, pulling in more than 20 percent of her list from characters appearing in 21st century films. Most of her rationale for each of these more recent actors and corresponding characters justifies their inclusion, comparable in performance, significance, and influence, to the film greats any movie buff would expect to find on this list. She also ties in some of cinema’s–and literature’s–best women writers; it should be no surprise that many of these outstanding characters in film over the course of 92 years resulted from great women writers of the 19th and 20th century, including Charlotte Brontë, Agatha Christie, and J.K Rowling.
As a grade schooler I’d often smuggle to school a copy of the current mini Legos or Star Wars toy catalog, providing something to distract me from the day with my favorite things. Harry Potter fans have it better today. Now Insight Editions has a new take-anywhere volume for anyone needing their Harry Potter fix anytime, The Art of Harry Potter–Mini Book of Graphic Design. Available at $11.99 or less, it’s an inexpensive source for the visual details of the movies you didn’t get to see on the big screen. The images were there, only barely seen on book covers, wrappers, newspapers, signs, and all sorts of paper ephemera that were on the desks, in the backpacks, and on the shelves, those thousands of items that needed to be created by designers to make J.K. Rowling’s books come to life.
In a small package you get more than 50 pages of book cover art and about 20 pages each of potion art, magazines and newspapers, Hogwarts documents, Ministry of Magic documents, maps, heraldry, Quidditch signage, food labels, Beasleys’ joke shop product labels, wanted posters, and other signage, all in full color. At 304 pages you might expect a giant book of images. But you’ll be surprised at what can be minimized into a 2.5 x 3.5-inch hardcover pocket-sized book that’s slightly less than an inch thick. Prior to smart phones readers might have balked at a book with images and type font so small. Now readers regularly read the equivalent of font sizes of 5 or smaller without thinking about it. So the adjustment for the eyes for this new line of books in this format isn’t that bad.
Today is our last day of reviews of the movie tie-in books for the new J.K. Rowling fantasy film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Rounding out the tie-in books is an exclusive behind the scenes account of the production composed of interviews with cast and crew, plus a new double-sized coloring book of the quality of adult coloring books but suitable for all ages.
In many ways Lights, Camera, Magic! The Making of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is like the souvenir books you’d get to commemorate a special event or show years ago. It has all the images from the film of the key characters, environments, and scenes. And it features interviews with all principal cast members except Johnny Depp. Elaborating on the motivations behind scenes, scope, and decisions made for the film are screenplay writer J.K. Rowling, director David Yates, producer David Heyman, graphic designers Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima, production designer Stuart Craig, art director Martin Foley, costume designer Colleen Atwood, hair and makeup artist Fae Hammond, set decorator Anna Pinnock, concept artist Dermot Power, prop designer Pierre Bohanna, and visual effects supervisors Tim Burke and Christian Manz. The book also features a foreword by star Eddie Redmayne. Readers will find more than one photo and section describing scenes that did not make the final cut of the film, too (did anyone have any idea Newt wrote a book that was made for a book-signing scene in the film?).
The Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Magical Adventure Coloring Book offers up several scenes from the film, as well as deleted scene images, to color. The coloring book is in the realm of the more elaborately designed adult coloring books, such as Sherlock and Doctor Who coloring books. quality artwork and photo-real images that look like the actors being portrayed, not just quick sketches. You’ll find images of Newt, Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and more characters, plus several beasts inside.
Take a look at these excerpt pages from each book:
Of all this year’s books we’ve read and reviewed at borg in 2018, more than 100 all told, we’re hard-pressed to find one that matches the beauty of design in The Archive of Magic – The Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, a new elaborately designed and detailed look at the film, the story, and the production of the new fantasy film from the mind of J.K. Rowling. Not only is the photograph reproduction quality superb, every page incorporates the style of the film, created by the very designers who made the images for the film. That’s MinaLima–the dynamic art duo of Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima–who also designed props for the Harry Potter movies as well as a new series of classic book reprints (reviewed here previously at borg).
Writer/editor Signe Bergstrom provides several textual elements that make The Archive of Magic stand out. She presents the narrative of the story itself in a way that will help moviegoers understand the sequence of events in the densely packed film. She also incorporates in-world elements, like examining new characters and story elements, and she steps out of the fantasy and interviews the film’s creative staff, writers, and actors, to provide an in-depth guide through the production. Readers will find final as-filmed versions of costumes and set production, in contrast with The Art of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which consists primarily of pre-production concept artwork (see our review here yesterday).
The Archive of Magic takes the paper ephemera book tie-in concept that has exploded in the past three years to another level. Included are several reproductions of paper props that were key to the story, not merely set dressing, but the book also includes tipped-in reproductions of set dressing, too, created by the artists who made the very props seen in the film–for any past Harry Potter universe film replica props like this would sell for at least $10-20 each. It begins with a deluxe hardcover, magnetic wraparound cover with gold embossed Art Nouveau designs. Included are Leta Lestrange’s note she finds in the Ministry Records Room, a 3D-lenticular photo identification card for Newt Scamander, a book mark incorporating Grindelwald’s logo on paper stock like that seen in the film, Credence Barebone’s dual-sided birth certificate, Queenie’s postcard from Tina, the Spellbound magazine that incorrectly reports on a Newt Scamander/Leta Lestrange engagement, Nicolas Flamel’s business card that Dumbledore gives to Newt, Butter Beer logo label stickers, six reproduced newspaper pages, and two folded, full-size circus posters.
Take a look at this book trailer produced by Harper Design, and sixteen interior pages from the book: Continue reading →
For a film inside the giant, magical world of Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwaldseemed to come and go from theaters with little fanfare. J.K. Rowling‘s newest world is a bleak one full of darkness, and without her trademark happier, lovable, wonderful bits to echo the Harry Potter universe that draws its fans to this new series. The spin-off series may suffer from prequel-itis. Does it indicate that, like George Lucas and his prequels, the bestselling living author might benefit from letting someone else step in to edit these screenplays into a more accessible story for her fans? The original screenplay to Grindelwaldclocks in at a whopping 304 pages, nearly three times the standard, and it may have been simply too difficult for the production to whittle it all down into a cohesive story. Regardless of what you think of the finished film, it is difficult to deny the amazing level of work that went into the production design. We’re featuring some great behind-the-scenes books that spotlight the artistry behind the film over the next few days, beginning today with The Art of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, by concept artist Dermot Power, who also penned the predecessor book The Art of the Film: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
The Art of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald showcases the work of fifty-five artists, with notations provided by each creator, including what they were commissioned to draw, what inspired the look, and where the piece belonged in the story. Art Nouveau inspired much of the film, coupled with a very steampunk industrial look that did not appear in the Harry Potter films. Highlights include blueprints for stage sets, concept art that influenced the various Paris scenes, the design for Grindelwald’s vial, circus images that didn’t make it into the film, and Newt’s half-flooded basement zoo.
Best of all, Power’s new book gets to the heart of what is missing on the big screen from both Fantastic Beasts films: more images of the elaborate, intricately stylized, fantastic animal creations. Unlike many “art of” books, the author pulls out far more fully rendered drawings, paintings, sculptures, instruments, 3D set builds, character designs, and visual effects try-ons–concept artwork that didn’t make it into the final film. He also provides clearer images of the creatures that did make it into the film but were lost in the shadows because of the dimly lit cinematography used in the film, like the ethereal half-animal, half-vegetable Kelpie.
Lists, and by extension, books with lists, are the stuff that sprout conversation. Sometimes good conversation, sometimes knock-down-drag-outs, but always something to talk about. We saw that last month in our look atMust-See Sci-Fi: 50 Movies that Are Out of This World, and it applies to Scott Christianson and Colin Salter’s new audacious work, 100 Books that Changed the World. This book is not merely a list of books, but an argument supporting why the authors think each book merits recognition. After all, with more than 2 million new books published each year (300,000 per year in the U.S. alone) and documented writings going back thousands of years, whittling them all down to 100 is a bit daunting at a minimum. Grade schoolers, college liberal arts and sciences majors, and everyone else has probably encountered a list like this before, usually styled the “greatest,” “most influential,” or “most significant” books ever written. Ultimately, readers may find the compilation of 100 books that “changed the world” results in a very similar set of books.
What would make your list? You can probably list 20 included without much work. The authors state in their preface that there are 50 books everyone would agree should be included. Think religion and myths (the Torah, the Bible, the Quran), math and science (Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Newton’s Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica), philosophy and politics (Plato’s The Republic, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man), works of fiction (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings), classic children’s books (Aesop’s Fables, Grimm’s Fairy Tales), works of the often-disputed literary greats (I’m looking at you, James Joyce), and works of long undisputed literary masters like Homer and Shakespeare. Yes, these are all “givens” for a list like this. But noteworthy great additions I don’t recall seeing on a list like this before include Louis Braille’s Procedure for Writing Words, Music and Plainsong in Dots, Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. And no author made the list more than once, except the writers of the Bible, which appears on the list twice: for the Gutenberg Bible and the King James version.
The authors hope their book “makes you question your own choices or ours, or introduces you to a book.” Criticisms of 100 Books that Changed the World aren’t going to be all that dire as much as simply topics for discussion. They’re the same critiques of any list or book like this. Thirty-seven books on the list were written by authors from England, removing the inclusion of any books from some countries. The list is heavily back loaded, with 26 books from the 19th century and 35 books from the 20th century–explainable in part since the authors didn’t have a lot to select from the first 3,000 years covered. The oldest book included is the I Ching, roughly 4,800 years old, and the most recent, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein, only four years old. The late history scholar Robert E. Schofield postulated that historians cannot accurately assess the influence of a historical period unless at least 50 years has transpired, and consistent with that theory, nine books shouldn’t have made the cut, removing books like Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, Art Spiegleman’s graphic novel Maus, and J.K. Rowling’sHarry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Harry Potter fandom shows no signs of slowing down, thanks in part to J.K. Rowling herself. Just when we thought the Harry Potter universe had come to an end with Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, she took her layered fantasy world across the ocean and introduced fans to Newt Scamander and a legion of new creature creations in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now she’s giving her fans even more with the next chapter in the world of wizards and muggles, and giving us an early look at one of her most beloved characters.
That’s right, the 2018 sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald stars Jude Law as a young Albus Dumbledore, who is teaming up with Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander against a new foe we only got a sneak peek at in the finale of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them–Johnny Depp’s Gellert Grindlewald. Warner Bros. has just released the first trailer for the new film and it looks like it might just rival the last chapter in the saga.
Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol will return as the adorable couple Jacob and Queenie, and Katherine Waterston is back as the magical auror Tina Goldstein. Newcomers to the series include Zoë Kravitz as Leta Lestrange (who seems to be a likely relative of Bellatrix later on) and Ezra Miller (Justice League) as Credence Barebone.
Check out this first trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald:
In the realm of fantasy, magical talismans are often the key to a character’s actions or journey, part of the goal, such as destroying the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings, and they typically bestow power on their owners, such as Dorothy’s shoes that can transport her home in The Wizard of Oz or even King Arthur’s sword Excalibur, which bestowed him rule of all of Great Britain. J.K. Rowling’s world of Harry Potter includes many magical objects, including the horcruxes. Even more integral to Harry Potter’s journey and all the wizards is the wand. A major scene in all of the books and films is Harry obtaining his wand from Ollivanders–“T’aint no place better,” says Hagrid. And the wand chooses the wizard, according to Mr. Ollivander.
Sometimes fans must wait for all the information they want about their favorite films and characters. It’s been six years since the last Harry Potter movie premiered, but fans of the franchise at last have a photographic guide to the key wands designed for the principal named characters. This week Insight Editions releases From the Films of Harry Potter: The Wand Collection, including new photographs of 66 actual movie prop wands. Seventeen thousand wand boxes were created by the prop makers for the shelves of Ollivanders wand shop in Diagon Alley, according to the book, quoting late set decorator Stephenie McMillan. After the wands were each designed by art director Hattie Storey and concept artists including Adam Brockbank, Alex Walker, and Ben Dennett, then supervising modeler and prop maker Pierre Bohanna would create a single “original” of each wand, which would be later be duplicated in resin or rubber for stunt work in multiples depending on the need of the production.
From the Films of Harry Potter: The Wand Collection begins with a brief discussion of the in-universe use of wands as written in J.K. Rowling’s books, along with an overview of the behind the scenes production creation of the props with interviews of cast members and prop makers. The bulk of the oversized book, an elegantly designed hardcover in a long 12 x 6 inch format to allow for close-up photography of each wand, includes a brief description of the wand, the character wielding the wand in the film, and discussions with actors, designers, and excerpts from the source books. Hagrid’s lengthy wand is featured in a double-sized pull-out image, the wand sporting his trademark umbrella component. Another pull-out includes multiple handles of the Death Eaters, and another includes detail of the unique handle of the wand of Jason Isaacs’ character, Lucius Malfoy.
