The next concept artwork and special effects book in the Star Trek franchise arrives tomorrow, this time taking a fresh look at the success and failures in the visual effects created for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this past December. It’s all in Star Trek: The Motion Picture–The Art and Visual Effects, by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki. Diehard fans of the history of filmmaking will learn more about the most celebrated visual effects masters in the business as they did their best to rescue a floundering production back in 1979. You have today left to pre-order the book at a discount here at Amazon–this will be a welcome addition to bookshelves for fans of the franchise’s first feature film.
Coming later this summer from Titan Books is a new look at the concept artwork and special effects in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this past December. It’s all in Star Trek: The Motion Picture–The Art and Visual Effects, by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki. You can pre-order the book now here at Amazon, and we have a preview below for borg readers courtesy of the publisher. Keep coming back for a review coming soon.
As in any creative industry, as much as Hollywood is rife with successes, far more projects barely make it past the idea stage. Others make it through preliminary steps only to get left behind, most never heard of again. Decisions are made, offers are given, and you move forward. The fact that Tom Selleck rejected the role of Indiana Jones is a famous footnote to movie history. Most recently Amanda Seyfried recounted rejecting the role of Gamora in the Marvel films. A Mouse Guard movie made it through pre-production before getting stalled. For every successful project, how many others are left behind? If you’re as iconic as filmmaker Ray Harryhausen, you might have even more projects left in the discard pile than others. Those might-have-been projects, rejected ideas, and even scenes that made it beyond mere idea to concept art come together in John Walsh’s new look at the auteur and father of stop-motion creatures, Harryhausen: The Lost Movies.
Ray Harryhausen’s creations were cutting edge for the first century of cinema, their creator a special effects visionary who found his niche in fantasy worlds, via films like One Million Years B.C., Clash of the Titans, and Jason and the Argonauts. Documentarian John Walsh met with Harryhausen, who died in 2013, to film a documentary about the filmmaker, and along the way he chronicled 70 projects Harryhausen considered but did not go through with, including script and concept art material. Some of these are projects he was asked to participate in and couldn’t find a fit, or films he passed up for other projects, including films anyone could see translated by Harryhausen, like Conan, Tarzan, King Kong, Moby Dick, John Carter of Mars, and Beowulf. Then there are those surprises fans could only dream about, like Harryhausen’s take on The Empire Strikes Back, The Princess Bride, Dune, or X-Men. Harryhausen: The Lost Movies provides fans with a glimpse into Harryhausen’s involvement in these projects, some with photographic clues of how his input might have resulted in very different films.
Pulling together some never-been-seen-before artwork, sketches, photos, and screencaps of test footage from the Harryhausen Foundation archives, Walsh creates a scrapbook of sorts, an artist’s sketchbook. Harryhausen considered every other major classic fantasy and fairy tale to utilize his brand of special effects storytelling. He created test footage for H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, but his letter to Orson Welles was not answered. His alien designs from that footage are in this book.
A leg thrown over the arm of a chair. A monster tossing a girl into the river. A gangster with a Tommy Gun shooting a room full of people. A woman is expecting a baby. A man bites a woman to drink her blood. Actresses backstage get ready for a show. Dancers on stage kick their legs. “Kept” women. Physical violence.
Rural audiences and even film goers in big cities like Chicago would label all this as “smut” or “disgraceful” back in the day. In the realm of what is appropriate and what is not, the cinema has approached each new boundary with baby steps. But in the Depression-era early 1930s, many previously unaccepted concepts soared onto film. A new book takes a look at this era, now referred to by film historians as the “Pre-Code Era”–1930 to 1934–a time when the self-regulating movie industry pushed the bounds of its own rules, only to hit a wall when the public pushed back. Turner Classic Movies′ Forbidden Hollywood takes an educational, film school-level walk through an industry fighting within itself to both make money and please an audience it would find varied widely by geography, down to the community level. The handling of decency by the industry would have ramifications that would have an impact on generations of film creators and audiences. The chaos and in-fights would last until July 1934, when religious groups combined to take a stand, prompting the industry to bow to their demands with the formation of the League of Decency. That group would govern movie standards for nearly 35 years–until the ratings system would arrive in 1968. Even real-world gangster Al Capone thought the new, 1930s era of movies was bad for kids, saying “These gang pictures–that’s terrible kid stuff. They’re doing nothing but harm to the younger element of the country.”
Film historian Mark A. Vieira provides a scholarly examination of the studios, the directors, producers, and writers, including excerpts of decisions made and processes followed (and not followed), resulting in the promotion of the careers of some of Hollywood’s biggest names: Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck, Myrna Loy, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Marlena Dietrich, Clara Bow, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Ward Bond, Bela Legosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney. Looking at elements incorporated into–or scissor cut from–dozens of films, including The Divorcee, Dishonored, Grand Hotel, Dracula,A Farewell to Arms, 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Riptide, Red-Headed Woman, She Done Him Wrong, Call Her Savage, Convention City, and Frankenstein, Vieira takes an objective look at the factors that influenced all sides in determining what would be appropriate in the movies and what role movies would take in society.
