Product Description: What does it mean to turn one of the great graphic novels of our time into a major motion picture? In 1998, Frank Miller shook the comics world with his groundbreaking series 300. Marking Miller's first collaboration with watercolor artist Lynn Varley (Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns) in over a decade, 300 was a gritty reimagining of a battle in which 300 Spartan soldiers fought to hold back the entire Persian army. The series won five Eisner Awards, including Best Limited Series, Best Writer/Artist (Miller) and Best Colorist (Varley). 300: The Art of the Movie takes you behind the scenes as director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) adapts 300 to the silver screen. With 200 pages of production photos, concept art and much, much more, 300: The Art of the Movie is sure to delight Miller fans and movie buffs alike.
Good, But Light in Content This book doesn't explain much on the process of making the movie. Most of the art in the book lack captions. This book feels light in content simply for the fact that you don't get much information.
There are plenty of conceptual art, 3D renders and storyboards. But there seem to a lot of movie stills as well, to the effect that it felt that half the book contained movie stills. There are also a lot of 3 penciled storyboards that take one page to themselves. Certainly they don't deserve those sizes.
For a movie based on a graphic novel, I was expecting much more paintings to be included in the book. The movie was shot too stylistically that it's hard to imagine that there are not much more storyboard paintings.
There are some pictures of the book on my blog. Just do a search on "parkablogs 300"
Amazon's excellent service Great. I've complained 3 times cause I haven't received my order and now you ask me to review it? How the hell do you want me to review something I've never seen. Send me the bloody books and I'll review them.
Concepts galore Translating a graphic novel into the world of cinema can be a tricky business.
And the first step is concept art -- creating basic images of the characters, costumes, and important, visually-striking scenes. "300: The Art Of The Film" is crammed with such images, detailing virtually every part of the movie... but it's very skimpy on explanations and information.
It starts off with a couple of prefaces -- one by an expert on military history, and the other explaining the purpose of revealing the concept art. Then concept art itself: it basically outlines the story, beginning with the "inspection" of newborn Spartan boys and ending with another battle brewing between the Spartans and Persians.
These include pages and pages of rough sketches and detailed drawings for the cinematogrpahers, some representing only a few seconds (a fist hitting a slave's face). Then there are plenty of costume sketches, depictions of unreal-looking monsters, tents, and the gorgeous sets for things like Xerxes' opulant golden litter. Actually, it's more of a portable house.
But it has more than just concept art -- there are clay models, special effects shots, elaborate makeup and costume for things like the hunchbacked traitor, Xerxes' chain-porn costume, and things like knives stuck in a eye, and even green-screen shots before the CGI gloss was put on. And there are shots showing how they managed certain effects, like the people who controlled the animatronic "wolf."
And with every sketch and behind-the-scene shot, they show the finished result as it appears in the movie. A lot of them have the original art by Frank Miller as well, to show us how close the movie actually is to its source material. Visually speaking, it's a feast of behind-the-scenes information.
Buuuuut....
"300: The Art Of The Film" suffers from a lack of background information -- they show us loads of information, but don't tell WHY they were done, or even the intricacies of HOW. Come on, they must have had some trial-and-error in this film. While we can see the art for ourselves, we're rarely told much about why they chose this costume, or that monster, and how they created some of the weirder visuals.
So while the book is visually rich, it feels incomplete, like they left a lot of the text out to keep the guide from getting too long. Sometimes pages and pages will go by with only a few sparely-written paragraphs describing the intricacies of the movie. "300" is a visual movie, but come on, there's more to it than that.
"300: The Art Of The Film" has loads of art, but not much explanation in how it got from art to movie. It stumbles badly as a behind-the-scenes guide, but it's still an intriguing visual read.
Pretty Nice Book This book has quite a few photos showing the making of 300 but the biggest draw (to me) was the similarities to the 300 Graphic Novel. Size, shape and cover picture are the same. The book shows a lot of photos of how the digital images were added to bleak green screen sets, how things like the wolf were made, etc. Its a good book for 300 fans it's a must have for those who have the Hardcover graphic novel (to display them side by side).
Misinterpretations Aside It seems that some people are having a hard time realizing that the title of this book includes "The Art of the Film" and are searching for filming procedures, or sociopolitical explanations on behalf of the film when, in fact, this IS an art book. And for what it is, it does a great job revealing the artistic vision behind the film 300. From makeup effects to storyboarding to the comic conversion of the film, "300: The Art of the Film" makes a stylistic presentation that is worthy of the aesthetic care of the movie itself. Anyone who is interested in the artistic background in the movie 300 will appreciate the clean layout and complete presentation of this book.
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