Thursday, December 4, 2008

Book Review: The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

This is a hardcover book with no dust jacket. It's thick and the paper stock is good.

Included are many stories on the production process, Will Eisner's comic panels, behind the scenes photography on set, film stills and movie storyboards. The pages are well laid out and literally soaked with high resolution photos.

Mark Cotta Vaz has provided an in-depth writeup into the production process. The book starts all with a little history of Will Eisner and The Spirit, and goes on to talk about the process of making the movie. There are many interesting things to read, like how the studios negotiated the contract with Will Eisner, the casting of characters, shooting in front of the green screen, shooting different parts of the movies, death and rebirth of The Spirit on the movie and more.

While I'm reading this now, the movie has yet to be released. But looking at the images from the book, I've no doubt it's going to be amazing. The Sin City shooting style influence is strong, the great compositions, strong silhouettes and a limited colour palette. Oh, and add a strong cast — Samuel L Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlet Johansson etc — too.

This book is more of a production diary or a making-of book, well written and researched by Mark Cotta Vaz. It's highly recommended for fans of The Spirit, movie or comic.

Thanks to Jonrob for providing the book for this short review.



The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

Visit the link beside to read more reviews on Amazon. If you buy from the link, I get a little commission that helps me get more art books for review.

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Check out other books reviewed on this blog, with pictures:
Art book list | Design book list

1 comment:

  1. Some loved this movie and some just didn't understand it. It's an innovative Frank Miller film with lots of amazing film work much like Sin City I was very entertained. Hopefully more people appreciate this one.

    I hyped The Spirit on Everhype.com and gave it 96% which I think is fairly accurate.

    http://www.everhype.com/hyper/thebitch?X=M898

    If you get on there rate me a 5 and request friendship.

    ReplyDelete

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