Book Description
PRODUCING INDEPENDENT 2D CHARACTER ANIMATION takes an in-depth look at the artistry and production process of cel animation in a friendly, how-to manner that makes thesometimes tedious process of animation enjoyable and easy to understand. This book guides animators through every step of planning and production; includes examples of actual production forms, organization tips, screen shots, and sketches from the pre- to post-production processes; and contains detailed information on the hardware and software used to complete each step.

By mapping out the course of how his small studio brainstormed, created, then produced its award-winning animation, TIMMY'S LESSONS IN NATURE, Mark Simon explains to animators what it takesboth creatively and resource-wiseto get their animations to market.

Includes exclusive interviews with Oscar-nominated independent animator Bill Plimpton, Craig McCracken, creator of the POWER PUFF GIRLS, Craig "Spike" Decker of SPIKE & MIKE'S SICK AND TWISTED FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION, David Fine & Alison Snowden who are the Academy Award-Winning producers of BOB AND MARGARET, Cartoon Network's Senior Vice President of Original Animation, Linda Simensky, and Tom Sito, Co-Director of OSMOSIS JONES...as well as others.

* Take your project from concept to creation, then take it to market

* Learn story development, character design, audio recording, editing, ink and paint, compositing, and the software available to enhance your animated films

* Complete with project organization guidelines, production forms, as well as work samples, trial software, and eight animations on CD-ROM! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

this book officially kicks ass
First of all, I just wanted you to know - this book officially kicks ass.

I have been messing around with Flash animation on and off for the past 4 years. Some of my stuff appeared on Howard Stern's syndicated TV show, and I even won a prize in an animated joke competition.

But I have been in a total slump lately - no motivation or understanding of how to improve my skills and not a decent idea to speak of.I haven't posted a new animation on my website in well over a year.

Then I received the book (Producing Independent 2D Character Animation) as a gift.It has been the jump start I needed, like shock treatment for my creativity.I've written some scripts and started storyboarding. I also did an animatic in Flash to check the timing/jokes. With the procedures outlined in the book as my guide, I intend to begin animating again shortly.

Thanks to the author for sharing his knowledge.

Informative; Possibly Suffers from a Misnomer
There is some good information in this book. If you have at least a modicum of familiarity with animation though, there's very little new about art or theory or instruction in here. The title and subtitle should be reversed in terms of importance to

Making and Selling a Short Film: Producing 2D Independent Character Animation.

Granted, this is not a flaw with the book, but I am writing this review as a caution to those who might think of it as one thing, when it is in fact another. They don't mean "I produced animation for Mary." They mean "For Mary I was involved in an animation production."

Difference being, aside from a section on tips, there is -no- mention of the process of animating, but rather name-dropping of software/hardware you'll need to run a digital version of the conventional studio, presented vicariously through the author recounting his experiences in making his short film.

All that being said, though, the tips are pretty good and the single most informative part of this entire book are the exclusive interviews with artists and suits from around the industry. These are so insightful (on the respondent's part) and so chock full of good things to know that it might have been more beneficial to chop the price in half and have the whole book just be about the interviews. Still, keeping the price the same, it's almost still worth it.

This is not a bad book by any means; on the contrary, it is one of the better, more clearly written books out there, and though there are too many purposeless illustrations, the ones with purpose are great and it's wonderful eye candy to have them in full color. I never got a chance to see it before I bought it, and ordered it into Barnes and Noble by my house...Now I'll likely be contributing it back into the world via the Marketplace as an interesting one night stand...

best buyfor beginning animators
explains all resources all indumentary needed and best of all almost everything has high budget and low budget examples.

Why is this so expensive?
This book is selling for $27.99 at Barnes and Noble as of 2/24/04 - that's over $20 less than here!

Highly Recommended!
This book is the most concise, and comprehensive book I've seen on the subject of producing a 2D animated cartoon. While several other books focus on the art of animation, Mark Simon focuses on the nuts and bolts of "getting it done". Topics flow from planning, visualization, character design to storyboarding, audio recording and animatics, through editing, rendering and even distribution options. The sample CD-ROM has a huge assortment of demo programs to help you "work along" with the book. It is by no means the ONLY book you need to embark on animating a cartoon, but it is an essential one for any prospective cartoon filmmaker's library. Interviews with several industry professionals are included and add a perspective from the talent buyer's view. All in all a very handy resource for someone who knows what they want to do, but need guidance to realize their vision. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Must have for any Disney collector
"Disney's Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film" consists of 7 chapters each features a main character from the film and each chapter handles a part of the production of the film. Through out the book you find sketches, frames, photos of the crew, storyboards etc, etc. Until and after the dvd is out in 2004 this book is the best source for detailed information on the production of this Disney masterpiece.

Awesome content and layout!
The book is light and easy to carry!That's what I love about it first.But then this is more of a book explaining the progress and experiences of the film production team.It has good interviews on great animators like Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, and many more.It goes in detail of how animators cooperate with their actress/actors, designers, and even business folks (yes, those whom actually owns Disney, ahem.... Peter Schneider).What really bugs me is the absence of concept art and development sketches.It appears on several pages of the book, but not enough compare to "The Art of..." books.This is a great book to get for any Disney or animation fan, but if you want reference and simply....to get inspired by awesome Disney art--you may think otherwise.Do check it out before you purchase it, but it is a decent book!

A well thought out, well-written, well-concieved work
This book is not only excellent for any rabid Aladdin fan, any Disney-enthusiast will appriciate the colorful, yet simple, layouts, and the organization of the book itself. Each chapter centera around one particular aspect of animated feature-making (such as pre-production, character design, color scheeming, etc.) and uses a main character as an example for each process. A truly excellent find.

--a bit of trivia: At the time "Aladdin" was being promoted, Robin Williams was working on another movie called "Toys," and didn't want to be promoting "Aladdin" as a priority over his other movie--since he had commited to the Disney project second. As a result, Robin Williams is not named once in the entire book! Instead, it used the phrases, "The Genie voice."

Lack of respect for the actor who carried such a good movie
I collect the hyperion 'the art of' series conceirning the disney movies (and dreamworks)and found it terribly annoying tha author never mentions Robin Williams throughout the whole book. Unbelievable when you consider the impact his voice and humor has on the film. I really expected more info on his involvement. Compared to other making-of-books this has the least attractive lay-out and too much info on the historie of the artists. (it is also one of the smallest). Maybe my hopes were just a bit too high.

Very poorly structured book
I enjoyed the film very much, and the images in the book are beautifully reproduced.It's a shame there seems to be no coherant structure to the book.The writing is extremely poor, and not once do the images and textrefer to each other in any semblence of organization. ... Read more

Book Description
Successful animators- the ones who land the exciting jobs and who win the industry awards- must be more than simply a talented artist, a great filmmaker, or a skilled technologist.They need to be all three!For the first time, aspiring animators and those in the field looking to move up have a resource to help them develop this entire skill set with Exploring Digital Cinematography.Award-winning animator Jason Donati examines such key concepts as CG directing, lighting, and texturing from the three different perspectives of art, film, and technology. Beginning with a solid foundation of art and filmmaking knowledge, this groundbreaking book then translates key production techniques- including depth of field, camera blocking, and three-point lighting- into the 3D world. This unique approach bridges the gap between traditional live-action cinematography and cutting-edge 3D animation, giving readers all the skills they need to realize their full 3D animation potential. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Daly, an animation writer for Entertainment Weekly, and Lasseter, the director of Toy Story, have written a richly illustrated review of the technology, creativity, and artistry that went into this first-ever completely computer generated movie. A must-have book for any animation buff or multimedia developer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Perfect Guide to How the Pro's Do It

After seeing the film, the book was a natural progression.As a teacher of computer animation, Toy Story has enabled my students and I to study a piece of work which has very few flaws, other thanthe one's talked about by the animators and directors themselves.

For a student of the art of animation, the book gives a superb insight into how an idea is developed from conception right through to production.Explanations are concise and clear and illustrations are comprehensive and in most cases beautiful.

If you are embarking on a career in computer animation, buy this book!

"Art of Animation" is bigger and better than ever
The latest version of Hyperion's popular book, "The Art of Animation," will soon be available in bookstores. Bob Thomas, the author who wrote the original "Art of Animation" back in 1958, has merged the existing versions of his book with previously unpublished interviews with Walt Disney and new material from Disney's upcoming "Hercules" to create a chronicle of Disney animation that is bigger and better than ever.

The new edition of Thomas's book is entitled "Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Hercules." Whether or not you own an earlier version of the work, the Disney fan in you will find this new book interesting and worthwhile.

As in the past, "Art of Animation" is split into two parts. The first half is dubbed "History of a New Art," and its nine chapters recount the history of animation, particularly the pioneering work of Walt Disney and his studio. The second portion of the book is called "The Making of Hercules," a ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Britain's Greatest Exploitation Film Director!

"I deliberately rub people up the wrong way", Pete Walker once remarked, "I want them to come into the cinema and be shocked." And shock them he did. No other British film-maker achieved the level of transgression that Walker regularly delivered to cinema-goers in the 1970s.

Beginning his career by making 'skinflicks', Walker went on to direct a trio of bona fide horror film classics. House of Whipcord, Frightmare and House of Mortal Sin probe beneath the glossy surface of the permissive society to expose a malevolent underworld of madness, obsession and vindictive violence.

Making Mischief is the first major critical study of the controversial director, and it has received the full cooperation of Pete Walker and his screenwriters. Extracts from a five hour interview with Walker appear throughout the book which also contains a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and, for the first time, reveals details of the Sex Pistols movie A Star Is Dead, which Walker was about to direct when the Pistols split. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Accessbile Study of Underrated Director
The much need regeneration of British horror continues with this well timed and needed study of a figure who looms large in British horror history. Largely overlooked and in some cases forgotten Pete Walker made an excellent trilogy of contemporary socially orientated horror films in the early 1970's. The films were his masterpiece "Frightmare", "House of Whipcord" and "House of Mortal Sin". Each film allegorised aspects of society, which in Walker's bleak world view are inherently corrupt, suppurating with violence, perversity and insanity. The family, psychology, the judicial system and religion respectively crumble under Walker's imperious and apocalyptic gaze. Walker articulated most effectively a Britain on the verge of implosion and self destruction, a dark, grimy and morally irredeemable world. What is notable in this trilogy is the maintenance of a gritty, naturalistic visual style which combines effectively with Walker's social critique. As a result academic Steve Chibnall argues in this text for Walker's status as an auteur. Walker, however was very concerned with the commercial properties of his films and would probably be quietly amused by the cultural ascension Chibnall proposes. Sadly outside of Walker's key trilogy, there is little to support the claims for authorship. Chibnall is always up against it in his argument because of Walker's close ties to exploitation cinema. Simply put outside of his excellent trilogy Walker made fairly lacklustre and ultimately forgettable films, examples include "The Comeback", "Man of Violence" and "House of the Long Shadows", perhaps only "The Flesh and Blood Show" is worthy of reappraisal and further study. Nevertheless Chibnall must be commended for taking this difficult task on, and he should be further commended for an entertaining prose style, that doesn't take the book beyond fans and into the stuffy netherworld of academia. ... Read more

Book Description
Do you have to go to film school to get your movies made? No, say two young entrepreneurs who survived the grind. Here they offer 140 strategies for making movies no matter what. Whether its raising money or cutting your budget, or jump-starting the production or stalling it while you finish the script, these strategies are delivered with funny, illustrative anecdotes from the authors experiences and from veteran filmmakers eager to share their stories. Irreverent, invaluable, and a lot cheaper than a years tuition, this friendly guide is the smartest investment any future filmmaker could make. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (44)

Great book so far!!!....still reading it though
I bought this book for the soul purpose to learn what it takes to make films and what not. I'm an aspiring actor and I just started in films last May 2007 and up to Dec. 2007 I've done 11 films as an extra or an actor with speaking lines. I'm also reading Screenwriting for Dummies which is also very helpful.Someday I'll take this knowledge from these two books and more to come and make a film.

This book is easy reading and enjoyable. So far I have no negative comments about it.

Fun but Useless
If you want something that might motivate you to make a film..-_-then go ahead and buy it... but dont expect to learn anything useful.

Enjoyable read, but limited in focus
I just finished this book and thought I would share a few things, good and the not so good.

First the good:
The authors do a really nice job explaining a lot things first time filmmakers might have trouble with, in other words, the 'gotchas'.Things as blaringly obvious as backup batteries and duct tape are included.They touch on a lot of things one should consider when making films.

The book is well laid out and lead one from beginning to end, like a good story.It was a very easy read and sometimes out-loud funny.They talk a lot about dealing with personalities, which is both good and bad.

Which leads me to the not so good:
As encouraging as they are, at times they bring up so many difficulties that one wonders why anyone would bother to make a film at all.The book is alternately encouraging and discouraging.

Given that they are both former film students, this book relies heavily on their film school background, which is an advantage for film school students, but not as useful for non-traditional film students (like Jeunet and myself).They reference the Hollywood film industry/culture almost exclusively, which again does not help those who are based elsewhere.

Bottom line:
I found this book useful, but not as much as I had hoped.This book is ideal for anyone who went to film school, but is only half helpful for the rest of us.The cover is a little deceiving (blame marketing) in that the publisher makes the book sound ideal for any filmmaker.Despite the flaws, I find it to be a useful reference for my filmmaking endeavors.I give this four stars, one extra star than I normally would have, just for sheer entertainment and readability value.

The push you need to make films
This book gave me the final nudge that I needed to go out and make my own films. It is light on the 'technique-side' but there are already enough books on that. What's missing is some inspirational words to muster up the courage as well as some wisdom to make your first filmmaking experience easier and this book fulfills those needs.

If you're interested in seeing how a newbie uses this book in making his own first film visit my film blog at www.kasemkharsa.com/empire

A mix of inspirational and practical advice
I'm currently enrolled in a university film program.Many of the teachers give a grim forecast of the job market and breaking into the industry.For me, this book was a breath of fresh air.It gives advice from party etiquette to budgeting to breaking through a writing block.All the advice is mixed with humor and interesting tidbits.Through their words, I could feel that the authors love making films.In turn, reading this book made me really exciting about pursuing a career in this field.However, I did feel that a lot of their advice was a matter of common sense.If you're looking for an easy read to get you pumped about working in this industry...this is a great book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

The Art of A Bugs Life
Nice Book. A little bit of damage. But what do you expect from a second hands book?

Visual insights, art & insider's info abound!
This collector's edition of A Bug's Life deserves ongoing mention is a fun accompaniment to the film, requiring good reading skills or parentalassistance but pairing film clips with an outline of the story. Visualinsights, art and insider's info abound.

The book for every animators.
This book is very much to own for animators and who that love this movie

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A hardcover and full color book on the making of a bugs life.Absolutely wonderful!!Interviews with the directer and clips from the movie.Also encludes many of the story-boards they used.I loved it !!!!!!!

great pictures, atrocious writing
A very handsome book that doesn't appear to've been copyedited at all.The first five pages have more grammatical errors than any ten randomly selected novels.Plus, author Jeff Kurtti's tortured prose stylings seembetter suited to a grade 12 english class than a "quality" massmarket publication.Still, excellent pictures, an attractive layout, andsome good and interesting quotes from the key creatives, albeit rammedbone-headedly in between all the intermittently coherent Kurtti-text.Buyit to look at, not to read. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Black Enterprise, published by Earl G. Graves Publishing Co., Inc. on April 1, 2005. The length of the article is 608 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Betting on 'Blak': comic book creators hope their hip-bop superhero becomes a hit.(Making It)
Author: Sufiya Abdur-Rahman
Publication: Black Enterprise (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2005
Publisher: Earl G. Graves Publishing Co., Inc.
Volume: 35Issue: 9Page: 43(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

The roller-coaster rags-to-riches story behind the phenomenal success of Pixar Animation Studios: the first in-depth look at the company that forever changed the film industry and the “fraternity of geeks” who shaped it.

The Pixar Touch is a story of technical innovation that revolutionized animation, transforming hand-drawn cel animation to computer-generated 3-D graphics. It’s a triumphant business story of a company that began with a dream, remained true to the ideals of its founders—antibureaucratic and artist driven—and ended up a multibillion-dollar success.

We meet Pixar’s technical genius and founding CEO, Ed Catmull, who dreamed of becoming an animator, inspired by Disney’s Peter Pan and Pinocchio, realized he would never be good enough, and instead enrolled in the then new field of computer science at the University of Utah. It was Catmull who founded the computer graphics lab at the New York Institute of Technology and who wound up at Lucasfilm during the first Star Wars trilogy, running the computer graphics department, and found a patron in Steve Jobs, just ousted from Apple Computer, who bought Pixar for five million dollars. Catmull went on to win four Academy Awards for his technical feats and helped to create some of the key computer-generated imagery software that animators rely on today.

Price also writes about John Lasseter, who catapulted himself from unemployed animator to one of the most powerful figures in American filmmaking; animation was the only thing he ever wanted to do (he was inspired by Disney’s The Sword in the Stone), and Price’s book shows how Lasseter transformed computer animation from a novelty into an art form. The author writes as well about Steve Jobs, as volatile a figure as a Shakespearean monarch . . .

Based on interviews with dozens of insiders, The Pixar Touch examines the early wildcat years when computer animation was thought of as the lunatic fringe of the medium.

We see the studio at work today; how its writers, directors, and animators make their astonishing, and astonishingly popular, films.

The book also delves into Pixar’s corporate feuds: between Lasseter and his former champion, Jeffrey Katzenberg (A Bug’s Life vs. Antz), and between Jobs and Michael Eisner. And finally it explores Pixar’s complex relationship with the Walt Disney Company as it transformed itself from a Disney satellite into the $7.4 billion jewel in the Disney crown.

Book Description

Since its top-rated debut on CBS in December 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas has been one of America's most beloved television shows. Year after year, fans of all ages tune in to the Emmy-winning Christmas special that has earned a permanent place in the nation's popular culture.

This collector's treasury contains the entire script of A Charlie Brown Christmas, illustrated with full-color stills from the animated film. Producer Lee Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez pay tribute to the program with personal memories and reflections about the show, including charming anecdotes about their long friendship and working career with Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz. Offering rare, behind-the-scenes insights, they also share memories of the late, great jazz pianist/composer Vince Guaraldi and provide never-before-published background sketches, storyboards, production sheets, and other materials that bring the making of the show to life.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition also brings the sound of the show home with the piano/vocal musical scores for Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Linus and Lucy," two songs that have become standards of American popular music.

As the very first Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Christmas brought Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy, and the rest of the gang to television. In addition to breaking the mold by using jazz music (which exposed millions of people to jazz for the first time and inspired a generation of jazz pianists), A Charlie Brown Christmas broke new ground by using real children for the voices instead of adult actors. Schulz, Mendelson, and Melendez created these and other innovations that made A Charlie Brown Christmas a unique and timeless work of animation art.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition celebrates this award-winning and history-making show with warmhearted memories, fascinating trivia, and colorful animation art that will delight fans of all ages.

Customer Reviews (17)

A Christmas Treat for Peanuts' Fans
While we've been treated to many Charles Schulz documentaries and remembrances over the years, "A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition" is the first book to focus on the first Peanuts' television special. The book includes in-depth interviews with producer Lee Mendelson, animator Bill Melendez, and Vince Guaraldi's children. This book is the ultimate backstage pass to the recording studio, with interviews with the original child actors who voiced the characters and sang on Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here." As a bonus treat, the script and original animation art round out the book.

A Very Nice Collection of Material!
I loved this book!It has material for every fan of the famous TV special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas".I may not be musical, but if you are, this book includes the music.I am fond of the discussions of the people involved in creating the production of the TV show and the script.I will be using the script in my classroom for Reader's Theatre.The book has a lot of material that has meaning for me personally.I was young when this special was shown on television and it was always one of my favorites.The book was not a disappointment to read and own.I am very glad I bought it.

Christmas time is here... happiness and cheer...
"Charlie Brown Christmas" is the crown jewel of Christmas specials. Heavy on holiday introspection, but with the dry wit and humor you'd come to expect from Charles Schulz's creations.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition" just expands that experience, by outlining how the famed special came to be -- the music, the animation, the voice acting, even the advertisement to get people to watch it. It's a charming, nostalgic little book, and a good accompaniment.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" was spun up quickly, when Coca Cola wanted a Christmas special in less than a week -- and Charles Schulz's lovable loser Charlie Brown seemed to be the ticket. But the special was made very differently from other cartoons -- 2-D animation, no laugh track, uncutesy kids, and (horrors!) a jazz soundtrack. It was doomed to fail, they said.

Well, instead it became a booming hit, and has been running every December ever since. Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez reminisce in here about the much-loved Charles Schulz, and about Vince Guaraldi, who made the distinctive piano soundtrack, and why it's so beloved -- it dares to approach holiday ennui and commercialization, then dashes it away with Linus' description of Christmas' meaning.

As for the "making of" portion, there are storyboards, musical scores, test photos, clips of television reviews, and rare photos like Melendez and Schulz doing the football gag. Finally, there is the entire script of the special, framed by colourful stills from the cartoon.

You couldn't wring this much information from most half-hour animated specials, no matter how much fun they were. But it's a bit different with "Charlie Brown Christmas." It was so completely unusual -- and has proved to be so timeless -- that a book on the making of it, and its effect, seems completely right.

It's a very conversational, reminiscent book. It feels like sitting in a room with Melendez and Mendelson, listening to them reminisce about "Sparky." And we also get input from other people involved in the project, such as Christopher Shea (Linus), who talks about his famous "Second Chapter of Luke" speech, as well as odd bits of trivia (the little girl playing Sally had to be fed her lines).

The Christmas special is more than able to stand on its own, but "Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition" is a wonderful accompaniment. Full of interesting tidbits and history.

What's not to love ?
This is the ultimate companion to the tv show. The art work is from the original show and the dialogue is a great bonus! The book is also packed with great trivia and information about the decisions"behind stage" that led to the creation of the ultimate Christmas Special.

Here comes Charlie Brown, that round-headed prophet
The world's most recognized cartoon character, ever in in our national consciousness, comes alive periodically on TV specials, movies, ads, but never more so during the season of Christmas. He stands before us as the plucky everyman to remind us of the most important message in Chrismas, that a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger invites us to visit and worship Him.

The background story of how it all came about is as entertaining and instructive as the show itself. The man who turned Charlie Brown and his friends into moving figures, Bill Melendez, says, "This little story and the way it's told is almost as simple and direct as Sparky's cartoon strip. The message is so gentle, there's nothing pompous about the story."

He recalls, "When I first looked at that part of the story, I told Sparky, 'We can't do this. It's too religious.' And he said to Bill , 'if we don't do it, who else can? We're the only ones who can do it.'"

A grateful nation watches it again and again. May the message sink in. ... Read more

Book Description
As much a testament to the art of the book as the art of animation, The Art and Making of Monster House is presented in lavish four-color throughout, with highlights of some of the film’s most astonishing features including 3-D art, gatefolds and die-cut overlays of the five stages of computer generated “motion capture” technology. It also includes envelopes, cards, and a movie poster.
Monster House is the first film from director Gil Kenan, who is living every young director’s dream, hand-picked by the film’s executive producer, Steven Spielberg, to create this groundbreaking film. This latest release from Sony Pictures Imageworks and ImageMovers, features the innovative, cutting-edge technology of " performance capture” animation, first introduced in The Polar Express.
Monster House tells the story of a trio of friends who discover the secret that a scary, creepy house in their neighborhood is actually a living, breathing monster and it’s up to the kids to stop the evil house before it’s too late. Standouts in the cast include animation veterans Steve Buscemi, Kathleen Turner, Catherine O’Hara and Jason Lee, as well as Fred Willard, Kevin James, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Jon Heder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Awsome book
This book is like the awsome movie itself.
It has certain features you do not expect. Sometimes I could not determine at first sight if pictures were 2d or just real materials. Like the enveloppe,the playingcard holders and other "fearsome commodities". Wonderfull picturebook with well made drawings and photographs. Outstanding quality. It might have been found in the monsterhouse!
Brecht Gerritse, The Netherlands

An amazing book!
This is how "art of" books really should be made. Lots of inserts, post-it notes and fun details. It looks almost like a scrapbook and is filled to the rim with drawings, renders, concept art and fun stuff. Very inspirational. It is just as great as the "Open Season" book which is also a must-have for all fans of animation.

monster house review
Love the book. A Priceless addition to an animation lovers dream book collection.

Concept Art Galor!
I thought this book was very suprizing in giving the reader plenty of images from the development the movie.Actually, almost to good.. there's so many scrapbook style pages that it can be overwelming at times.Regardless, this book is a must have for the Art of collector.If you liked this book and concept art check out [...]

Not only a new approach for movies, but for making-of books.
This book is just fun to look at.The artwork is sprawling (I can't believe how much artwork is created for movies; how fast are these artists working?), and the descriptions of how the movies was made are informative.This has quickly become one of my favorite movies, and this book makes it fun to see the evolution of its creation. ... Read more