Mark Cotta VazRezensionen

King Kong was my grandfather's favorite movie but it pales in comparison with the real life exploits of its director.
A very enjoyable read, fighter pilot,explore,director and dreamer extraordinaire.

Mark Cotta Vaz conduz o leitor por um passeio VIP pelos bastidores da aguardada sequência cinematográfica da série Crepúsculo. O livro mostra quais foram as inspirações do diretor já indicado ao Oscar Chris Weitz e de sua equipe de criação para levar às telas o envolvente romance de Stephenie Meyer, e desvenda os segredos por trás das cenas de romance e de todo o suspense e a ação entre vampiros e lobisomens.

Em edição de luxo, impressa em cores, repleta de fotos inéditas, entrevistas e comentários sobre locações, figurinos, cenários e efeitos visuais, é possível acompanhar detalhes da elaboração do roteiro do filme, saber como foi feita a preparação das cenas mais importantes e desvendar o passo a passo da mágica criação dos lobos por computação gráfica. O livro traz ainda imagens e depoimentos exclusivos do elenco – incluindo os astros Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen) e Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black).

Love the entire series!

9788420405025

This book was interesting and informative giving lots of info about a great book and movie series.

I loved the behind the scenes/'making of' material, but a good bulk of the book is spent on episode summaries. I just finished the series about a week ago and while the recap was nice, it would have been even nice to have more interviews with cast and crew, show pages from the original pilot script, maybe shown how some of the sets are laid out (like the beach and Danielle's camp in the jungle). But hey, it came with a DVD! And there's pictures of Terry O'Quinn playing guitar!

Edit: This is for people who are wondering what the free DVD that came bundled with the book is about! It opens with an ABC promo of season one's DVD release. The actual DVD's contests are divided into three sections: "Inside Lost", "Lost: The Complete First Season", "Lost Season 2".

"Inside Lost" is naturally a lot of behind the scenes stuff, including interviews with cast and crew, plus some deleted scenes (although maybe it's my DVD, but the footage of the deleted scenes seems slower, a bit wonky?). "Lost: The Complete First Season" is another bloody promo for the DVD set. "Lost Season 2" is a really vague promo for the second season, teasing viewers about Linus' camp but not really (and not a SINGLE mention of Desmond!). Really, it's all a big teaser so people will buy the first season on DVD - although now, I'm sure most people already own it! Not me. Boo.

So the DVD is pretty much a throwaway on top of the book. Better extras will be on the actual DVD set for season one. Although the DVD indicated that some of the 'unaired scenes' were exclusive to this DVD, so there's that.

Not all that good a book. Parts of it were well done, like setting up the air routes and Pacific bases, but there was a lot of discussion of corporate maneuvering and who owned how much of such and such a company. And sadly there just wasn't a lot about the actually flying. There was some, but the book doesn't really look at the early seaplanes in any detail. Also there are a significant number of quoted passages from the Pan Am official history that didn't really add much to the book. It's not a bad book by any means, but I found it uninspiring.

Mark Cotta Vaz captures the essence as well as the details of Merian C. Cooper's life. From war hero, in both World Wars, to adventurer, to filmmaker, to commercial aviation pioneer, and finally to filmmaking innovator, Cooper is almost untouched in importance compared to other Hollywood figures. He reigns as a titan. And it's all the more peculiar that he has been all but forgotten, while many much lesser Hollywood figures have maintained their fame.

The fact is that it's impossible to pigeonhole Cooper. And this biography makes that clear. Perhaps that is the reason lesser biographers have not been able to do Cooper justice. This volume reads like an adventure story. But then it is, because Cooper's life was an adventure story. Anyone of his exploits themselves could have been turned into a feature film. And, in many ways, as Vaz also makes clear, that is exactly what Cooper's great gorilla epic, King Kong, does. It captures the life and adventures of Cooper himself, being a somewhat veiled autobiography.

FROM AMAZON: Do you know your dewbacks from your banthas? Could you tell the difference between a stormtrooper, a scouttrooper, and a snowtrooper? Could you pick a Rodian out of a lineup? The Complete Star Wars Trilogy Scrapbook can help you acquire this vital information. Illustrations and over a hundred photographs from the original trilogy help you put names to faces--so you'll know that Salacious Crumb is the name of that tiny, cackling animal at Jabba's court. Though the book contains an abridged version of the events covered in the Star Wars trilogy, readers should be advised to see the films first as the book discloses crucial secrets best left to the film to reveal. The book is aimed at younger readers--but SW fans of all ages will enjoy this photo-filled volume. --C.B. Delaney

Less a book for actual reading than for its photos, you get to learn a lot about the props. I’ve since seen some of them (like the Grail from Last Crusade) in a traveling exhibit, but if you’re into cinema, it’s a great reference guide (especially if you’re into duplicating props yourself). It also contains various concept art and a decent amount of history. Obviously, pre-Disney and Crystal Skull.

This just reminds me of how much I was disappointed in the film.
I haven't even read the sequels because the movie was so awful. Gah

It's got nice photos and stuff. And it is interesting to learn about production. But it's not great. I found I skimmed parts because I just didn't want to be bothered with reading them.

this is better than the book itself???

Picked this up at the Hummelstown library book sale for 50 cents. Kind of fun to look back at the first season of LOST now nearly 12 years removed. Nothing super new or informative (probably was at the time), but a fun little easy read and nice to look back at one of my all-time favorite shows.

Designed as a celebration of the film, this lavishly illustrated paperback edition is an exclusive behind-the-scenes guide featuring full-color photos of the cast, locations, and sets, as well as storyboards, interviews, details of the special effects, and much more.

Explore the making of the film New Moon in this ultimate visual companion, lavishly illustrated with full-color photos of the cast, locations, and sets. This beautiful paperback edition celebrates the onscreen creation of Stephenie Meyer's fascinating world, brought to life by Academy Award(R)-nominated director Chris Weitz.

With never-before-seen images, exclusive interviews and personal stories, renowned author Mark Cotta Vaz takes you behind the scenes with cast and crew, uncovering intimate details of the filmmaking process.

I love anything with Twilight written on it!! And this book is no different! It is a beautiful movie companion book filled with photos of scenes from the movie!

[Tuesday, September 20, 2011] I can't wait for this book! I collect them! They are beautiful!

[Sunday, ‎January ‎20, ‎2013] Yay! I finally got this book as a gift from a friend! Flipping through it made me want to see the movie again!

Explore the making of the film New Moon in this ultimate visual companion, lavishly illustrated with full-color photos of the cast, locations, and sets. This beautiful paperback edition celebrates the onscreen creation of Stephenie Meyer's fascinating world, brought to life by Academy Award(R)-nominated director Chris Weitz.

With never-before-seen images, exclusive interviews and personal stories, renowned author Mark Cotta Vaz takes you behind the scenes with cast and crew, uncovering intimate details of the filmmaking process.

[Tuesday, September 20, 2011] I can't wait for this book! I collect them! They are beautiful!

[Sunday, ‎January ‎20, ‎2013] Yay! I finally got this book as a gift from a friend! Flipping through it made me want to see the movie again!

From the entire Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman Begins was, by far, my favorite movie, so when I saw this beauty sitting on an isolated shelf of a local bookstore, I just KNEW I had to buy it. And honestly, back when I bought the Man of Steel book, I was expecting something AT LEAST with this book's level. The Art of Batman Begins is full of concept arts, excellent concept scenes and pieces of the movie's storyboard, which is exactly what I was expecting from it (though I've got to say that I wouldn't complain if it had more of it).
I like how the book details several interesting and different aspects of the Batman Begins universe, adding a couple of short explanations, like the Batmobile, the grapple gun, Batman's infamous suit, parts of the batcave and the several outfits wore by different characters.
I wish this book lasted a bit longer though. I can never have enough of Batman's universe.

This was an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the complex Shadow of the Empire project: one that created an overlapping but somewhat distinct novel, graphic novel, video game, and movie soundtrack -- everything but a full-length movie. Unfortunately, as we moved from part to part, sometimes explanations were repeated. However, it was quite fascinating to see how a large project like this gets started, and to see how things evolved as various creators wanted to add their own ideas. The craziest story was the LucasArts team, wanting to have this video game ready for the Nintendo 64 lauch, had to create their own compiler and simulator, because Nintendo's own engineers were running late and didn't have samples to give to the game design team!

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LT Haiku:

Early concept art
and insider stories of
large Star Wars project.

★★New Moon: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion (The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion, #2) by Mark Cotta Vaz

This book was ok. It had nice pictures, but i had no real use for it. It was a gift. However my child, who is a huge Twilight fan loved it.

Always love seeing new stuff from my favorite girl Saoirse. :)

Reviewed by: Robin
Book provided by: Publisher
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book

I went into reading this movie companion not really knowing what the original novel was about. But I did enjoy Stephenie Meyer’s other works, The Twilight Saga, so I decided to give this a chance. It wasn’t actually the novel just a movie guide of sorts so I figured that it would be a nice change of pace. I found out that I was surprised.

I found out that the story is somewhat loosely sci-fi-ish…if that is even a word. Well, I made it a word for this review. You see just briefly it is an unusual type of love story. Beings that inhabit humans by taking over their brains erasing from what I understand memories and replacing them with others use said humans as the ‘Host’ for their bodies. So to understand this you picture your body but your mind is that of an alien. In this story we follow Melanie Stryder and her alien named ‘Wanderer’. The twist is that Melanie is strong and doesn’t give up her memories for the Wanderer to take over. Instead the Wanderer is filled with Melanie’s memories and falls for Melanie’s boyfriend Jared.

To me this was a really informative look at the whole process of taking the novel, turning it into a script, choosing actors, locations etc. I enjoyed reading the different takes from the actors; the interviews with the directors, gophers and even Stephenie Meyer. The visual and special effects were interesting to learn about. The unusual locations that helped to bring the story off the pages to make everything more realistic, although it made have seemed desolate to some it made the story romantic. The depths we go for love. Even the bond that formed between Melanie and Wanderer was fun to explore.

Even if you don’t read the actual novel but are thinking of going to see the movie you just might want to pick up this insightful companion before you go. This type of novel usually isn’t my genre when it comes to reading but I found that I want to go buy The Host and read the whole story and not just the snippets from the companion. Who knows I just may have taken myself once again outside the box when it comes to reading. Mark Cotta Vaz has done a great job with the behind the scenes looks that takes us from novel, to movie script and onto the final movie adaptation.

I am little further ahead in the series then this book discusses, but it is a good read for any Lost Fan!