I bring to you another book review, however, this one is slightly less jaded. Before I begin, I want to say thanks to Shelley Noble for suggesting I write the 'Kick-Ass History of Stop-Motion'. My wife read that post, and after hearing me continually complain while reading 'A Century of Stop-Motion', she has championed your cause and is pushing me towards writing.
Back on point, the book I read for you this week was Coraline: A Visual Companion. I really landed on the fence hard with this one. When the choice finally came to rest, I decided that I was really NOT impressed. Now, I gave it a fair shot because it's not claiming to be "the art of" or "the making of Coraline". It's says it's a visual companion. Yes, and No. Yes there's tons of photos, although, this is one of my biggest problems with the book. Periodically, they use small jpeg files for chapter headings by blowing them up to fill an entire page, and the resolution looks like crap. Very UN-professional, especially when you are putting together a "visual" companion. However, some of the pics are really great. Let's talk about the content for a sec. This book is very misleading. By the cover, and a lot of the photos, one is lead to believe that this is a visual companion for the movie. WRONG. This is a visual companion for the story of Coraline along with it's evolution onto the big screen AND comics, theatrical plays and such. More over, it's a biography piece on Neil Gaiman. However, the writing wasn't as painful. Although the authors use of quotes got entirely out of hand at points. In the end, I found myself skipping paragraphs because of outright disinterest. What I did focus on was the content related to the movie. This topic leads me into my third and final comment on the book. Aside from two or three interviews with 'Heads' of departments, everything was related to the point of view of Henry Selick and Travis Knight. And even then, they weren't even interviews. They were more "quotes." More than anything, I think I'm in shell shock and can't figure out what to say. I'm opening this topic up for serious dialogue. Anyone who writes to comment on the book will definitely get a response. Tell me what you think.
A little side note: For those of you following along, Animation on the Sour Skittles Spec commercial has finished and post production has begun. Look forward to a finished spot sometime soon... hopefully.
