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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Filled with movie poster magic and more, October 8, 2010
This review is from: The Art of Drew Struzan (Hardcover)
Length:: 0:55 Mins
It's really great to see Drew Struzan's art in one wonderful volume. All those that I've seen before were in different making-of and art-of books, particularly the Star Wars books. This book has much more than that.
There are works dating back to the from the first Indiana Jones movie (1981), Star Wars (he drew for all of them), Back to the Future, Shawshank Redemption, Police Academy, Hellboy and a few movies which I didn't know existed. Going through this book made me feel like watching all those movies again. A very nostalgic collection.
The paintings are gorgeous, nicely reproduced, and many printed full page. Also included are many variations of the movie posters, both in sketches and colours, and all almost as detailed as the final piece.
There's some sort of magical quality in his paintings that evoke a sense of fantasy and adventure. Together with his traditional approach to art, he has created a style that's easily recognisable. Every page is a marvel to look at, to admire.
Besides the art, Drew Struzan himself provided some commentary on the background stories and working with people. It's all very interesting to read.
This is definitely one of the top art books for 2010.
You probably do not want to miss this fantastic book.
(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well written and informative, September 15, 2010
This review is from: The Art of Drew Struzan (Hardcover)
Curb Appeal:
At first glance, the book actually reminds me of one of Drew's paintings. It's got a very bold and classic look to the cover. It is a hard cover book, but it's not too heavy and I was able to sit in a chair and read it cover to cover during one sitting in about two hours. I think the weight is an important factor that's worth mentioning as some books are too heavy to hold in your hands and read in one sitting. This one has the perfect balance of size and weight.
Content:
The Forward, which is written by Frank Darabont, really speaks volumes about the current state of movie poster art. He goes into extreme detail about how the "suits" (studio executives) are responsible for the downfall of real art in the movie poster business and feels that the new digital computer art doesn't hold a candle to the old stuff, which I tend to agree with. This is not a complete life's work of Drew Struzan by any means. The story starts in the early 80's and leads right up to 2008 when he retired. There's a brief section for most of the big films he worked on that explain the sometimes short, but always difficult process of creating the perfect piece that everyone is happy with. He speaks of great success seeing pieces of his work used in some of the most beloved films of our time as well as heartbreak when other works of art were thrown by the wayside. I found it particularly interesting to learn how many comps he had to do for studio executives before they finally agreed on an idea. He mentions that at times, he had nothing to go on and was asked to simply make something up which often turned out to be exactly what the studio wanted and other times, not so much.
Conclusions:
Once again, this is not a record of the complete work of Mr. Struzan, but for fans of his work, it's definitely worth picking up. It's a very easy read made up of 160 pages. You will learn new things about Drew and the processes that he went through when creating his movie poster art while following a common theme throughout the book. This theme represents the unfortunate decline in true movie poster art over the last decade. Today, it seems, studios are only interested in the quickest, easiest and cheapest method of producing movie posters which is why we only see digital cutouts and photo shopped backgrounds on most these days. This makes his amazing work seem all the more important.
Quality:
A lot of care was put into the construction of this book. There are both full color and black & white images throughout with each one shown in perfect resolution. This one will fit nicely on my shelf of encyclopedias and reference books.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful book of poster art by one of the Greatest, September 16, 2010
This review is from: The Art of Drew Struzan (Hardcover)
This is a wonderful book, very well designed and nicely organized. There are terrific reproductions of some of Struzan's most well known work, including Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Blade Runner and one of my favorite posters, Big Trouble in Little China. The book also contains cool images and info on his beautiful Creature From the Black Lagoon poster. The book shows how many of the posters evolved in the creation process, and we see many poster ideas that sadly did not see the light of day.
Highly recommended to any fan of Struzan, and fans of movie posters.
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