Customer Reviews

Heads On and We Shoot: The Making of Where the Wild Things Are

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The film making process has always been fascinating to me. When a film comes along that I love and supplemental material is available I am usually intrigued. This book grabbed my attention right away because of it's unique binding. It's bound into 3 sections, each detailing a different aspect of production. The book is filled with, stories, art, photos, and more all related to the production of this amazing film. This is a book for someone who loved this film and wants more. With it you will be able to get a bit closer to the filmmakers sensibilities. The film was very open and vast in it's scope. The book will help to open up the film even more and show behind the scenes of how it was all accomplished. My son and I loved the film and have bee pouring over this since we got it.

Length:: 0:38 Mins

I was pleasantly surprised with this book because it has a unique binding. If you open the book slightly looking at it from the front and top, it's bound like the letter M, with the pages fitting in the openings, on the front and back sides. It's first of its kind.

This is the movie production book is split into three sections or "books" as it's referred to on the contents page. It looks at the preproduction, production, and postproduction. Everything about the production is in, including sound mixing and the animation part. Because of the binding, you have to turn the book over to get to the third "book". Very cool.

The commentary is in conversational style, with stories and insights from the director, actors, production crew and author Maurice Sendak himself. The production process is seen from so many perspective and it's really interesting to read about all the incidents that happen behind the scene. There are horror stories like how one camera man almost drowned in the sea during the storm and logistic nightmares when Wild Things suits have to be redone because they were too heavy. There's a good deal of stories on how the crew interacted with one another, with all the crazy things they do to relieve stress.

The high resolution set photos included are beautiful and filled amazing details. There's one with a costume designer working on a foot almost the size of her body and you can see foot's skin texture, the thick veins and the slightly yellow toe nails which have some bits chipped off. It's interesting how filming is done and the location shots with crew doing their stuff.

This movie companion is very well done, extremely creative and beautifully laid out.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Anything having to do with the making of movie is going to be an interest to me, but this book was just so well made. I really enjoy putting faces to parts of the movie like editors and sound directors. You don't realize how important these people are until you can really see what they do and I think having a face for them makes them seem even more important.
Overall the book is amazing, the movies amazing, and the people who worked on it are absolutely fantastic. It's a good buy.

This is a beautiful book, full of information and pictures. If you love "Where the Wild Things Are", the original book or the movie, you will love this book.

I am extremely happy with my purchase. I bought it for my boyfriend because he loved Where The Wild Things Are as a child, and as an adult loves the movie. He works in the television industry so he collects books on the makings of movies. He loved the book, I loved the book, and the service that Amazon provided (shipping, etc) was excellent.

My only complaint regards condition. The book was obviously new but had a pen stripe on the cover. Since this was a gift for someone,I found this very annoying.

A beautiful and honest account of 5 wild yet painfully tough years of labor of love for Spike Jonez and the hundreds of unbelievably talented people involved in the production of this masterpiece!