The Art of Brave [Hardcover]

Jenny Lerew (Author), John Lasseter (Preface), Brenda Chapman (Foreword), Mark Andrews (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2012

Brave is Pixar's thirteenth feature film, but it marks two big firsts for the award-winning animation studio. It's Pixar's first feature film driven by a female lead and its first set in an ancient historical period. Against a backdrop of castles, forests, and highlands, Brave follows the fiery Merida as she clashes with the duty of her royal life and embarks on a journey through the rugged landscape of the dark ages of Scotland. At once epic and intimate, the latest Pixar masterpiece weaves a story of magic, danger, and adventure and the fierce bonds of family.
Featuring behind-the-scenes interviews with the film's many artists and filmmakers, The Art of Brave showcases the gorgeous concept art that went into the making of this movie, including color scripts, storyboards, character studies, environment art, sculpts, and more. A Foreword by Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews, the film's directors, and a preface by Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter shed light on the creation of this landmark film.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you marveled at the artistry of Disney Pixar's 'Brave,' you're going to love 'The Art of Brave.'" - Sioux City Journal

"a visual feast..."
--<->Cartoon Brew

"The Art of Brave is still one of the best art books from Chronicle Books to date."
Upcoming Pixar Blog

About the Author

Jenny Lerew is an animation story artist and the author of a noted blog on animation art and history, The Blackwing Diaries. She is also the author of Scrambled Ink, a compendium of original illustrated stories, and has worked as a director and story artist at Warner Bros, Amblimation, Turner, Disney, and DreamWorks. Her most recent film was DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon. Jenny lives in Pasadena, California.

John Lasseter is a two-time Academy Award-winning director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Brenda Chapman is the director of Brave. She previously directed DreamWorks Animation Studios' 1998 release, The Prince of Egypt, and worked as a story artist on a number of beloved films from Walt Disney Animation Studios, including The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Fantasia/2000. Chapman was also the story supervisor on Disney's The Lion King.

Mark Andrews is the director of Brave. He has worked in Pixar's story department on a number of feature films including The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and Toy Story 3, and also co-wrote and co-directed the Academy Award® nominated Pixar short film One Man Band. Most recently, Andrews was co-writer and second unit director on the Disney film John Carter.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; First Edition edition (May 30, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781452101422
• ISBN-13: 978-1452101422
• ASIN: 1452101426
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Genre Films
  • #15 in Books > Arts & Photography > Graphic Design > Animation
  • #18 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Cinematography

More About the Author

Jenny Lerew has worked as a director, development and story artist at Warner Bros, Amblimation, Turner, Disney and Dreamworks. She also writes about the art and history of animation past and present on her blog, The Blackwing Diaries. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely art book May 23, 2012

By Parka TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Length: 1:16 Mins

(Spoiler alert! Spoiler in the video starts from 1s)

This is a lovely art book for the movie Brave. This is number 13 for Pixar if anyone's counting.

The book's 160 pages and it's all filled with art and commentary. The concept art is great and you can really feel that everything really fits well together, the characters, the landscape and the stories. There are character designs, environment drawings, sculpts, storyboards and colorscript.

This is Pixar's first period film. The environment designs are a bit dark but that's because the movie is set in ancient Scotland. It's interesting to see a mythical and worn landscape as designed for animation. The colour choices are quite muted, perhaps to give more contrast to Merida.

The characters and art are delightful to look at. They are so full of personality. They have all sorts of characteristics and shapes that make them stand out. There are a few pages of storyboard sequences that are really great, even without words you know the chemistry between the characters and how they are feeling.

Steve Pilcher is the production designer and there's a lot of his charming drawings included. His pencil drawings really beautiful and dimensional. They really bring the characters and places to life. Other artists included are Carter Goodrich, Steve Purcell, Noah Klocek, Matt Nolte and more.

The book doesn't really talk about the story as a whole, but the text do cover the characters and their development. So there's bits and pieces of spoilers throughout.

Overall, it's a wonderful book put together by author Jenny Lerew. It's a good read with great art.

Highly recommended for fans of Pixar and animation art.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beware of Spoilers!!!! May 24, 2012

By President Kang

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

First of all, let me state this is a fantastic book. All aspects of the film are covered, including backgrounds, major and minor characters, structures and creatures. Development of how these were brought about is gone over in depth.

However, those of you who preorded the book (as I did) and don't want to know the plot of the movie need to be warned that there are major spoilers included. Most of the movie is story boarded in black and white and in color, and you will pretty much know the whole film if you page through the book in detail, as I tend to do with "art of" books. Again, if this is not a problem for you, its a great book and dig in. But if you want to stay surprised as too major plot points in the movie, I'd wait until after the film before opening up.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Cold, dark, rich colors in the old country May 29, 2012

By en_b

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Here we go again, another PIXAR book out and up my PIXAR shelf. This one's a little thin compared to the others but it's still pretty cool and has all the aspects you come to expect in an Art of Book from this premier animation studio. Couple things stand out to me, the biggest one is the talented team of artists on the project. Steve Purcell, his pal Mike Mignola, Character design legends Carter Goodrich and Daniel Lopez Munoz, along with artists Steve Pilcher, Huy Nguyen and Noah Klocek, AND my favorite bits, sculpted foam and acrylic paint maquettes from long time PIXAR artist Tia Crater, among many others fill the volume. Ive never been to the old country but Im sure it looks quite a lot like this- Dark, Rich colors, and Cold.
I saw Secret of Kells a number of years ago and seeing the Brave trailer I right away noticed quite a bit of similarities, but now that Ive seen the book and have a little bit of an idea of the film itself, Im a little bit more comfortable with realizing this is definitely a different movie.
If you like art of books, I blog about the best of artbooks on The Last Outpost, so check it out if you're so inclined: en-b.blogspot dot com!