Explore the lives and creative worlds of makeup artists, monster makers, and special effects professionals through biographies, concept art, behind-the-scenes looks, interviews, and more. These books offer a fascinating glimpse into the workshops and careers of some of the industry’s most talented artists.
Performing Illusions
Cinema, Special Effects, and the Virtual Actor
By Dan North
The camera supposedly never lies, yet film’s ability to frame, cut and reconstruct all that passed before its lens made cinema the pre-eminent medium of visual illusion and revelation from the early twentieth century onwards. This volume examines film’s creative history of special effects and trickery, encompassing everything from George Méliès’ first trick films to the modern CGI era. Evaluating movements towards the use of computer-generated ‘synthespians’ in films such as Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within (2001), this title suggests that cinematic effects should be understood not as attempts to perfectly mimic real life, but as constructions of substitute realities, situating them in the cultural lineage of the stage performers and illusionists and of the nineteenth century. With analyses of films such as Destination Moon (1950), Spider-Man (2002) and the King Kong films (1933 and 2006), this new volume provides an insight into cinema’s capacity to perform illusions.
Screen Performance and Special Effects in Popular Cinema (Techniques of the Moving Image)
By Lisa Bode
In the past twenty years, we have seen the rise of digital effects cinema in which the human performer is entangled with animation, collaged with other performers, or inserted into perilous or fantastic situations and scenery. Making Believe sheds new light on these developments by historicizing screen performance within the context of visual and special effects cinema and technological change in Hollywood filmmaking, through the silent, early sound, and current digital eras.
Making Believe incorporates North American film reviews and editorials, actor and crew interviews, trade and fan magazine commentary, actor training manuals, and film production publicity materials to discuss the shifts in screen acting practice and philosophy around transfiguring makeup, doubles, motion capture, and acting to absent places or characters. Along the way it considers how performers and visual and special effects crew work together, and struggle with the industry, critics, and each other to define the aesthetic value of their work, in an industrial system of technological reproduction. Bode opens our eyes to the performing illusions we love and the tensions we experience in wanting to believe in spite of our knowledge that it is all make believe in the end.
Explore the making part of filmmaking!
Film is the art of suspension of disbelief, but making is the craft behind it all. Special effects guru Jesse Velez shares his expertise in practical effects, teaching the clever techniques and physical artistry used in cinema.
From tricking the eye with miniatures and “forced perspective” to creating the illusion of life through animatronics, puppetry, and costumes, Jesse explains how movie magic is really movie science and engineering.
With curious experiments to demonstrate foundational concepts, Making for the Movies is part how-to book and part reference guide that explain how and why 100-year-old methods still used in film today.
By Rafael Jaen, Holly Poe Durbin and Christin Essin
Theatre Artisans and Their Craft: The Allied Arts Fields profiles fourteen remarkable artists and technicians who elevate theatre production to new dimensions, explore new materials and technologies, and introduce new safety standards and solutions.
This book have profilse with both makeup artists, scenic artists, prop makers and more!
In this New York Times bestselling “imperative how-to for creativity” (Nick Offerman), Adam Savage—star of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters—shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully making your idea a reality.
Every Tool’s a Hammer is a chronicle of my life as a maker. It’s an exploration of making, but it’s also a permission slip of sorts from me to you. Permission to grab hold of the things you’re interested in, that fascinate you, and to dive deeper into them to see where they lead you.
Through stories from forty-plus years of making and molding, building and breaking, along with the lessons I learned along the way, this book is meant to be a toolbox of problem solving, complete with a shop’s worth of notes on the tools, techniques, and materials that I use most often. Things like: In Every Tool There Is a Hammer—don’t wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don’t have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever’s handy; Increase Your Loose Tolerance—making is messy and filled with screwups, but that’s okay, as creativity is a path with twists and turns and not a straight line to be found; Use More Cooling Fluid—it prolongs the life of blades and bits, and it prevents tool failure, but beyond that it’s a reminder to slow down and reduce the friction in your work and relationships; Screw Before You Glue—mechanical fasteners allow you to change and modify a project while glue is forever but sometimes you just need the right glue, so I dig into which ones will do the job with the least harm and best effects.
This toolbox also includes lessons from many other incredible makers and creators, including: Jamie Hyneman, Nick Offerman, Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, artist Tom Sachs, and chef Traci Des Jardins. And if everything goes well, we will hopefully save you a few mistakes (and maybe fingers) as well as help you turn your curiosities into creations.
I hope this book serves as “creative rocket fuel” (Ed Helms) to build, make, invent, explore, and—most of all—enjoy the thrills of being a creator.
Developing, Maintaining, and Presenting a Design-Tech Portfolio for Theatre and Allied Fields
By Rafael Jaen
A design tech portfolio showcases a theatre designer/technician’s most prized accomplishments in stage design, lighting, costuming, or makeup. The ability to make a winning portfolio is essential to getting into choice colleges, obtaining scholarships, and getting new jobs in the field. Unfortunately the process can become time consuming and challenging if you don’t know where to start. Show Case offers students, teachers, and aspiring professionals the information they need to know to create, maintain, and show off their portfolio.
This fully revised second edition features new and expanded chapters that explore current and innovative approaches to creating a design-tech portfolio, including branding, social networking, and traditional and interactive e-portfolios. This comprehensive guide also covers planning and developing details such as page layout, content variety, aesthetic sequencing, marketing, personal presentation, and next steps. Each chapter features introductions, samples, and lists of “Do’s and Don’ts” provided by experienced professionals in the different design/tech fields. Portfolios featured are from an incredible cast of contributors at different stages of their careers, including recent graduate students, officers of renowned organizations and international theater artists, and art directors representing narrative artists in the allied fields of film, TV, and other media. This book is designed as a reference guide, workbook, and an inspirational tool, assisting designers/technicians in the process of developing a showcase that can be used to apply for graduate school, to pursue new jobs in the field, and for career marketing purposes.
Meet the People Who Make the Magic Across the Globe
By Bruce Steele
Bruce C. Steele is a journalist and Disney fan with a long career of profiling the famous and unheralded, from the pastry chef at the Biltmore Estate to the stars of Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns.
Discover what it’s like to report to work every day for The Walt Disney Company. Step behind the scenes to immerse yourself in one “ordinary” day at Disney. On a Thursday in 2019, a small army of photographers and videographers scattered across the globe to capture what goes on beyond those tantalizing “Cast Members Only” doors – whether eavesdropping on historic endeavors or typical tasks. All the photos in this book were taken on that single Thursday, beginning early in Tokyo and following the sun around the world through Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, Madrid, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, and dozens of places throughout the United States. More than 40 hours after it began, the day ended as the sunset on the Aulani resort in Hawaii.
On that day, some 80 Cast Members agreed to open up their workshops, dressing rooms, kitchens, cubicles, TV studios, labs, locomotive engines – and some even more surprising and diverse workspaces. They also shared their stories: childhood dreams and chapters, career pivots and triumphs, workaday hurdles and joys. It was just a day in the life, as extraordinary as any other day at Disney. As any Cast Member can tell you, a Disney job is less a destination than a limitless journey. And for just One Day at Disney, we can all tag along for the ride.
Marty Sklar was hired by The Walt Disney Company after his junior year at UCLA, and began his Disney career at Disneyland in July 1955, the month before the park opened. He spent his first decade at Disney as “the kid,” the very youngest of the creative team Walt had assembled at WED Enterprises. But despite his youth, his talents propelled him forward into substantial responsibility: he became Walt’s speech writer, penned Walt’s and Roy’s messages in the company’s annual report, composed most of the publicity and marketing materials for Disneyland, conceived presentations for the U.S. government, devised initiatives to obtain sponsors to enable new Disneyland developments, and wrote a twenty-four-minute film expressing Walt’s philosophy for the Walt Disney World project and Epcot. He was Walt’s literary right-hand man.
Over the next forty years, Marty Sklar rose to become president and principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, and he devoted his entire career to creating, enhancing, and expanding Walt’s magical empire.
This beautifully written and enlightening book is Marty’s own retelling of his epic Disney journey, a grand adventure that lasted over half a century.
Do you know of any books that should be on this list? We'd love to hear from you - get in touch! We're always looking to expand our collection with books covering makeup artists, monster makers, special effects, prop making, stagecraft, and more.
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