Released October 2010

Page count: 156 pages

Size: 11” x 10”

 

The Art of Megamind

by Richard von Busack

Foreword by Will Ferrell

Published by Insight Editions

 

http://www.insighteditions.com

 

– Gift Idea –

 

(This is the second in a series of books profiled as gift ideas throughout the month of December.  All will be marked with the green/red ‘Gift Idea’ tag.)

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The Art of Megamind Book Review By Erin V.

A simple synopsis for the film is: Megamind has always been at odds with superhero Metro Man.  Together, they entertain the citizens of MetroCity with their battles.  But when Megamind finally wins, he is not sure what to do anymore.  Does he even really want to be typecast as the villain?

 

Although it’s not the best animated film to be released this year – tough slate with film’s like How To Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, Despicable Me, and Tangled – it’s still up there as one I really liked.  Megamind is just a ton of fun and a classic underdog-type story told well.

 

Like the other ‘art of’ books, I was eager to read The Art of Megamind.  Divided into three sections (characters, locations, and technology), we get a sense of the filmmaking process for a big animated production like this.  One aspect of this film that has been talked about a lot recently, was how big the digital ‘set’ is for Megamind.  The city is one of the biggest actually built in the computer for screen.

 

This technical challenge is talked about in the locations section a bit.  Other DreamWorks films have either been done on a smaller level (we relatively don’t see that much of the cities in Bee Movie or Monsters vs. Aliens), or take place in forest locations.  It is mentioned here how the computer can put together a collection of random trees and bushes and you can arrange them to look fine, but it’s way harder with cityscapes.  If a street sign is backwards, unlike a bush, it’s quite noticeable.  The text here tells us a bit about the building-generating software programs designed, as well as how the city layout was actually planned.

 

Besides this, the parts about the character designs are interesting as we see how they evolved with the story (including concept art from some characters that never made the final version), and the gadgets are always cool to see in detail for a film like this.  Overall, this is a fun read, with a nice mix of text and visuals.  This ‘coffee table’ book makes a great gift.

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To find out more about the The Art of Megamind, or other books, visit Insight Editions’s website here.