The Making of Dragonheart

by Jody Duncan

A look at the making of "Dragonheart," the most elaborate fantasy film ever made, includes sketches and interviews with special effects artists

Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally like Jody Duncan’s work, I remember enjoying this film (I haven’t seen it in a good while though) and I’m a big fan of behind-the-scenes books but unfortunately this didn’t really do it for me. It feels underwritten (not necessarily Duncan’s fault, perhaps more along the lines that she was given a prohibitive word count) and races through breathlessly, yet manages to find time to allow Raffaella De Laurentis (producer) and Rob Cohen (director) to spout cod-philosophy about the film they’re making. The cast is introduced but rarely quoted (apart from Dennis Quaid and a few lines from others) and that feels like a wasted opportunity, similarly the rest of the key crew is strangely quiet. The post-production section, which focuses on ILM creating the dragon, scores bonus points for not showing any pictures of random people staring at PC monitors (especially a variant of my favourite one, where a group stares and one person points) but it doesn’t go into much detail either and the sound effects and music are dealt with very briskly. The book is well illustrated but, bizarrely, none of the pictures are captioned - thankfully, I knew what Rob Cohen looked like before I read this and I kind of figured out who Raffaela is, but there’s a person on page 6 and I have no idea who it is (or even if it’s a man or woman) - and that’s just sloppy work on the part of the designers. Very much a missed opportunity, which is a shame as both Duncan and the film deserve so much more.

[Dennis Lynch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tie-in to the release of the popular fantasy film. It is very well illustrated with shots of the actors and locations, but sorely lacking in actual images of the Dragon. Informative for the general reader, but not nearly as technical as the write-ups in American Cinematographer or Cinefex magazine. This book was finished and released before the film hit theaters, so there are no reviews, fan reactions of box office reports. A map of the locations might be nice, too.

[Mirrani · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book for fans of DragonHeart, but also a wonderful way for fans of movies in general to understand the process that goes along behind the scenes. The photography is very detailed and the images are simply beautiful, reflecting the beauty of the set and movie itself. There is an art quality to the layout as well, giving an almost scrapbook feel to the pages as you read; textured and occasionally dimensional images and larger, highlighted quotes from within the book are set into pages where the actual text wraps beautifully around to accommodate them.

The only part of this book that was not captivating was that in some parts the "play-by-play" feel of the telling of production or post production took a little away from what had already been written. Suddenly I found myself wanting to move along through the explanation of a scene rather than actually read it. Fans of the movie might find this and the description of scenes they already know well to be a bit tedious.

Overall, this is a very interesting read that actually inspired my own creativity and rekindled my love for the DragonHeart universe.