300: The Art of the Film

by Tara DiLullo, Frank Miller (Illustrator), Lynn Varley (Illustrator)

What does it mean to turn one of the great graphic novels of our time into a major motion picture? In 1998, Frank Miller shook the comics world with his groundbreaking series 300. Marking Miller’s first collaboration with watercolor artist Lynn Varley (Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns) in over a decade, 300 was a gritty reimagining of a battle in which 300 Spartan soldiers fought to hold back the entire Persian army. The series won five Eisner Awards, including Best Limited Series, Best Writer/Artist (Miller) and Best Colorist (Varley).300: The Art of the Movie takes you behind the scenes as director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) adapts 300 to the silver screen. With 200 pages of production photos, concept art and much, much more, 300: The Art of the Movie is sure to delight Miller fans and movie buffs alike.

Genres: Media Tie In, Art, Graphic Novels, Comics, Film

124 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1999

About the author

Also known as Tara DiLullo Bennett, now writing as Tara Bennett.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

And so I get to feed my love of film books focusing on the making of and the concept art used in their making - this time the original 300 movie by Zack Snyder.

Ironically this is one book I have been looking for a while (I have the same book of the sequel for some time now) - and yes it was another charity shop find - I really cannot sign the praises of these bookshops enough.

Anyway - this was an interesting book - as much for the content but more so for the style. You see this book takes a scene - gives you the storyboard sketches and then the details from the actual scene - including the concept art, technicalities and even behind the scenes shots - which considering the whole film was create artificially on a sound stage and with computers is quite an insight.

The film is not for everyone with its rather conceptualised views on violence and gore as well as the retelling of the actual story - however it is a faithful homage to the comic book of the same name. This is a cult book for a cult film and you have to admit if you enjoy the film there is a lot to enjoy from this book too.

[Elliot Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice book to browse through, but it's light so if you want depth, look elsewhere. This is ultimately nothing special.

[Parka · Rating 4 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

This book doesn't explain much on the process of making the movie. Most of the art in the book lack captions. This book feels light in content simply for the fact that you don't get much information.

There are plenty of conceptual art, 3D renders and storyboards. But there seem to a lot of movie stills as well, to the effect that it felt that half the book contained movie stills. There are also a lot of 3 penciled storyboards that take one page to themselves. Certainly they don't deserve those sizes.

For a movie based on a graphic novel, I was expecting much more paintings to be included in the book. The movie was shot too stylistically that it's hard to imagine that there are not much more storyboard paintings.

This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog.

[Art of the Film · Rating 2 out of 5]

For photos/video of this book, please visit my blog: http://www.movieartbook.com/2015/03/r...

"300" is a visionary film with a lot of incredible imagery. It deserves a great art book, but unfortunately this one falls a bit short. Too many pages are simply screen shots from the film, there's not enough artwork. I wanted to see more concept art and frame-by-frame comparisons to the graphic novel. There are some neat sketches, set photos, and makeup tests... but they're printed so small you can't really see much detail. It just feels incomplete, like there weren't enough resources put into this book.

Overall, I paid a relatively low price for this book and I'm glad I own it... but it's just a bit disappointing because I think the book could have been so much better.

What's included in the book:
- 2-3 Storyboard Frames from just about every scene in the movie
- 50+ Still Images taken directly from the final film.
- Concept Sketches from battle scenes
- Behind the scenes photos of Makeup and Costumes
- VFX imagery - wireframes, models and CG creatures.

[Marc Hampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book highlights a truly landmark film in it's artistic decisions regarding the use of digital sets, fantastical imagery and storytelling. Frank Miller's influence is felt in the production's design and tit is interesting to read about techniques developed to achieve such a style. I particularly enjoyed seeing how they experimented with coffee style watercolors mixed with photographic clouds to create the surreal skyline.

While the book is light on discussion, it features an array of storyboard to final film comparisons with nice tidbits of design work here and there - some used and some abandoned. It's a great read if you're a fan of the movie and it's design, but may be lacking in overall content if you are just an overall fan of various types of behind the scenes "Art of Film" books.

I, however, sincerely dig it:)

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Numpang baca di rak buku impor Gramedia Plangi. Bukunya udah keriting, tanpa sampul, n biar dikorting juga masih di atas dua ratus rebu... Baca di tempat ajalah...

Quick-fun-read-wanna-have-it-for-free!

[Edgar]

nice, chido poca mauser.

[miaaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

jadi inget baca di toko buku, sampai ditaruh di lantai biar puas ngeliat ilustrasi versi film-nya hehe

oh iya yg komik masih blum disentuh ya mas tomo, tapi pasti kembali padamu :p

[Ines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the comic, and the movie. So this is the movie artbook.

[Cecelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

good stuff