Another source of Twilight... (Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion - Mark Cotta Vaz)

Member Name: eilidhcatriona

Product:	Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion - Mark Cotta Vaz
Date:	10/09/09 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great pictures, loads of interesting information

Disadvantages: Probably not for everyone as not about the story

Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion was written/compiled and released by Mark Cotta Vaz to accompany to highly anticipated cinema release of the movie. Me being the Twilight obsessive that I am, I promptly bought myself a copy.

This review does not relate to the story of Twilight, but just in case you've managed to avoid it, Twilight tells the story of Bella, a seventeen year old girl who falls in love with Edward, a vampire, in the rainy town of Forks.

The book is paperback, around A4 size and has 141 pages. I ordered mine from Amazon, and on first glance at the size and flicking through it, I thought it seemed a little flimsy - not very long, and full of large text quotes and full page pictures.

I got stuck into the book, and having flicked through and seen a lot of nice photography, I decided that instead of just going through and looking at the pictures, I would actually sit down and read it properly.

I soon realised that there is in fact an awful lot of text interspersed among all the pictures. The book covers all aspects of the production of the movie, from initial script preparation through to shooting and editing. This is not a rehash of the story - this is about the transition from page to screen. I found a lot of the information in the book fascinating. It covered preparation, such as finding locations and costumes, and then the difficulties encountered during shooting, including weather and change of location, and all the effects and camera techniques used.

I particularly enjoyed reading about the location search and then the problems they presented. There are many locations within the book which are very important to the fans, and the meadow scene is probably the most important. I actually felt that this scene in the movie was not right, not at all how Stephenie Meyer described it in the book, so to read how it came about was very interesting.

I also found the information on the effects used very interesting, mainly the vampire's running and the fast walking arrival of the "bad" vampires. Before seeing the film I had wondered about how the running would be made in the film, and this book provides a full explanation, with a focus on the baseball game and the other physical feats displayed there.

In addition to all the information given, there are hundreds of photos, some double page, some full page, and some only a quarter page. These photos include numerous stills from the movie, but also location shots and a lot of "backstage" shots of the director and actors between takes. As interesting as all the information is, it wouldn't be very exciting in a book on its own - fans want pictures, and of course they help to illustrate the points being made in the text

On most pages there are also quotes from the text in larger print than the main text body. These act as a focal point, and are good if you just want to flick through and pick out parts which particularly interest you. I think a nice addition would have been quotes from the movie dotted through the book in this fashion, but there aren't any - not a huge complaint, but it would have complemented the text and pictures well.

For me, an obvious comparison was that much of the information in the Twilight DVD special features is available in this book, but in much more detail and without annoying Catherine Hardwicke referring to absolutely everything as "sexy". As you can probably tell, she got on my nerves in the special features, so the book was much better for finding out more about the making of the movie.

I found the book very interesting, and of course the pictures are very good. I'm not sure I would recommend this to every Twilight fan though - it is about the mechanics of making the film, so perhaps not everyones cup of tea, even if you do love the story. It is currently available from Amazon for £5.99, and is worth that price if like me you are interested in the making of Twilight.

Summary: An interesting read