Ed Catmull Takes Us Inside Pixar

A Creativity, Inc. Review

I'm not usually one for management books. To be honest, I don't recall reading one in the past. I don't think I ever thought to myself 'Yowzah! This management book looks so exciting I can barely restrain myself from exploding with joy!' - by the way, if you have said these exact words to yourself at any point in your life, you're an interesting subject matter.
And yet something in Disney and Pixar president Ed Catmull's book, Creativity, Inc., (co-written with journalist Amy Wallace) felt weirdly attractive: the promise of learning more about the two studios, as an animation fan, seemed exciting; Mr. Catmull should have great insight on these companies and on the films they produced in the recent years. And, unsurprisingly, when you read Creativity, Inc. you find out quite a lot of things about just that. What takes you by surprise, though, is how much you relate to the management segments.

The Art of Kiki's Delivery Service Review

When my boyfriend got me The Art of Kiki's Delivery Service for Christmas, I was ecstatic. Kiki's Delivery Service is my favourite Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki film - though I realize it is not the best one of the bunch. It served as my first exposure to the world of Studio Ghibli, and also served to show me that I wasn't alone in adolescence. So I hold this film very close to my heart for expressing how I felt and giving me something new to love. Now, having read The Art of Kiki's Delivery Service, I feel even more strongly about my love for both Studio Ghibli and the film.

Exclusive: Full Spreads from Titan Books' The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman

The Art of Mr Peabody & Sherman is out now from Titan Books. © 2014 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

As we announced moments ago, we're giving away a free copy of Titan Books' new DreamWorks Art of book, The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and we've got an exclusive gallery of some great spreads from the book to share with you! Whet your appetite below.

Pixar Co-Founder Ed Catmull Writing Book About the Studio's History

Ed Catmull, as well as being an accomplished computer scientist and computer graphics pioneer, is also a very successful businessman. That's going to be the focus of his new book, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, which will be published by Random House on 8th April, 2014. So says The Hollywood Reporter.

The Art of Epic Review - Fifty Shades of Green

The latest film from the studio who previously brought you Ice Age and Robots is out in cinemas now; as such, Titan have released an accompanying Art of book for the Chris Wedge film. We've actually had a copy of the book for a month or so, but schedules being what they are, we've not had the chance to review it until now. If you're in the UK, you can win yourself a free copy too, by entering our competition here. Before that though, check out our review below.

Exclusive: Concept Art from The Art of Epic

Next month, Blue Sky Studios will release their eighth feature film, the Chris Wedge-directed Epic. To prelude that release, Titan Books will release The Art of Epic, featuring a collection of gorgeous (and very green) concept art from the production of the film, on 3rd May. The kind PR folks over at Titan were nice enough to send us some over to share with you all.

The Art of The Croods Review

The Croods, directed by How to Train Your Dragon's Chris Sanders and Space Chimps' Kirk DeMicco, is DreamWorks' first film under Fox. While it seems critics aren't all too taken with the story of "the world's first family", one area that has been unanimously praised is the film's visuals. As such, and going off the beautiful shots we've seen in the trailers, the Art of book looked to be a must-buy. With just under a week to go until the release of the film, we can say that The Art of The Croods is definitely worth the purchase for animation fans.

Munir Reviews Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men: The Flipbooks

By Munir Abedrabbo.

The Nine Old Men are arguably the most revered group of people in all of Disney Animation, and one of the most famous in animation history. They have been responsible for creating many of the most indelible characters in the Disney canon. From Tinker Bell to Aurora, from Maleficent to Shere Khan, their animated creations are nothing short of spectacular. Their legacy has not only enchanted moviegoers throughout the years, but also influenced many animators that are now considered legends in their own right. It's also very important to remember that not only were they exceptionally talented animators, but they excelled at innovation too, creating many techniques that are now standard in the medium. With all these accolades, an homage was long overdue and, fortunately, the Walt Disney's Nine Old Men: The Flipbooks collection is a wonderful way to celebrate their beautiful art.

The Art of Wreck-It Ralph Review - A Wreck-Tacular Art Book

I actually received Chronicle Books' latest accompanying Art of book when Wreck-It Ralph was released Stateside in November, but I thought it would probably prove useful to have something left to hype myself up for the film's inevitable UK release. And it has. So, with Disney's Wreck-It Ralph finally hitting UK cinemas tomorrow, I'm very happy to present a review of its wonderful, vibrant and quintessentially cartoony companion, The Art of Wreck-It Ralph.

The Fairest One of All Author Working on Making of Pinocchio Book

The Fairest One of All author, Kaufman (pictured with Walt Disney's eldest daughter, Diane Disney Miller).

We have learned that J.B. Kaufman, the film historian behind 2012's fantastic and superbly detailed The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, - a history of the making of Disney's first ever feature animated film - is now working on a similar book for the studio's second film, Pinocchio!

A113Animation reader/frequent contributor Munir Abedrabbo (who will be launching his own retrospective Disney review feature on this blog very soon) emailed the Fairest One of All author, congratulating him on the book and asking if he had considered doing a similar one for Pinocchio, Kaufman responded:

"It happens that I am already working on a book about the making of Pinocchio -- a fascinating subject, and I'm excited about it. Just as with the Snow White books, we're going to try to bring this one out in time for the 75th anniversary of the film, which means I have some very tight deadlines. Wish me luck!"

Pinocchio, first released theatrically in February 1940, is widely considered to be one of the greatest animated films of all time, eclipsed, perhaps only be its predecessor, so it's certainly exciting to hear that the author who so brilliantly recounted the making of Walt's first film is now doing the same with his second. The downside though, given the comment about coinciding the book's release with the film's 75th anniversary, is that the book will then likely not be complete until 2015. At least we know it will be worth the wait.

Our review of The Fairest One of All can be read here, and you can order it below, via Amazon.

The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Review - A Triumph Befitting Disney's Classic

Firstly, I apologise for the tardiness of this review; I've been snowed under, but hopefully normal service is now restored - there'll be a review up of The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation in the next week as well. Thanks to the team at Aurum Press for sending me a copy of this - US version sold by Weldon Owen.

The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an almost complete account of the huge production of Walt Disney's first feature length animated feature, the fantastic classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Such a gigantically important, influential and trend-setting picture, obviously, took a mammoth amount of effort, as such, this book is an absolutely mammoth undertaking itself.

Christmas Thoughts - 2011

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and that you all had a wonderful day yesterday. I thought I'd, as I did last year, share my thoughts on some animation related gifts I received.

At the top you can see the vast majority of them, I was incredibly overjoyed to receive these presents, as you can see, and as you can probably tell from reading my blog, I quite like animation, so these presents were fantastic for me.

To go through the presents one by one, I got, which is probably my favourite present, 'The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts and Select Art From 25 Years of Animation'. The book which touts colour scripts from all of Pixar's 12 feature films, as well as from some of their shorts and includes several pieces of art made for each film, is fantastic. Authored by Cartoon Brew co-founder, Amid Amidi, the book is rather scarce on text, but what there is is rich in detail and history. However, as it should be, the main focus of the book is the fantastic, jaw-dropping, beautiful artwork from the artists of Pixar; and if they included the level of detail in the text we see in the individual 'Art of' books, this one would be substantially larger than the 300-odd pages it is at the moment. The book is a brilliant read and I would definitely recommend it. I will likely publish a full review of the book in the coming week.

In terms of DVDs, I got a decent amount of animated films this year, including Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (a fun and quirky animated film that was one of my favourites from 2009), Rio (which isn't pictured, as the box is somewhat trashed, as the security stopper wasn't removed for some reason, so we had to pry the box open) and Kung Fu Panda 2 (which seems even more awesome than it did when I first saw it). While I loved these films and would have been more than content with these, two of the best presents I got were in the form of the Disney classics, Peter Pan and 101 Dalmatians, two of the films that helped form my childhood; utter classics in every form, it meant even more as a present, given that they had to be, not cheaply, purchased second hand as they're in the Disney Vault at the moment.

In terms of other knick-knacks and whatnots, I also received official Wallace and Gromit slippers and an alarm clock, and Muppets socks and a T-shirt (not pictured), all of which were just brilliantly fun and quirky presents to receive.

As I'm sure you can tell, I loved these presents and this is just the animated portion of them, it was a great horde of gifts to receive this Christmas and one that I fully appreciated.

Feel free to share your own lists of presents and what you're thankful for this Christmas, I hope the season treated you all well.

Interview: David A. Price, author of The Pixar Touch

Recently I had the opportunity, via e-mail to speak to the author of the brilliant book, The Pixar Touch, David A. Price and he, very generously, agreed to do an interview with me. Following on from my review of the book, which charts the origins of Pixar, David, who featured my review on the book's website, agreed to answer some questions for me, about his book, his thoughts and feelings about Pixar and what's coming up for him; read on after the jump break for the interview.

The Art of Cars 2 Arrives

My Review Copy of The Art of Cars 2 has just arrived from Chronicle Books and while I am endeavouring to avoid any spoilers, I am still reading it thoroughly and it is beautiful. Stay tuned for my full review of the book, coming later this week.