Author: Mark Salisbury
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Titan Books
Release Date: August 6, 2013
Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
When I first saw “District 9”, I was blown away at how original and unique this film was. It was from a then unknown director named Neill Blomkamp. “Elysium” is his latest film and really delivers another original sci-fi story with a great cast including Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. The film also look visually amazing, which is why I was very excited to break into this latest “Art of the Film” book. Then I realized who it was authored by, Mark Salisbury, and got even more excited. Last year Mark did two of my favorite books including “Prometheus: The Art of the Film” and “Dark Shadow: The Visual Companion”. He has quickly become one of my favorites and delivers yet another strike out with this book. I was excited to see “Elysium” but now I am mega-excited to see it.
In “Elysium: The Art of the Film”, we get a very encouraging foreword by Neill Blomkamp. This guy is amazing and I can see him directing the hell out of a future “Star Wars” movie or something along those lines. He really has a passion for film. Like I said earlier, when I see Mark Salisbury’s name you know you are going to get quality behind-the-scenes look. This book has a ton of amazing production art and photos. There is also input from the legendary designer Syd Mead (“Blade Runner”, “TRON”). You can tell that this film is very elaborate and took a lot to create this futuristic world. Like always Titan Books comes through with another very impressive release. The book is larger than most “art of the film” books with dimensions 12.1 x 10.9 x 0.8 inches. The pages come with some fine stock paper and the images are super high quality. There even is pull out pages in various sections. There was a lot of work that went into this movie and the book really captures all of it.
