ADG Perspective

January-February 2017

Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/765720

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P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7 21 in print THE BEST BOOK WRITTEN ABOUT ONE OF OUR CRAFTS...EVER by Michael Baugh, Editor and book collector Richard M. Isackes and Karen L. Maness. The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop. New York City: Regan Arts, 2014. I have a lot of books about motion picture design. I don't pass them up when I find them in used bookstores, or online...or anywhere else, for that matter. Karen Maness and Richard Isackes have produced the finest book in my collection, the one that now lives on the coffee table and that I show to anyone who visits my home. It is filled cover to cover with breathtaking images of painted backings, archival behind-the-scenes photographs and original photos often taken by the artists themselves to record their work. Ms. Maness was helped in her quest to compile this material by the ADG's archivist, Rosemarie Knopka, and the collected material that Ms. Knopka is preserving for the Guild. This book also includes oral histories from the surviving artists or their family members, irreplaceable stories of this extraordinary craft. It is a mix of film history, art criticism, technical solutions and beautiful film settings. It is, simply, the first book that every working designer needs to own. Above: The book is beautifully packaged as a 352-page hardcover volumewith a rigid slipcase, which in itself is a work of art. The cover is a production still of a Mount Rushmore backdrop from NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959, courtesy MGM/ Photofest). The slipcase features a scene from THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939, courtesy the Kobal Collection/MGM).

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