The Art Of Film by Terry Ackland-Snow with Wendy Laybourne (book review).
If you want to look at a pile of books and pick out something for immediate attention, then it’s a film book with material from our genre. Terry Ackland-Snow was a production designer on many films. His book, ‘The Art of Film’, hits on the work on many films, including that Bond chap, ‘Batman’ and ‘Aliens’. As he points out in his introduction, people in the industry help each other and share their expertise, and he sees this book as a means to continue that tradition. As such, you see that his production design sketches for these films address various problems. He chatters about behind the scenes on location and in the studio, and you quickly get sucked in, and I was already a couple chapters into my first session reading.
Ackland-Snow moves up from being a draughtsman to an art director with ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ (1975). It would be impossible for film geeks not to have seen the majority of the films he’s worked on.
It’s rather interesting which films get more coverage, like ‘Superman II’ and the first two Muppet movies, but I’m inclined to think of these as pay chapters because there is a lot more detail and photos. Even so, it takes nothing from what he says and shows in the other films. There is also great insight into just what an art director does, like finding suitable locations and sharing ideas on how to achieve particular stunts, as well as other jobs outside of their remit that need to be done.
The insights into the James Bond films he worked on are deep, especially ‘The Living Daylights’ when they were filming in Austria on the ice. Money shots from Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ film show the difference between getting a car company to make the Batmobile for 3 years and their prop department for 3 months, which should make you wonder about expense. Saying that, Burton did query where the doors were, and the slide-out bonnet sorted that out, even if they had to shorten the bat-ears to fit inside. The ‘Aliens’ APC was built around an aircraft tug and the interiors as a set. The blueprints for both vehicles are available here. There was a thought that might get a gleam in your eye.
It’s rather fascinating to see three examples of films that failed to be made. Two of them were being filmed abroad and then decided that landmines were dangerous, one because of accessibility. These days, I suspect they would just move somewhere else or go digital, but those were nascent times.
In the final chapter, Ackland-Snow defines not only his own job but that of other production staff within a film. If you didn’t know what they did before, then you will after. The art director is the manager of everything related to the sets, and their finances are separate from those of the other departments. The photographs of what you think are real and then show from behind clearly do not show the skill of these departments and probably save a lot of money in background detail.
Although this book has been out for two years, it is still around at a good price and worth adding to your film book collection.
GF Willmetts
March 2024
(pub: The History Press, 2022. 224 page medium-sized illustrated hardback. Price; varies. ISBN: 978-0-7509-9742-3)
check out website: www.thehistorypress.co.uk
