This was an awesome little book about the making of the movie Twilight. I've never read a behind-the-scenes type of book before, and I'm not quite sure what prompted me to pick up this one (other than my neverending obsession with all things Twilight) because I've never been very interested in how movies are made or any behind-the-scenes work. But it was so cool!
I learned about many of the special effects and how they came into play. I learned about how the weather in the Pacific Northwest severely impacted the filming schedule (which I found to be surprising). I learned about how the crew set up props to match the atmosphere of the movie, down to choosing what books to place on a character's bookshelf. I had no idea that so much detail and preproduction work was put into making movies. The book talked about how people had to go scout out different locations, and how they pinpointed exactly what they were looking for in a building and how they could use that for the set. I was surprised to find out that the director wanted minimal special effects in the movie and tried to shoot it as realistically as possible to make it more relatable. I liked that decision because I do prefer movies set in real places because of that realistic factor. Even fantasies based in the dominion of Earth are better than otherworldly fantasies, in my opinion.
My favourite detail to learn about was how they filmed Edward pushing the truck away from Bella, thus denting the truck. Instead of using CGI, the team formed a thin layer of aluminum over the door, and they cut a hole out of the real door. So when Edward pushed the door, it actually dented the metal and looked like he had superhuman strength.
This book features neat movie stills and behind-the-scenes photos of the cast and crew, and I loved that the pictures matched up with the different scenes in the movie that were being discussed. (An example of this was when the author was discussing how they created the fight scene in the mirrored ballet studio, and pictures from that scene accompanied the dialogue on those pages.) Although this book is written by a third-party, there are tons of quotations and presumably interviews with the director, Catherine Hardwicke, and other elite members of the production crew.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, even though I didn't think I would. It opened my eyes to the tremendous effort it takes to plan, film, and produce a movie, and I've developed a greater appreciation for the moviemakers. I will most likely check out more of these kinds of books in the future about how different movies are made because it really is fascinating. Now I have the desire to rewatch Twilight, even though I just watched it last month, because I want to notice all the small details and nuances this time around.
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