Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Michael Klastorin (4🌟)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Ultimate Visual History is a beautiful book about the making of one of my favourite science fiction movies of all time. This was the first movie that blew my mind as a child and when I saw this edition I added it into my wish list right away. I was lucky enough to get it a few months later through Wordery give away 😊 Thanks!

The book follows the story of the creation of the movie chronologically in short chapters all of which are fully illustrated with behind the scenes photographs and pictures of concept art, story boards and scripts. We start with Spielberg’s first ideas and with selling the concepts to major Film Production companies. There are explanations of the negotiations and then his partnering with movie making people such as producers, visual, audio effects people, illustrators, photography directors, etc. We also follow his thought process in choosing the main actors as well as designing the sets, aliens, and particularly the Mothership. I think this last bit was my favourite. Of course the book also refers to problems, things that went wrong, changes of plans, additions, deletions, everything that happens during filming. Not much to say but to recommend it to any fun on the movie or any fan of science fiction in general.

My edition was published by Titan Books in 2017. It has 192 pages.