The Art and Making of The Peanuts Movie Review
As one who discovered Charlie Brown at age 10 and related to him immediately, I was delighted and relieved that Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie had clearly been made by people who also held the source material close to their hearts. The Art and Making of The Peanuts Movie shows in great detail just how true this is. Although it’s not too text-heavy, the book throws a lot of light on the production of the film and all the care that went into creating a near-flawless transition from Charles Schulz’s squiggles to cutting-edge CGI. It comes as no surprise that director Steve Martino was the driving force in making the whole project happen.
As an animator, at times it’s almost painful to read – the simple lines that were second nature to “Sparky” were subjected to a degree of microscopic analysis. Every nuance of how a character’s features fit onto his head from each different camera angle had to be scrutinised and understood so that it could be integrated into a 3D model in ways never previously attempted. The problems that had to be solved in translating one artist’s creation in one medium into a whole team’s interpretation in another repeatedly make the reader think “Guys, just draw it!”. But that’s easier said than done, of course, as any animator who’s had to keep on model knows. (I once had to attempt it on Snoopy himself). At least this way, as the book makes clear, the problems may be formidable but at least you only have to solve some of them once.
Each character’s background and the path to recreating them for the film, both visually and in terms of the characters themselves and how they fit into the story, is covered in just enough detail, with a generous sprinkling of original Peanuts strips, through concept design and rigging diagrams to final rendering. The same care in given to the visual development of the world they inhabit.
Concept paintings are beautifully reproduced throughout the book, giving the familiar art-book feeling that it’s almost a pity the end product couldn’t have looked more like them.
Overall, the book succeeds in achieving what must be one goal of all such books – it provides a such a level of understanding and appreciation of the film itself that you want to see it again.
Blue Sky animation’s Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie, arrives in cinemas Saturday 19th December in 2D and 3D!
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