- Hardcover: 160 pages
- Publisher: Shubrook Brothers (2 Oct 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0955610117
- ISBN-13: 978-0955610110
- Product Dimensions: 29.2 x 25.6 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 443,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
 Trade In this Item for up to £2.10
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Special Effects Superman: The Miniature Effects of Derek Meddings for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £2.10, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
Product Description
Product Description
After his career in the film industry took flight with Gerry Anderson in 1957, Derek Meddings proceeded to head the effects team and design every major vehicle for the hit British television series Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and UFO. When the Anderson studio closed in 1970, Meddings moved into movies and headed the effects on over 20 motion pictures. His accolades include: six James Bonds, Batman, Supergirl, Santa Claus and The Neverending Story. Foreword by Sir Roger Moore.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book certainly contains some interesting images, as it charts the course of Derek Meddings's career. Those seeking behind the scenes pictures of the Gerry Anderson years should look elsewhere, eg find a copy of 21st Century Visions. There's not much by way of new material from that period in this book and the original concept design artwork that is featured was published by Fanderson years ago. However, if you are more interested in seeing Meddings's career in the round then there is much that will be of interest, even though there is a fair bit of repetition in the images, eg the point is often made by one well framed photo, but several similar additional ones are also included as filler. The feel is very much that you are looking through a family photo album and that adds to the charm of the book.
The reason for my 3 star rating is the poor quality of the text. Aside from several typos and grammatical glitches, the text is thin and contains little by way of insight. It reads as though the anecdotes have been sourced secondhand from family members rather than through interviewing those with whom Meddings worked. The net result is a glossy coffee table book that entertains to a degree, but which tells you little that is new and, in research and production terms, appears to have been made on the cheap. One can only hope that this doesn't discourage somebody else from producing a proper biography.
I would recommend that you try to see a copy before deciding whether, or not, to buy.
The reason for my 3 star rating is the poor quality of the text. Aside from several typos and grammatical glitches, the text is thin and contains little by way of insight. It reads as though the anecdotes have been sourced secondhand from family members rather than through interviewing those with whom Meddings worked. The net result is a glossy coffee table book that entertains to a degree, but which tells you little that is new and, in research and production terms, appears to have been made on the cheap. One can only hope that this doesn't discourage somebody else from producing a proper biography.
I would recommend that you try to see a copy before deciding whether, or not, to buy.
Format:Hardcover
I've always been a big fan of Derek Meddings, and have read his book about the Anderson years (21st Century Visions), which is excellent. So I was looking forward to reading this one, which concentrates on his film work. And while any new behind-the-scenes pictures are welcome, the whole book gives off the air of not having much effort put into it.
For starters, there isn't a lot of text, and what text there is is very cursory and contains the odd spelling error. Meddings isn't a big name to anyone outside the Gerry Anderson/Bond fandoms, and this is not a general book about special effects, so anyone reading it will probably know quite a bit about him and his work already, so the fact that we learn practically nothing new is annoying. For example the coverage of "Live And Let Die" is mostly given over to the shot of Baron Samedi's head exploding. There are seven photos over four pages, and yet we're not told what happens in the shot, or how they achieved the effect. One caption reads "Derek adds some extra detail to the figure before shooting the exploded head from a different angle", so you could guess that his head explodes, but all the other captions merely describe the photos in words.
As for the pictures, the publishers obviously weren't spoilt for choice. These are personal photos rather than studio ones, and while there are some great pictures, there are also some poor ones, as well as several very similar photos which look like they're just padding. Also, there are several instances where the photo spans both the left and right pages, and the publishers have managed to get the page-join in the worst possible place. For instance, on page 64-65 there's a photo of the five people who won Oscars for the special effects for Superman. Of the five, the page join goes through the middle of Meddings. Likewise, on pages 92-93 there's a photo of the model street from Superman II. In the foreground, out of focus, stand the crew and in the background is Meddings wetting down the model. The page join, again, goes through Meddings, with the easy-to-see bits of the picture mostly out of focus.
Basically, the publishers were a bit limited in the photos they had, but also, they just don't seem to have put any effort in. I bought a programme from an exhibition about Meddings at the National Media Museum, and you learn far more about his film career from twelve pages of that, than you do in this entire book. I really hope that at some point somebody writes a decent book about Meddings, but he's not been with us for over fifteen years now, and I have a horrible suspicion that this might be it. What a wasted opportunity.
For starters, there isn't a lot of text, and what text there is is very cursory and contains the odd spelling error. Meddings isn't a big name to anyone outside the Gerry Anderson/Bond fandoms, and this is not a general book about special effects, so anyone reading it will probably know quite a bit about him and his work already, so the fact that we learn practically nothing new is annoying. For example the coverage of "Live And Let Die" is mostly given over to the shot of Baron Samedi's head exploding. There are seven photos over four pages, and yet we're not told what happens in the shot, or how they achieved the effect. One caption reads "Derek adds some extra detail to the figure before shooting the exploded head from a different angle", so you could guess that his head explodes, but all the other captions merely describe the photos in words.
As for the pictures, the publishers obviously weren't spoilt for choice. These are personal photos rather than studio ones, and while there are some great pictures, there are also some poor ones, as well as several very similar photos which look like they're just padding. Also, there are several instances where the photo spans both the left and right pages, and the publishers have managed to get the page-join in the worst possible place. For instance, on page 64-65 there's a photo of the five people who won Oscars for the special effects for Superman. Of the five, the page join goes through the middle of Meddings. Likewise, on pages 92-93 there's a photo of the model street from Superman II. In the foreground, out of focus, stand the crew and in the background is Meddings wetting down the model. The page join, again, goes through Meddings, with the easy-to-see bits of the picture mostly out of focus.
Basically, the publishers were a bit limited in the photos they had, but also, they just don't seem to have put any effort in. I bought a programme from an exhibition about Meddings at the National Media Museum, and you learn far more about his film career from twelve pages of that, than you do in this entire book. I really hope that at some point somebody writes a decent book about Meddings, but he's not been with us for over fifteen years now, and I have a horrible suspicion that this might be it. What a wasted opportunity.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I've been waiting for this since I heard it was on the way and very much looking forward to it. I saw it on the shelves of a London store and eagerly scooped it up. My excitement soon turned to disappointment. I was hoping for more on the Anderson years but this is only covered in the first few pages. The book is a very light on text and full of photos. That wouldn't be all bad it it wasn't for a lot of not very good or interesting pictures.
I'm afraid a great opportunity has been missed, I was expecting a book at least as good as Alan Shubrook's first but with a lot more detail.
Instead you get a coffee table flicker.
Don't rush out to buy, get a look at it first and make your own mind up, but I wont be adding it to my collection, which is a shame.
I'm afraid a great opportunity has been missed, I was expecting a book at least as good as Alan Shubrook's first but with a lot more detail.
Instead you get a coffee table flicker.
Don't rush out to buy, get a look at it first and make your own mind up, but I wont be adding it to my collection, which is a shame.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Apalling
I don't often write reviews on here, but I felt I had to say something about this total pile of rubbish. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Robert Neal
Its Super!
I have to disagree with the last comment. Derek did a lot of things after the Anderson years and the book is what he did in his career as a whole and I think it would have been... Read more
Published on 29 Oct 2008 by Ms. H. Taylor
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
