Author: Michael Singer
Hardcover: 168 pages
Publisher: Insight Editions
Release Date: July 3, 2013
Our Score: 3 out of 5 stars
If you look at a film like “The Lone Ranger” you can tell that it was one hell of a production and cost around $250 million dollars to make. So when it comes to the behind-the-scenes making of book, I was hoping for a huge elaborate look in the making-of the film. I have to admit, I was a little bit let down. I feel that this book would have benefited more from a “Art of” book then a behind-the-scenes look. “The Lone Ranger: Behind the Mask” tells a story of the long and hard road that it took in order to get this movie made. I would maybe recommend this to die-hard Depp fans. But be warned though of spoilers included towards the end of the book.
Since this was such an enormous production, we get an inside look at the huge sets in Albuquerque, the epic vistas of Monument Valley, and the sound stages of Los Angeles. Accompanying that with some great shots of the cast and crew as well as some candid behind-the-scenes look. There is some concept art and planning work for the characters and sets. Like I said, I would have loved to seen more focus on the art behind the film but at least we get a little taste of that in this book. The photos included though are high quality and do show a great deal of scale from the production.
One thing I should point out after this book is that is filled with celebrity cameos. There are afterwords from Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer. There is an introduction by director Gore Verbinski. There is a special photo foreword from Jerry Bruckheimer. At first when I show the cover of this book, I thought to myself if there was actually anything in between all these various afterwords and forewords. The author of the book, Michael Singer, definitely brings a great knowledge of books based on behind-the-scenes of films. He worked on “Bring Me That Horizon: The Making of Pirates of the Caribbean”, again also with Bruckheimer, Depp and Verbinski. So I guess you can call this project a family reunion.