 Hello everyone and welcome to another solo review. I'm doing this review for two reasons really. The first one being that we got some new gear to up the production for season 6. And I just want to put it through its paces, make sure everything's working okay before we actually go out and shoot episode 1 for season 6. Which should be happening in a few weeks so keep your eyes peeled. I'm excited about it, I know Justin's excited about it and I hope you're excited for season 6 too. The second reason I want to do this review is I really want to let everyone know about this awesome book that Justin got me for my birthday. It is called Taking Shape, Developing Halloween from Script to Scream. It is written by Dustin McNeil and Travis Mullins and Dustin McNeil is no slouch, this is not his first rodeo. He's actually written other books about different horror franchises in the past. If you're a huge fan of Halloween like I am and you think you know everything there is to know about the Halloween series, well then, like myself my friend, you are full of shit. There's tons of stuff in this book that I never knew about, it goes very in depth and I'm sure even the biggest super fan would find something they didn't know in the pages of this book. If you're a fan of something that's very picture heavy, behind the scenes photos and stuff like that, you may be a little disappointed because there are actually zero production pictures or pictures at all for that matter in this book. It's basically 378 pages worth of text and information and interviews. It chronicles the making of every single Halloween movie starting from of course John Carpenter's classic, all the way up through Halloween Resurrection, the two Rob Zombie Halloween movies and then of course it ends with Halloween 2018. Each chapter is about the making of each movie and it goes in chronological order and each chapter starts off the same way with the original idea for the movie. Who had this initial pitch they would take to the studio or the producers to say this is my idea for a new Halloween movie and then how they hired the directors, why they chose the director they did for each movie. Then it goes into the detail of the casting, why the directors cast certain actors, which actors are maybe considered for roles but not actually hired. Then it talks about the actual shoot of the movie, different stories of things that happened on set, little roll blocks that may have come across or things that decided last minute we got to add this to the movie now. It goes into detail about how the scripts all evolved over time from the initial idea to the shooting script to revisions made on set. It talks about scenes that were maybe on the script but were never shot, scenes that were filmed but then left on the cutting room floor or maybe scenes that they decided we need after the movie had already been shot they have to go out and do reshoots. The critical response to each movie is detailed after the making of the movie so it goes into both the movie critics and what the fans of the franchise thought of each movie. At the end of each chapter we have interviews from any sort of person you can think of that had to do with the movie. Everyone from editors to producers to the directors, people I never even knew existed. And it's very interesting because you get different points of view about the making of each movie. And of course the editors point of view might be different than the directors and so forth. Of course there's different versions of each movie. It talks about the difference between the television version of the movie, the director's cut, the theatrical cut. If there happens to be a producer's cut, all the different scenes that were added or removed for each version is all detailed. A lot of the early movies had novelizations written for them so it goes into depth about the authors of each novel. Whether or not they had a shooting script to base their novel off of. What they decided to add that was different from the movies to either build character or do world building within Halloween. I found it super interesting that the whole pagan concept and the addition of rituals and Sam Hain was actually introduced in the first novelization for the first movie. Before any sequel ever even touched on that kind of stuff. The biggest takeaway from Taking Shape is you really get to see the journey the whole franchise takes from its humble beginnings as a low budget shoestring movie. Which made a lot of money with no studio interference to what eventually became a franchise that were bidding wars over. Everyone wanted to own Halloween and make a Halloween movie and make the money off it. Then we get to Halloween Resurrection where there's so much studio interference where there's just a debacle and the movie bombed and nobody even wanted to touch it. The franchise was in purgatory. It then takes us to the Rob Zombie movies and I'm not a huge fan of the Rob Zombie Halloween films but reading this book I did find more appreciation from where he was coming from. He didn't want to remake John Carpenter's Halloween he wanted to do his own thing. So it really makes me appreciate these movies as a horror movie more so I think they work better than as a Halloween movie. Of course talks about the rise from the ashes that the 2018 movie gave us. And it really when you read it from front to back you really see the arc that the franchise takes from nothing to mega hit to a debacle to confuse Rob Zombie movies to then finally another hit being the 2018 version. It really puts into perspective how Hollywood goes about making movies and how when the franchise got very Hollywood how the movies became worse. There are more fingers and hands in the pot trying to get their ideas in there all the studio and producer interference just tearing scripts to ribbons. Halloween Resurrection for example the end product was nothing like the original script or idea because several people are brought in throughout the movie to do rewrites then producers are coming in with their own ideas. You know the poor director and the poor screenwriter are just like what are we doing here that's this movie is just a complete mess. So seeing how Hollywood made their movies as compared to the way Carpenter made his movie is very eye opening and you really see the difference between low budget lightning in a bottle movie masterpiece and a studio produced debacle. This book really makes you appreciate the movie making process and all the hard work that goes into making these movies. And what some of these poor script writers and directors had to go through by the time these movies got Hollywood eyes and the producers and studios are trying to basically just destroy their work. I totally recommend this for any Halloween fan I think you'll really enjoy it and to top things off there's also a sequel book which I have not yet read which Justin also got me for my birthday called Taking Shape 2. This book is about all the Halloween sequels which did not get made either they got to pre-production and were scrapped or ideas floating around movie studios they were contemplating making. I can't wait to read this if it's as good as taking shape part one part two will be just a blast. So if you're a fan of Halloween please pick up Taking Shape 1 and 2 and until next time keep reading.