Guest Post: Brian Selznick gives a behind the scenes look at 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret'

Seven Stories current exhibition, Moving Stories, children's books from page to screen, has been on show since April 2014, and features some of the most well loved and innovative adaptations to grace our screens.

One of our absolute favourites is the Martin Scorsese adaptation of the beautiful book The Invention of Hugo Cabret!, written and illustrated by Brian Selznick. This area of the exhibition has been captivating visitors to the building for months, and the stunning display of costume and behind the scenes photos from the film has been a real highlight.

On the blog today, Brian has very kindly shared some new pictures of the creation of Hugo exclusively with the readers of the Seven Stories Collection blog. All the images and comments below are straight from Brian.

This is a view of the inside of my flat files, where I keep most of the Hugo drawings and dummies. This is dummy with a rough draft of the drawing of Isabelle. You can see how small they are by comparing them to the size of my hand in the photo. They are about 1/4 size of the book.
Image © Brian Selznick

This is the dummy with a sketch of Hugo from the beginning of the book.
Image © Brian Selznick

This is an actual drawing done by the real eighteenth century automaton that I researched for Hugo. The automaton can be found at the Franklin Institute, and when I first discovered him, he was no longer on display, as he'd broken many years earlier. While writing Hugo I met a mechanical genius named Andy Baron who helped me get all the clock and machine descriptions correct. I introduced Andy to the curators at the museum, and now the automaton is fixed and on display again.
Image © Brian Selznick

To find out more about the original automaton, named 'Maillardet's Automaton' click here 

And to see a film of Brian and Andy demonstrating the automaton actually drawing, click here. 

This is a rough sketch of Hugo winding the clocks. You can see notes I've written to Andy Baron asking if they machinery is correct, along with several other notes to my editor.
Image © Brian Selznick

Here is a sketch cut from the end of early drafts of Hugo, along with an early cover design. You can see that the title wasn't always The Invention of Hugo Cabret!
Image © Brian Selznick

Very few final pieces of art are cut from the finished book. Usually I remove drawings while they are still in the rough draft stage. But here is a finished drawing that didn't make it to the final story. Originally, when Hugo was walking across the graveyard to Melies's house, he was going to pass this gravestone with his own name on it. I hoped the reader might think for a moment that Hugo was a ghost, which would add to the mystery, and only later would we find out that Hugo's father had had the same name as him, and this Hugo Cabret was the dad's grave. But for obvious reasons I thought this might get a little confusing, so I cut it.

Image © Brian Selznick

To find out more about Brian Selznick, visit these websites www.theinventionofhugocabret.com and www.wonderstruckthebook.com.

For more information about the Moving Stories, Children's Books from Page to Screen exhibition, click here. The exhibition runs until April 2015.

Moving Stories was curated in partnership with the National Media Museum, to find out more about them, visit this link.