Modern matte artists might create entire landscapes or small set pieces such as statues or buildings to be digitally composited into footage.ĭigital matte painting is used to change the landscape, to turn a single background extra into thousands of people, to change a sunny sky to an ominous one, and to manipulate film footage in many other ways. Modern matte artists use a variety of digital painting techniques to create digital matte paintings, including scanning photographs or images of handmade artwork, collaging images, or even pure digital painting techniques. Sometimes pastel drawings or actual paintings are used as concept references or even photographed and scanned into a computer as a base for the visual setting to be digitally altered and layered with other images to create the final setting. Though digital renderings are the new bread and butter of VFX, actual painting still has a place in the film world. The first ever digital matte painting was created by painter Chris Evans for the 1985 film Young Sherlock Holmes, when he scanned a photographic image and layered it with a digital drawing to create a scene.įun Fact: Chris Evans also did a lot of the matte paintings for the Star Wars films, including the spaceship hangar in the famous imperial march sequence. The principal of matte painting, inserting live action shots into a painted fictional world, is still used in nearly every film made today.īut now matte painting is primarily digital and almost unrecognizable from its origins as paintings on glass. One of the very last hand painted matte paintings was used in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic. The use of matte painting was a standard film technique throughout the 20th century appearing in more and more major films before digital VFX came onto the scene and became the new standard. He used this technique to disguise eyesores in a location and otherwise alter the setting of his films. He’d then rewind the film and shoot a matte painting with new elements he wanted to include in a scene, like trees or additions to buildings. Matte painting has been around as a technique since the late 1800s when photographers were playing with partially exposed film.īut it was made popular as a film technique by a filmmaker named Norman Dawn who would put black tape on a sheet of glass positioned between the camera and the scene he was shooting. So when the painting was filmed again, the live action would fill the blank spaces on the now double-exposed film. The black coverings were then removed from the clear glass holes and a projector behind the painting would project the live action onto those spaces on the painting. Artwork created by Isaac NykampĪfter the initial shot the film was rewound. The painting was then filmed with a stationary camera for the length of the shot. This would prevent light from getting into the camera in those places so the film would essentially be blank in those spots. Once a matte painting was created with clear glass “holes” where the live action would go, the first step was to put a black covering behind the holes. The original technique involved painting a photorealistic scene on a sheet of glass with either paint or pastels, leaving parts of the glass clear where live action would be inserted later. Though most matte paintings these days are created in computer programs with the live action composited digitally, old school matte paintings use careful double exposure of the film to create the illusion of the live action happening in the painted scene. Nowadays nearly all modern films use digital matte paintings. Those films all used actual paintings on sheets of glass to create the illusion of an ewok village, a massive artifacts warehouse, a cliff face, or a night sky. Think of films like The Wizard of Oz (come on, you knew that Emerald City scene was painted, right?), The Birds, the original Star Wars films, Mary Poppins, Titanic, and the Indiana Jones movies. While it originated as a photography technique, matte painting has been used by the film industry since the late 19th century and some of the most famous films in history used them to create fantastical worlds. The basic principle of matte painting is that part of the scene is “masked off”, either with black material, green screens, or digital cropping. Matte painting, in both traditional form and its current digital form, is a film technique that combines art and live action to create the illusion of a setting that would otherwise be too expensive, inconvenient, or impossible to film live. That means if you buy something we get a small commission at no extra cost to you( learn more) Tips Digital Painting Written by McKella Sawyer Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links.
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