Matte painting

Glass painting redirects here. For stained glass, see include Dorothys approach to the Emerald City in The
Stained glass.
Wizard of Oz, Charles Foster Kanes Xanadu in Citizen
For the paint terminology, see Gloss and matte paint.
Kane, and the seemingly bottomless tractor-beam set of
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The rst Star Wars
documentary ever made (The Making of Star Wars, directed by Robert Guenette in 1977 for television) menFor the technique used in photography and spetioned the technique used for the tractor beam scene as
cial eects lmmaking to combine two or more
being a glass painting.[3]
image elements into a single, nal image, see
Matte (lmmaking).
By the mid-1980s, advancements in computer graphics
programs allowed matte painters to work in the digital
realm. The rst digital matte shot was created by painter
Chris Evans in 1985 for Young Sherlock Holmes for a
scene featuring a computer-graphics (CG) animation of
a knight leaping from a stained-glass window. Evans rst
painted the window in acrylics, then scanned the painting
into LucasFilms Pixar system for further digital manipulation. The computer animation (another rst) blended
perfectly with the digital matte, which could not have
been accomplished using a traditional matte painting.[4]

2 New technologies

The government warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

was painted on glass by Michael Pangrazio at Industrial Light &
Magic, and combined with live-action footage of a government
worker, pushing his cargo up the center aisle.

Throughout the 1990s, traditional matte paintings were

still in use, but more often in conjunction with digital
compositing. Die Hard 2 (1990) was the rst lm to
use digitally composited live-action footage with a traditional glass matte painting that had been photographed
and scanned into a computer. It was for the last scene,
which took place on an airport runway.[5] By the end of
the decade, the time of hand-painted matte paintings was
drawing to a close, although as late as 1997 some traditional paintings were still being made, notably Chris
Evans painting of the Carpathia rescue ship in James
Camerons Titanic.[6]

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows lmmakers to
create the illusion of an environment that is not present at
the lming location. Historically, matte painters and lm
technicians have used various techniques to combine a
matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best,
depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the eect is seamless and creates environments
that would otherwise be impossible or expensive to lm.
In the scenes the painting part is static and movements
Paint has now been superseded by digital images created
are integrated on it.
using photo references, 3-D models, and drawing tablets.
Matte painters combine their digitally matte painted textures within computer-generated 3-D environments, al1 Background
lowing for 3-D camera movement.[7] Lighting algorithms
used to simulate lighting sources expanded in scope in
Traditionally, matte paintings were made by artists us- 1995, when radiosity rendering was applied to lm for the
ing paints or pastels on large sheets of glass for inte- rst time in Martin Scorseses Casino. Matte World Diggrating with the live-action footage.[1] The rst known ital collaborated with LightScape to simulate the indirect
matte painting shot was made in 1907 by Norman Dawn bounce-light eect[8] of millions of neon lights of the 70s(ASC), who improvised the crumbling California Mis- era Las Vegas strip.[9] Lower computer processing times
sions by painting them on glass for the movie Missions continue to alter and expand matte painting technologies
of California.[2] Notable traditional matte-painting shots and techniques.
1

Signicant uses
The army barracks in All Quiet On The Western Front
(1930).

REFERENCES

The view of the crashed space ship in The Thing

(1982).
The view of the OCP tower in RoboCop (1987) and
other scenes.

Count Draculas castle exteriors in Dracula (1931)

and other scenes.

Gotham City street scene in Batman (1989).

The view of Skull Island in King Kong (1933).

The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in Contact

(1997).

Charlie Chaplins blindfold roller-skating beside the

illusory drop in Modern Times (1936).

The Magic Railroad in Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000).

The view of Nottingham Castle in The Adventures

of Robin Hood (1938).
The 1942 spy thriller Saboteur, directed by Alfred
Hitchcock, is enhanced by numerous matte shots,
ranging from a California aircraft factory to the climactic scene atop New York's Statue of Liberty.[10]

4 Important traditional
painters and technicians
Michael Pangrazio

In Alfred Hitchcocks North by Northwest (1959)

shots of The United Nations building, Mount Rushmore and the Mount Rushmore house.

Walter Percy Day

Birds ying over Bodega Bay, looking down at the

town below, in Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds (1963).

Linwood G. Dunn

Mary Poppins gliding over London with her umbrella (1964), the St Pauls Cathedral and Londons
rooftops and aerial views.

Peter Ellenshaw

The iconic image of the Statue of Liberty at the end

of Planet of the Apes (1968).
The rooftops of Portobello Road, the English landscape, Miss Prices house and other scenes in
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) (special eects
won an Academy Award).

Norman Dawn

Harrison Ellenshaw

Albert Whitlock
Matthew Yuricich
Leigh Took

5 See also

The city railway line in The Sting (1973).

Bipack

Views of a destroyed Los Angeles in Earthquake

(1974) for which Albert Whitlock won an Academy
Award.

Chroma key

Virtually all of the exterior shots of San Francisco

in The Love Bug (1974).

Digital matte artist

The stone column demolished by the locomotive in

the Chicago station in the lm Silver Streak.
The Death Stars laser tunnel in Star Wars (1977).
The Stareet headquarters in Star Trek The Motion
Picture (1979).
The background for all scenes featuring Imperial
walkers in The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
The nal scene of the secret government warehouse
in Steven Spielbergs Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
The Batty and Deckard chase scene in Blade Runner
(1982).

matte

Compositing

Optical printing

6 References
[1] Matte World Digital | SIGGRAPH 1998 Matte Painting
in the Digital Age | Traditional Matte Paintings | Craig
Barron
[2] The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting
by Mark Cotta Vaz and Craig Barron, Chronicle Books,
2002; p. 33
[3] The Making of Star Wars as told by C-3PO and R2-D2,
1977, directed by Robert Guenette (glass painting technique explained at point 4'45'')

[4] The Invisible Art, Cotta Vaz/Barron, pp. 213, 217

[5] The Invisible Art, Cotta Vaz/Barron, p. 227
[6] The Invisible Art, Cotta Vaz/Barron, p. 19
[7] Matte World Digital | SIGGRAPH 1998 Matte Painting
in the Digital Age | Great Expectations: Creating Movement | Craig Barron
[8] Matte World Digital | SIGGRAPH 1998 Matte Painting in the Digital Age | 3-D Lighting Techniques | Craig
Barron
[9] The Invisible Art, Cotta Vaz/Barron, pp. 244248
[10] Saboteur a showcase of dazzling matte shots and excitement. 22 June 2010.

Books
Mark Cotta Vaz; Craig Barron: The Invisible Art:
The Legends of Movie Matte Painting, Chronicle
Books, 2002; ISBN 0-8118-4515-X
Peter Ellenshaw; Ellenshaw Under Glass Going to
the Matte for Disney
Richard Rickitt: Special Eects: The History and
Technique. Billboard Books; 2nd edition, 2007;
ISBN 0-8230-8408-6 (Chapter 5 covers the history
and techniques of movie matte painting.)

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Matte painting Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_painting?oldid=752235424 Contributors: Netsnipe, Samsara, Chris 73, Misterkillboy, Gadum, MistToys, TiMike, Dagonet, C1k3, Apyule, Philip Cross, Hohum, Tony Sidaway, Woohookitty, Jacobolus, BD2412,
Josh Parris, Nightscream, Bensin, MarnetteD, Quentin X, RussBot, Janke, Georgewilliamherbert, Fram, SmackBot, Zeamays, Bejnar,
Mgiganteus1, MikeWazowski, Sophruhig Vita@comcast.net, Vanisaac, Cyrus XIII, Reywas92, Myscrnnm, Robert Elliott, Girlwithglasses,
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8.2

Images

File:Government_Warehouse.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/Government_Warehouse.jpg License: Fair

use Contributors:
Posted on Wikipedia to illustrate Government warehouse article. Original artist: ?
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Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007

8.3

Content license

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