Matte Paintings:

Matte Paintings:

A matte painting is a still representation of a landscape or set. It allows film makers to create the illusion of an environment that doesn't exist in real life. 

In the mid 19th century photographers began to use double exposure techniques to composite two distinct images into one photograph. In the Victorian era, a so called Spirit photographer captured the imagination of the masses. In the photos, there were ghosts mingling in with life. They were, in reality, simple darkroom tricks or what we call now special effects.  

The Process:

• Firstly a sheet of glass is mounted inside a box which is attached to the front of a camera.
• When the matte artist uses black paint they can then block out all the parts of the scene that will later be replaced with the matte painting. What will be left are the actors in front of some small constructed scenes. 
• The action is shot through a glass matte. This creates a partially-exposed negative. Light wasn't allowed to pass through the blackened parts of the cameras lens so the corresponding parts of the negative are considered as being unexposed. 
• The movie director then shoots minutes of extra footage with the glass matte. The extra footage will then be developed and used as test strips. 
• While in post production the matte artist uses a frame of the test strip as a reference to create a new glass matte. This is where the live action of the scene is blocked out with the black paint. 
• The artist then paints all around the black area. He/she maintains the perspective and composition of the shot and checks their work against the test strip.
• When the artist and director are happy with the blending of the matte painting with the test strip they mount the glass painting onto the front of the camera.
• Finally, they run the partially exposed negative back through the camera and film the scene with the glass matte painting. The live action is blacked out of the painting so the first exposure isn't double exposed. The result of this is a realistic composite image of the action and the matte painting. 

Example:

Deconstruction

The original still image was used to be edited and changed. The image was edited to make the buildings look run down and fall apart. The edit is convincing as the buildings look real and the colour correction is good. Smoke and fog has also been added to the still image to make the daytime image look like the image was at dusk.