Matte Painting Research Articles

Hand painted movie stills: a study of the aesthetics of the cinematographic space in painted scenography

ABSTRACT Scenes as vivid in our cinematographic memory as Tara’s views in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939), the oppressive sewers in the final sequence of The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949), the vistas of Rome in Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959) or the famous final shot on the beach in Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968), all place the viewer, without their awareness, in front of an image produced using the mechanism known as matte painting. It is a resource to which cinema has turned with considerable frequency over the course of its history, albeit one which has received little to no analytical attention from film studies. With a view to redressing this omission, this essay will aim to create a conceptual framework within which a rigorous analysis of this technique can be carried out in the context of film aesthetics. For this, it will be useful to start by reviewing the existing definitions of this term and proposing not one but two updated ones. This will then allow us to conceptualize this practice as a mechanism for assembling spaces, employing analytical tools used for editing in order to understand the way in which matte painting performs its unique construction of the cinematographic space.

There's No Place Like Home(land) in American and Soviet Fantasy Cinema of 1939: The Wizard of Oz and Vasilisa the Beautiful

There's No Place Like Home(land) in American and Soviet Fantasy Cinema of 1939: <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> and <i>Vasilisa the Beautiful</i>

Examining the Influence of Using First-Person View Drones as Auxiliary Devices in Matte Painting Courses on College Students' Continuous Learning Intention.

In terms of the teaching process of matte painting, it is essential for students to develop a sound understanding of the relationship between virtual and physical environments. In this study, first-person view (FPV) drones are applied to matte painting courses to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching, and to propose more effective design suggestions for FPV drones that are more suitable for teaching. This provides students with a better learning environment using a digital education system. The results of the study indicate that the flow experience, learning interest, and continuous learning intention of students who use FPV drones in matte painting are significantly greater than those of students who only utilize traditional teaching methods. Furthermore, the technology incentive model (TIM) was developed in this study after being verified by the structural equation model. The results demonstrate that the second-order construct ‘technology incentive’ comprising perceived interactivity, perceived vividness, and novel experience positively influence students’ learning interest and continuous learning intentions under the mediation of flow experience.

Visual effects and their importance in the field of visual media creation

The paper presents visual effects and their importance in the creation of visual media and film industry. After defining the field and the term visual effects, the reader is introduced to the techniques and approaches used to create visual effects, i.e., computer-generated Imagery, 3D computer graphics, motion capture, matchmoving, chroma key, rotoscoping, matte painting, and digital compositing. This is followed by a presentation of the history of visual effects from its beginnings to the digital age, taking in the most successful examples of film production such as Terminator, Toy Story, The Matrix, and Star Wars. As an example of the most representative production, the paper includes a more detailed description of the techniques, methods, and approaches used in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, focusing on the creation of the visual appearance of the Gollum character, his movement, and facial expressions, the creation of crowds with autonomous agents and the introduction of digital duplicates. The review concludes with an overview of trends for the future of the field.

The main methods of introducing design elements and graphics in video

The subject of the study is the process of many aspects of audiovisual creativity that must be taken into account when creating a video. The object of the work is to create a movie trailer through the use of design elements and graphics in the video sequence. The study examines the trailer of a post-apocalyptic fantasy genre called "Genesis", in which the two main characters are depicted as opposites. The work examines and describes in detail all the stages of creating a video trailer for the film, including visual representation (rendering the texture of the central objects, choosing a font to display the title of the film, controlling the movement of actors and moving frames), audio accompaniment of the video sequence (music, voiceover, sound effects). The paper notes that the main goal of all the stages of trailer development considered in the article is to create an audiovisual project of professional quality. The main methods used in the study are visual effects modeling and 3D modeling in Houdini, creating realistic matte paintings in Photoshop and video compositing in Nuke. The main conclusions of the study are those specialized programs that allow you to create a high-quality author's product. This software will become the core of the project, since it is in it that all the elements will be combined into one final clip due to the high-quality integration of various objects of the scene. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that within the framework of the work, the characteristics of the possibilities of working with various video editors and graphic programs were carried out, which together help the creators of movie trailers and other similar products to realize the tasks of entertainment and quality of the projects produced.

Virtual and didactic approach to the defensive heritage of the 16th century Fort of the Trinitat (Roses, Girona)

The Trinitat Fort, built in the mid-16th century, is an extraordinary example of European military architecture from the mid-16th century, conceived as an artillery machine, whose mission was to protect the natural port of Roses (Girona, Spain). The fortification had a long history of warfare that ended with the Peninsular War (1808–1814), which turned it into ruins. In 2002, the Roses city council planned an ambitious architectural intervention to recover the fortification. The works restored the overall exterior volumetry, with current construction materials. The large interior spaces resulting from the intervention had little in common with the original structures. Starting in 2016, the museum projected to open the fort to the public. The strategy focused on 3D works, which were used to plan museographic proposals and to make an interior space understandable, with an aspect very distant from that of the original construction. It entailed extensive fieldwork analyzing the sources and structural remains that were preserved and surmising the possible architectural solutions the fortress originally contained. Based on evidence and hypotheses, the group carried out a reconstruction from virtual archeology, and it developed a didactic iconography to explain the artifact to a broad spectrum of visitors and students. This iconography was applied on the panels, in the scenography and audiovisuals of the museum, and in the dissemination materials. The museography was implemented between 2019 and 2021. Considering the variables and comprehensive needs for a wide range of users and visitors, we completed the virtual archeology proposal based on realistic criteria, giving importance in 3D to textures and colors. It incorporated the anthropic and movable factors through matte painting techniques and images obtained with the support of re-enactment groups.Highlights: - The Fort of the Trinitat, built in the middle of the 16th century, is an extraordinary poliorcetic piece, conceived as an artillery machine, whose mission was to protect the natural port of Roses (Girona, Spain). - Between 2019 and 2021, an ambitious reconstruction of virtual archaeology has been carried out, developing a didactic iconography aimed at broad-spectrum visitors and formal education students. - The didactic iconography proposal developed in the Fort of the Trinitat does not try to compete with the large market productions, but it does try to explore sustainable intervention models to make the past and its heritage known.

Reconstrucción virtual en 3D del castillo de Gauzón (Castrillón, Principado de Asturias)

&lt;p class="VARKeywords"&gt;The virtual reconstruction of a site is the mirror in which the archaeological research process is reflected, with all its uncertainties and certainties, generating a space for reflection on the lost materiality while the vestige itself is reconfigured into a didactic and social resource. Here we present the result of the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the archaeological structures preserved in the Peñón de Raíces, in Castrillón (Asturias), which correspond to the ruins of the castle of Gauzón, a famous fortification of the Asturian kings in which La Cruz de la Victoria was made in 908.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The article begins with an introduction and a first part (Section 2) dedicated to the explanation of the site itself from an archaeological and historical point of view. We believe that this analysis should be the basis of any scientific virtual reconstruction. The virtual reconstruction presented here is dated to the 9-10th centuries and corresponds to the fortification built in the time of the Asturian kings. We offer a detailed analysis of the morphological and architectural components that have been documented in this defensive settlement in the light of archaeological research, and that provide the main foundations for the infographic reconstruction.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the second part of the article (Section 3), we analyse the specific sources of historical and archaeological information that support the reconstruction and serve as a reference for it. The historical-archaeological sources used for the representation, for example, of the walls and the palaeoenvironmental environment, are detailed. Likewise, we comment on the process of discussion of the different hypotheses that, finally, lead to the presented result. It is important to note that without this discussion process it is not possible to produce a sound and solid proposal over time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the third part (Section 4), we show the result of the virtual reconstruction with a series of images. To obtain the virtual reconstruction presented in this article, the Blender Geographic Information System (GIS) addon has been used, which allows us to have a digital terrain model (DTM) on our 3D desktop easily so that we can begin to carry out the work from it. The archaeological planimetries were arranged on it and, based on all this information, the modelling process began. In the first place, basic modelling of volumes was carried out that served to raise the first sketches and, on them, to continue discussing the reconstructive hypotheses. Little by little the geometry of the virtual reconstruction was detailed and the castle took shape. The next step was to carry out texturing in a photorealistic way, for which it was decided to use Substance Painter software. We continued with the texturing and addition of details of the surrounding terrain using particle systems, which has been one of the most complex phases to carry out given the level of realism that we set ourselves as a goal. Later, other types of minor details were added: objects, characters and animals, which help to better understand the context. Finally, the final renderings are carried out and their post-processing is developed in Adobe Photoshop, for which matte painting techniques were used that merge 3D images with photographs and digital drawing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our interest was to carry out scientific graphic work, for which we have emphasized the importance of using the scale depicting historical/archaeological evidence for virtual reconstructions, a tool that allows us to ensure the principles of authenticity and scientific transparency of any virtual reconstruction (Aparicio et al., 2016). In this case, thanks to this tool, it is clear that the highest level of evidence is found in the castle itself excavated in the acropolis, while the town and the surrounding palisade clearly show a lower level of evidence. We hope that subsequent excavations in this area will allow us to review the reconstruction and thus also reflect a higher level of evidence in this area.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We believe that the work presented here constitutes a good example of the use of virtual scientific reconstruction for the development and consolidation of new hypotheses not only reconstructive but also interpretive of an archaeological site. Furthermore, the result presented here demonstrates the power of this graphic resource for the dissemination of historical-archaeological knowledge, a fundamental objective when carrying out any scientific work.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Highlights:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reconstrucción infográfica de una de las principales fortificaciones del reino de Asturias (s. VIII-X), a partir de la evidencia material documentada en las campañas de excavación arqueológica realizadas en el yacimiento.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Desarrollo de hipótesis reconstructivas de arquitectura militar altomedieval arruinada mediante la interpretación de vestigios arqueológicos aplicando un enfoque multidisciplinar.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ejemplo de uso de la escala de evidencia histórico-arqueológica y de las unidades reconstructivas (UR) como instrumentos que permiten garantizar los principios de autenticidad y transparencia científica.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;

From the Opening Sequence of Citizen Kane to the Final Shot of The Birds: A Filmic Microanalysis of Three Painted Scenes

Abstract This article aims to highlight the importance of matte painting in cinematographic construction and to emphasize the analytical value of these pieces of artwork. To this end, three painted scenes were chosen and subjected to a multifaceted analysis that underlines their contribution as pictorial creations, their role in landscape painting tradition, and their function as an element of filmmaking construction, within a set film model, while providing evidence for the unique ways in which this technique connects film and painting.

Generating Digital Painting Lighting Effects via RGB-space Geometry

We present an algorithm to generate digital painting lighting effects from a single image. Our algorithm is based on a key observation: Artists use many overlapping strokes to paint lighting effects, i.e., pixels with dense stroke history tend to gather more illumination strokes. Based on this observation, we design an algorithm to both estimate the density of strokes in a digital painting using color geometry and then generate novel lighting effects by mimicking artists’ coarse-to-fine workflow. Coarse lighting effects are first generated using a wave transform and then retouched according to the stroke density of the original illustrations into usable lighting effects. Our algorithm is content-aware, with generated lighting effects naturally adapting to image structures, and can be used as an interactive tool to simplify current labor-intensive workflows for generating lighting effects for digital and matte paintings. In addition, our algorithm can also produce usable lighting effects for photographs or three-dimensional rendered images. We evaluate our approach with both an in-depth qualitative and a quantitative analysis that includes a perceptual user study. Results show that our proposed approach is not only able to produce favorable lighting effects with respect to existing approaches, but also that it is able to significantly reduce the needed interaction time.

Brushstroke Cinema: The Concept of Matte Painting in the Work of Peter Ellenshaw and Albert Whitlock

Matte painting, the creation of a cinematographic space through pictorial methods, is a particular element of film construction that has, until now, been considered of secondary importance in academic research and studies on filmmaking. This article aims to substantiate its value as a practice and demonstrate the importance of the careers and works of two of the most influential matte painters whose contributions had a lasting aesthetic impact on filmmaking at a global level: Peter Ellenshaw, an advocate for the purity of profilmic practical trickery, and Albert Whitlock, whose work explored the limits of matte painting and its dynamic conditions. This study offers a detailed analysis of their work, enabling us to illustrate the different visions of matte painting developed by these two creators as well as their individual contributions to this art form and the ways they utilized this particular filmmaking technique in which cinema is intertwined with painting.

The spectacle of realism: special effects at Ealing Studios, 1940–45

This article presents a revisionist account of Ealing Studios’ production practices by focusing on the role that special effects techniques played in the creation of the studio’s documentary-realist filmmaking aesthetic. Ealing is traditionally described as finding its wartime purpose by combining documentary-realist and mainstream film narrative techniques, a style claimed to echo through British cinema in decades to come. Yet at the heart of the studio’s ‘realistic’ wartime narratives such as San Demetrio, London (1943) and The Bells Go Down (1943) lies a complex set of ‘special effects’ techniques – understood here as an umbrella term that covers miniatures, matte paintings and back projection. A challenge to existing understanding of special effects, which are claimed to foreground generic enjoyment and visual spectacle, the article explores a series of case studies where realism and authenticity becomes the purported aim of such illusionistic activity.

Sobre la significación en la representación paisajística del "matte painting" cinematográfico. Propuesta para una clasificación

El matte painting, técnica de elaboración de escenarios cinematográficos por medios pictóricos, acoge una de las relaciones más activas y sofisticadas de cuantas se establecen entre cine y pintura. Sin embargo, paradójicamente, un fenómeno tan singular y complejo como este, a medio camino entre lo genuinamente pictórico y lo netamente cinematográfico, no ha recibido hasta el momento un tratamiento suficiente por parte de investigaciones de carácter teórico o académico. En el presente artículo dejamos al margen su estatuto como trucaje y pretendemos contemplar el modo en que, a raíz de su particular construcción de la imagen fílmica, es capaz de soportar un análisis como obra pictórica de pleno derecho. Una reivindicación que nos confronta ante la sugestiva perspectiva de plantear el estudio de estos planos cinematográficos en relación con el funcionamiento significante del texto pictórico que portan. Contemplar al matte painting como una pintura paisajística sumergida en el interior del medio fílmico nos va a permitir plantear un análisis en torno a la intencionalidad y actitud del autor en el acto de comunicación y sobre cómo este significado es transmitido al espectador, apoyando nuestro estudio en las herramientas existentes para la fotografía paisajística.

Serial Nuns: Michelle Williams Gamaker’s &lt;em&gt;The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten&lt;/em&gt; as Serial and Trans-Serial

Serial Nuns: Michelle Williams Gamaker’s &lt;em&gt;The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten&lt;/em&gt; as Serial and Trans-Serial

Use of nanocoatings for the restoration of matte paintings

Nanotechnology has been used with promising results for the conservation of cultural heritage. Nanotechnology completely modifies some properties of pure polymers, such as their gas permeability an...

Matte painting or the quest for the perfect illusion

For over a century, matte paintings have abounded in films. This trick consists in enlarging a “real” space with a decorative painting, via different techniques. Like any faking, matte painting strives to create a particular illusion, in this case to give the impression that the painted scenery actually exists. To achieve this “trick of the camera,” the artists constantly try to draw the viewer’s eyes to specific parts of the image, to details that are used to authenticate the rest of the shot, thus diverting the spectator’s attention from areas that could reveal their true nature and destroy the illusion. This article analyzes the modus operandi of the “illusionistic detail,” especially that of moving details such as birds, and the issue of the ripple effect of illusion, from the detail to the shot, to the film.

Highly transparent poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline)-TiO2nanocomposite coatings for the conservation of matte painted artworks

A nanocomposite coating based on TiO2nanoparticles and poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) is used as consolidant of matte paintings (such as temperas), by exploiting bulk scattering phenomenon to mimic the surface diffusive properties of the painted surface.

Pendekatan Pemandangan Realistik dengan Menggunakan Digital Matte Painting

Movie is one entertainment that is favored by most people. Scenery appearance and spectacular shoots made movie needs high budget for the production. There are shoots looking difficult and needing extra efforts, but obviously it could be solved by using latest technology. Such technology is a combination of 3D and digital painting or image so it could bring digital painting alive: matte painting, a breakthrough in visual effects and movie. The research is conducted through exploration from manipulated images, references and retrieved real images in the specific place. Camera movement is also an important frame to define how far the image will be seen in the camera. So, when it is applied, it has no images that less-showed in camera framing. Although it has limitation in 2D images taken from limited frame, digital matte painting is able to answer industry needs in entertainment to create things that look real.

A Motion Repeating System for Special Effect Photography

This is a motion reproducing system for use in “special effect shots” (multiple exposures, matte paintings, pan and tilt traveling matte shots, etc.) which permits the change of a camera position and adjustment while photographing a scene. Then, with the film rewound to the original starting point, a second exposure is made on the same film of a second scene, duplicating the relation of camera position and adjustments to the film movement which existed while photographing the first scene. This is done with sufficient accuracy to match matte lines in any of the standard double-exposure or other similar effect shots.