The matte painting is a cinematographic process which consists in painting a decoration by leaving empty spaces there, in which one or more filmed scenes are built-in.

This economic system makes it possible ad infinitum to extend the backgrounds without having to build Pharaonic decorations. It was largely used in science fiction films (whose the Star Wars), because it makes it possible to leave free course with the creativity and the imaginary one.

Traditionally, one used acrylic paintings on glass to create tables of variable size (about 2 square meters), virgins of pigments on certain sites. A real scene (with elements of decoration in harmony) was turned separately, in order to coincide with open left space. There existed 3 techniques to amalgamate the whole:

• the projection before : the filmed scene is projected on a semi-reflective glass plate and the unit is refilmé by another camera.
• the Retro-projection : the filmed scene is projected with the back of the glass plate, visible by transparency, and the unit is refilmé by another camera.
• the latent image : the scene is filmed with a mask. Only a segment test (approximately 60 m of film) is developed and projected on the plate where must be realized painting. The artists see thus exactly contours of the mask and can carry out their table. The remainder of film is not developed. When the matte painting is completed, one re-uses the same film to film only painting. Thus the film contains the mixing of the 2 scenes, directly on the negative one and without system of duplication, which improves its quality. It is a risked process, because the least handling error damages the negative one, but it was used for the Retour of Jedi .

The level of detail of the paintings annealed glass depends on the duration of plan: with less than 4 seconds the eye is not delayed on the details, to 10 that becomes critical. A diurnal scene asks for more smoothness of realization than a plan of night. In the same way, the center of painting is worked more than the edges, because the eye is posed there naturally in first. Final quality is guaranteed by a precise adjustment of contours, lighting, and by the fact that one pays his attention on the action (which is really filmed), more than on the decoration.

The scenes incoroporées in matte paintings can themselves already be worked and to incorporate special effects. Thus, in the Return of Jedi , one of the last scenes showing the Ewoks dancing in the trees around bonfires calls upon 3 different stages, because it was not possible to make dance the actors in their costumes of fur in front of a fire.

• the actors playing the Ewoks were filmed in front of a blue screen (blue-screen).
• fires were filmed separately and were incorporated in the first catch.
• a matte painting representing the forest was scraped at the suitable places to encrust the scenes by retro-projection.

Nowadays, the matte paintings are carried out by means of computer, generally by modeling 3D. It is acted in fact of one of the many layers incorporated in the final numerical composition of a cinematographic special effect.

External bonds

• www.serfx.com: Matte Paintings de Bruno Serre