Matte Painting, Green screen and Rotoscoping

With learning about the history of cinema and the old processes that were used I decided to do some research on films I enjoy and some of the old school techniques they used, how they work today and how they were discovered with the three I researched being Matte painting, Green screen and Rotoscoping.

Matte Painting  

Matte painting is often a glass pane that is painted over with whatever is needed like landscapes, large set pieces, large mass of people and missing parts of locations. For example in the Planet of the Apes in this shot the statue of liberty was created using matte painting by painting the statue onto a pane of glass and then moving that pane of glass in front of the camera and adjusting it so it seems like it should be there.

There is not a known date of when matte painting was introduced as it was mainly used in photography before film but one famous original use of the technique was back in 1898 when magician and filmmaker Georges Males used matte paintings in his film four heads are better than one. He used the technique by painting a glass pane black which kept light from reaching the camera. This meant that parts of the film were not exposed to light and so parts of the frames were empty. By rewinding the film and removing the black matte and blocking out the rest of the frame meant that he could film the shot again with him in the unblocked part. This gave the effect of him being in two places at once. He used this technique several times to create 3 others of himself.

Frank Williams helped develop a new process that could be used for matte paintings in 1918. This new process was called the Williams process and was achieved by placing actors in front of black backgrounds and then the film would be copied to create high contrast negatives. The negatives become a white silhouette of the actors. One of the best and most famous uses of this new Williams process was in The Invisible Man (1933) were Claude Rains the actor for the invisible man wore a black velvet suit underneath his costume so when he stood in front of the black background and took his costume off revealing the black suit it appeared as if he was invisible.

The use of matte paintings in Star Wars Episode VI was used because  the things required from the shots in which it was used couldn’t be achieved without hiring an army of people, creating hundreds of custom costumes and would involve having to create massive and complicated sets like for the emperors arrival everything except the red guards and the first set of soldiers on the right are real the rest is painted.  If just for this one shot if matte painting wasn’t used not only all the set building and extra actors required it would push back the production time so much as everything would need to be sorted and built which would also cost a lot of money as well.

Matte paintings were used by painting elements within the movie that could not be created physically. So things like the millennium falcon would be to costly at the time to create and would take a lot of time to create so matte paintings were the solution to this.

I thought the use of the matte paintings was very convincing. Until recently I did not know that matte paintings were used in the Star wars movies and I have watched the movies quite a few times and never once have I noticed the use of the matte paintings. The effect looks really good and works perfectly with the setting of the movies.

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is a technique were you trace over picture footage and frame by frame adjust what you are tracing over so it acts the way you want it to like a bird flying would involve tracing the bird frame by frame so it appears it is flying.

Rotoscoping was first created by a polish animator called Max Fleischer back in 1915 and was used in his animated series called Out of the Inkwell from 1918 to 1927. The technique was originally named after him (the Fleischer process) and was originally used exclusively by himself.

This technique was used in the first three star wars movies but the technique was now more digital instead of having to trace out each individual. Rotoscoping is probably most famously known for it's usage in the original Star Wars films, episodes IV, V and VI (1977, 1980 and 1983), to create the lightsaber effects. While filming, the actors held and fought with sticks which were traced to create the appropriate mattes and a drawing of the lightsaber blade for each frame. When all the frames were played it gave the sense that they were holding the lightsabers we see in the films instead of sticks.

• A Scanner Darkly (2006)- Rotoscope was used in the film as the writer and director Richard Linklater believed that at the time there was very little animation that was targeted for adults. The technique also linked with his personal experiences with lucid dreaming and inspired him to use it in the film. Rotoscoping was used in the movie using Rotoshop and a technique called interpolated rotoscope. I think the final piece looks good and it achieves what its trying to aim for with the animation. I don't think the point is to try and look convincing which it doesn't.

Green screen 



Green screening is the process of using bright green backdrops and objects that can be easily defined from the rest of the things in the shot like actors and props. This is so in post production editors can easily use Chroma keying which is the technique of removing the green from the backdrops and objects and replacing them with what is required like making it appear someone is in the desert or floating in space.

The first person to introduce and use Chroma keying (green screening) was Larry Butler an American special effects artist he developed using Chroma keying at RK0 Radio pictures back in the 1930's for the film The thief of Bagdad. The screen was originally blue and was only changed to the bright green we know today back in 1970. It was changed because green was a better colour to use as not many props or outfits had the use of green in them but blue was quite a common colour to use and wear for movies.

The Matrix (1999) was one of the movies that began to develop and push the boundaries with green screen. For example with this fight scene they set up an entire room full of green screen with a load of individual cameras poking out through holes so that when the shot tracks around the two in the middle there doesn't need to be a cut as the entire room is just green screen so this scene could be shot in all one motion and capture.

Doctor Strange 2016- The film used a ton of green screen for a lot of the shots. The reasoning behind using green screen was that the things required in the shots like portals and kaleidoscope looking buildings and visuals was impossible to achieve without using green screen or if any other techniques could be used for certain shots it would not live up to the technical standard compared to using green screen.

 For the green screen in the movie they created entire green screen rooms and studios like in the screenshot in the bottom left for scenes were the entire background and area of the shot include VFX. For shots were they only needed part of the shot to include VFX like the portal effect in the screenshot to the right they added a glowing ring of light for reference to where the portal would be so they could add the green screen in retrospect to the ring. It also helped guide the actors for where to stand and where to look. The ring was also used to build upon for the sparks coming from the portal.

I thought the final pieces of the green screen were very well done the movie was nominated and won several awards on the visual effects within the movie and I thought rightly so. I thought the effects were very realistic and worked well within the movie.