Matte Paintings Research

Matte paintings are painted representations of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is nonexistent in real life or would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Matte paintings can be used very effectively to add to the setting of the film, when used correctly.


History of Matte Paintings:

• Matte paintings were made by artists using paints or pastels on large sheets of glass for integrating with live-action footage.
• The first known matte painting shot was made in 1907 by Norman Dawn (ASC), who improvised the crumbling California Missions by painting them on glass for the movie Missions of California.
• Well known traditional matte painting shots include Dorothy's approach to the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu in Citizen Kane, and the bottomless tractor-beam set of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
• By the mid-1980s, advancements in computer graphics programs allowed matte painters to work in the digital realm. The first digital matte shot was created by a 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.

 

The Wizard of Oz is an example of a film that has used matte painting, for example when they are approaching the Emerald City. It was used because there is nothing in real life resembling Emerald City and they couldn't afford to build a city, obviously, so the only option there was, was to draw it as a matte painting. I find this matt painting convincing considering that it is an old film, however the quality of the drawing isn't perfect, as the characters are quite faint and washed out compared to the image. I think that the background looks slightly stylized, however it suits the theme of the movie because it's not meant to be natural and normal.