Page 44 - Star Wars Insider #176

MATTE PAINTINGS

he Death Star’s scenery in order to create the 01 (Opening models and assisting with the
page) The

chasms. Bespin’s illusion of a larger setting—had digital matte Dykstraflex camera that fi lmed
T Cloud City. been developed and refi ned. The painting for those models on ILM’s stage.
Padmé’s
processes by which visual effects
The Ewoks’
funeral in “The work would go through
village in the artists bring matte paintings to the facility like a pig through a
Revenge of
trees of Endor. cinematic life would continue the Sith. python,” Huston recalls. “It would
The Gungans’ home beneath the to be finessed over the course of be crazy-busy in the model shop

02 Paul Huston
waters of Naboo. The starship the original trilogy and beyond, works on one until the models were fi nished
graveyard of Jakku. The rain- taking the paintings into the his models and could be photographed on
for The
soaked crags of Eadu. What could digital realm. the stage, and then the stage
Phantom
unite such disparate vistas? Menace. would be really busy. I followed
From the beginning of the New Hope, Old Process the pig just to keep working!”
03 Huston
Star Wars saga through to its most Paul Huston has been behind On the original Star
photographs
recent big-screen installments, the scenes for every live-action the landscape Wars, “there wasn’t a matte
matte paintings have helped Star Wars movie, from the 1977 models for department per se,” Huston
The Phantom

realize far-flung settings that original to Rogue One: A Star Wars Menace. explains. “[Concept artist] Ralph
dazzle the eyes and fuel the Story. He joined ILM in 1975, McQuarrie did some paintings,
04 Huston at
imagination. By the time George fresh out of architecture school at Harrison Ellenshaw did some,
work on
Lucas formed Industrial Light the University of Colorado, where the TIE and [visual effects art director] Joe
& Magic (ILM) to create the he also studied media and art. fighter Johnston did a couple. Because
models for
visual effects for the original Star Based on his illustration of my eclectic interests, I helped
the original
Wars, multiple variations of the portfolio, he was hired as a visual- trilogy. photograph some of those.”
technique—which combines a effects storyboard artist at ILM. Harrison Ellenshaw was
live-action element with painted Before long, he was also building the head of Disney’s matte
02 03

department when he received
special dispensation to work on
Star Wars’ matte paintings for two
months. By the time he joined
the production in early 1977,
McQuarrie had already been
working on matte paintings of the
film’s planets as seen from space.

The matte painters’ myriad
responsibilities included
matching the perspective of the
live-action element, mimicking
the characteristics of whatever
lens had been used for the live-
action plate, and compressing or
embellishing the sense of depth
as required. For instance, with
04 the high-angle view of the curved

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