Page 28 - Star Wars Insider (Special Edition 2020)

MATTE PAINTINGS
05
could produce better-quality
results, projecting the live-action
plate gave the team more control,
as they could adjust the plate’s
size using the projector. When
choosing between front and
rear projection, the former was
usually preferable because the
highly reflective Scotchlite screen
provided a brighter source, which
in turn enabled faster exposures.
And as the postproduction
schedule ticked away, every
second counted.
Auto Matte And More
For Return of the Jedi, Pangrazio
took the reins of the matte
painting department, overseeing
the creation of approximately 45
illustrations, for which he was
joined by matte painter Chris
Evans. “Craig Barron was the
camera supervisor, and he prepped
me to take over a lot of things,”
Huston reflects. “By that time,
I was pretty well embedded with
the group, even though I wasn’t in
that department. I had kind of a
dual existence: I also had things I
needed to do for [ILM supervising
modelmaker] Lorne Peterson to
keep the model shop happy.”
This time around, the matte
department was working with the
new Auto Matte system: “a track-
mounted camera that was custom-
built there at ILM,” as Huston
28 / STAR WARS INSIDER
05 The picnic explains. “It had standard 35mm
scene from and VistaVision movements, and
Attack of the
Clones a whole set of lenses, including an
incorporates a anamorphic [widescreen effect]
digital matte
lens so we could photograph the
painting.
Huston: “I matte paintings for compositing
shot the with anamorphic elements.”
waterfalls as
The Auto Matte featured
separate
elements at two “carriages” on which matte
locations in paintings could be mounted,
California and
comped them with each carriage capable of
together with movement in three dimensions.
photos of
Developed over a period of
the set.”
two years, the system had first
06 (Right page) been put through its paces on
Huston at Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-
work on the
miniature Terrestrial (1982), and it proved
elements he indispensible in realizing Jedi’s
built for the
numerous moving-camera matte-
picnic scene.
painting shots.
While smaller mattes were
typically painted on two-and-
a-half-feet by six-feet panes of
glass, the larger mattes that were
required to accommodate camera
moves were realized on pieces of
Masonite hardboard measuring
either four feet by six feet, or four
feet by eight feet. Rather than cut
through the quarter-inch-thick
Masonite in order to project the
live-action plate, the painters
created a “hold out” matte on
glass, which was entirely black
except for the blank area where
the live-action plate would
appear. They then rear-projected
the live-action footage with the
hold-out matte, to create a plate
featuring just the required area for
live action, surrounded by black.
They then rear-projected the plate
for exposure with the hold-out
matte, and then composited that
pass with the Masonite painting,
in which the area where the live-
action element would play had in
turn been painted black.
For the shot of C-3PO and
R2-D2 in the foreground walking
toward Jabba the Hutt’s palace in
the background, Pangrazio and his
team turned to one of the earliest
matte painting techniques: the
“original negative,” also known as
the “latent image” or “held take”
method. In this process,
a glass sheet is positioned in
front of the camera on set (in this
case, on location in California’s
Death Valley) as the live-action
element is shot. The glass is
left clear except for a small area
painted black, where the matte
painting will eventually go. Both
the camera and the glass are
tented off to avoid unwanted
light from hitting the glass pane.
After filming the live action, the
unprocessed negative is sent to
the matte department, and the
detailed painting is exposed on
the same piece of film.
By placing both exposures
on the same negative, thereby
eliminating any duping, this