Page 31 - Star Wars Insider (Special Edition 2020)

MATTE PAINTINGS
of the spaceport’s docking bay
94, which he photographed
outside at the right time of day
to match the light in the film.
He then embellished the photo
as a digital matte painting that
was projected over rough 3D CG
geometry, allowing the painting to
convincingly match the camera’s
pan and tilt as the Millennium
Falcon lifts off from Tatooine.
Into The Modern Era
For the podrace in The Phantom
Menace (1999), Huston and Knoll
took the technique of projecting
a digital matte onto 3D geometry
to new heights. “That was a big
moment,” Huston says, explaining
that the environments are
“basically photographs that are
projected on geometry. Luckily,
you’re going at 600 miles an hour,
so there’s a lot of motion blur!”
Using the sequence’s animated
storyboards—animatics—as his
guide, Huston built miniature
arches and other details out of
foam and plaster, painted them,
and then carefully photographed
the models outside, capturing
an array of angles and lighting
directions. He also photographed
dirt to create a texture map for the
ground, and manipulated other
photos for use throughout the
sequence’s backgrounds.
Huston continued to work with
photographs and miniatures in his
digital matte paintings for Attack
of the Clones (2002). For Anakin
and Padmé’s picnic on Naboo, the
background cliffs were fashioned
from painted aluminum. He then
composited this photographed
element with digital video he’d
shot of real waterfalls.
As the prequel trilogy drew to
a close with Revenge of the Sith
(2005), the line between digital
matte techniques and other CG
“...Huston and Knoll took
the technique of projecting
a digital matte onto 3D
geometry to new heights.”
CANYON OF THE CRESCENT MOON
“Camerawork was 50 percent of the matte painting, and all the matte painters were interested
in using any trick they could to make things more realistic photographically. Mark Sullivan was
one of the best ever at combining paintings and camera techniques. He had a bag of tricks you
wouldn’t believe.
“He really liked using miniatures, so I worked with him a lot. For Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade, there was a shot looking through a pair of binoculars at the Canyon of the Crescent
Moon. Mark did the matte painting on Masonite, and it looked really good, but he didn’t think it
looked realistic. So he had me cut the bottom off of the painting, just below the horizon, and then
we built about a 20-foot-by-2-foot miniature of the canyon out of plywood and foam.
“We set the cut-off matte painting about 8 feet in front of the camera, with the horizon
positioned so that it came to the horizon of the miniature, which was about 25 feet away from the
camera—so the horizon was closer than the foreground! We put a piece of glass in front of the
painting with a little bit of Vaseline along the blend line between the miniature and the painting,
and we filmed the whole thing in-camera. It was crazy, but it worked really well—and it was fun.
It utilized the strengths of both paintings and miniatures.” — Paul Huston
07 Another tricks became blurred, and this you can go off in a direction that
angle of the trend has continued through leads to disaster.”
miniature
used in the The Force Awakens (2015) and Asked whether he still works
picnic scene Rogue One (2016). “In reaction with miniatures, Huston says,
in Attack of
to the wide array of challenges “It’s more difficult than it used
the Clones
(opposite). under the group’s purview, to be. We don’t really have the
the digital matte department space, tools, or materials at ILM
08 Huston was
has since been renamed the anymore. But if I can go to a store
among the
many ILM and ‘generalists department,’ because and buy something, or if I can
Lucasfilm we do so many different things” find a location, I would rather
alums who
had worked Huston notes. photograph something. I still
on A New While Photoshop remains enjoy working that way.”
Hope, and
an important tool for 2D work, Despite all the changes over the
who recently
celebrated 40 earlier 3D software has given way years, Huston muses that modern
years of the to visual effects software including digital matte painting feels much
film that
Nuke. “In 2D, Photoshop’s tools the same. “The processes you go
started it all
(opposite). are really the easiest to use and the through—the things you analyze
most direct,” Huston says. “But the and look at—are similar. The rules
way that Nuke displays colors is of composition are the same.
really predictable and precise.” You’re in the same ballpark.
And for anything that ends “The thing for me has been
up on-screen—especially a digital that, for a long time, the paintings
were locked off [stationary],” he
matte painting that needs to
match other effects as well as concludes. The ability we have
live-action photography—Huston now to move the camera through
stresses, “If the color isn’t right,
a painting? That’s huge.”
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