davidmattingly
05-12-2008, 09:14 AM
[img]Hi all--
I have worked as a matte artist on an off for almost 30 years now, starting in the early 80's under Harrison Ellenshaw at Disney Studios, and most recently at Weta on "I, Robot". I have been around long enough that I started working on glass, and was at Disney when the first motion controlled matte camera was used on "The Black Hole". I primarily work as an illustrator doing Sci Fi covers, and matte painting for production houses in New York whenever time permits. I am now teaching digital matte painting at School of Visual Arts in New York City, and I have been toying with the idea or having a class where I go out with the students, set up a video camera and place a sheet of glass in front of it and do a traditional glass matte shot. I felt this would put the students in touch with how it was done at the "dawn" of cinema (pun intended).
The biggest problem I have been trying to work out is how to get the sheet of glass suspended in front of the camera while still doing the project in a limited time frame (three hours). I was thinking of framing the sheets of glass, and then putting a tripod screw mount into the side of the frame, but in experiments this didn't really give me a surface secure enough to paint on unless I was very careful and used a light touch.
I was wondering if any of you had come up with a workable solution to this glass matte painting setup. I would want one set up for each student, so it also needs to be priced reasonably. So if any of you have come up with a workable solution to this, I would love to hear from you. My direct e-mail is "david@davidmattingly.com".
Also, if any of you working in the industry are in New York during the fall or spring semester, I would love to get you in for a "state of the industry" lecture, or you could just drop by and see what we are up to in class.
Thanks!
David Mattingly
I have worked as a matte artist on an off for almost 30 years now, starting in the early 80's under Harrison Ellenshaw at Disney Studios, and most recently at Weta on "I, Robot". I have been around long enough that I started working on glass, and was at Disney when the first motion controlled matte camera was used on "The Black Hole". I primarily work as an illustrator doing Sci Fi covers, and matte painting for production houses in New York whenever time permits. I am now teaching digital matte painting at School of Visual Arts in New York City, and I have been toying with the idea or having a class where I go out with the students, set up a video camera and place a sheet of glass in front of it and do a traditional glass matte shot. I felt this would put the students in touch with how it was done at the "dawn" of cinema (pun intended).
The biggest problem I have been trying to work out is how to get the sheet of glass suspended in front of the camera while still doing the project in a limited time frame (three hours). I was thinking of framing the sheets of glass, and then putting a tripod screw mount into the side of the frame, but in experiments this didn't really give me a surface secure enough to paint on unless I was very careful and used a light touch.
I was wondering if any of you had come up with a workable solution to this glass matte painting setup. I would want one set up for each student, so it also needs to be priced reasonably. So if any of you have come up with a workable solution to this, I would love to hear from you. My direct e-mail is "david@davidmattingly.com".
Also, if any of you working in the industry are in New York during the fall or spring semester, I would love to get you in for a "state of the industry" lecture, or you could just drop by and see what we are up to in class.
Thanks!
David Mattingly