[Jensen]

Hey Rick - First off, thanks for putting up this one, with the before and after. I rather enjoyed the movie and knew this shot was painted very very well indeed. Awesome work.

I'm curious. You were given the plate and the direction to add the Brooklyn Bridge as it might have looked during that period. Did you arrive at the composition, or did a production designer perhaps? ...coming from a sketch. I'm just wondering your approach to a set extension like this. Do you like roughing out color studies? This piece could have come out more green like the plate, or did you just tweak it until it looked good? And finally, what's been your favorite matte painting to do for a production?

Hope you don't mind the questions. Again, very nice shot.
- Jensen

[rrische]

Hi Jensen,
This shot was laid out in sketch form by Robert Stromberg, who was
the film's VFX Supervisor. He's also a well-known matte artist.
We both knew that the green tint in the plate would have to be changed.
The basic elements of the shot and composition (placement of the
bridge etc.) were worked out by Robert and the director, but we
changed some things as the work progressed. And as far as detail work,
he left that to me.

I think as far as a personal favorite, I'd say it's probably the shot of Los
Angeles being hit by a nuclear bomb in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day".
It's a traditional painting, but the shot had a lot of impact and was done
in a really interesting way. That was a high point.

[Milos Fehir]

This image sure is packed with alot of mood and romance. I really am liking it alot!

[Eisner]

I'm always pressured by deadlines and budget but mostly time...

Could I ask...How long did this painting take to achieve?

[rrische]

I had about four weeks to work on it.

[Aedilhum]

Hey Rick, thanks for posting this shot, it is awesome. I always loved the matte paintings in that movie. I hope you'll post more of your work soon!

[miss julie]

Sooooo nice!

Just getting started in digimatte and wanted to know, is there a color key set up in live action films the same as animated? Meaning, when you got the plate, did you decide after the fact that the green should come out or was the scene always going to be moody blues, but they just decided to fix in post, how does that gnerally work?

[rrische]

Like everything else in the film industry, the answer is- it depends.
"Kate & Leopold" was pretty typical. There aren't that many matte
shots in the movie, and when you're shooting on location, sometimes
you don't get everything perfect. That plate came out with a greenish
cast to the lighting, but was great for exposure and detail. So we just
did a color-correction and it worked fine.
I've worked on some movies where the plates are beautiful, and some
where the plates were cr@p! It depends on the skill of the crew that's
shooting them, and also on the overall conditions of the production
(schedule, weather etc.).
However, more and more you work on films where there is sometimes
very little live action footage shot at all. On "Day After Tomorrow", we
had a couple sequences where the only live action was some actors
running around on blue screen stages. In that case, we had to do "color
keys" or lighting masters that showed everybody what the overall
environment of the sequence was going to look like. These served as
reference for the other crew members as to what to shoot for. It also
gave the director an idea what the scene would look like. Same thing
when I worked on Star Wars I & II. There's a lot of preproduction
concept work done on those.

[miss julie]

Thanks for the input. It is always interesting to know how it works. I can see that different situations call for different actions.

Post more work. It's great!

[kaz]

could i ask u rick what systems you work on pc or mac and the power of them with all the elements you use to create all the pieces that you have done. including software hardware.