- KEEP IT CLASSICAL
No matter how outlandish the subject of your images
is, like this personal work, Tincan Showdown by
Tomáš Müller, the basic rules of composition and
perspective still apply. In fact, they might be more
important, and Müller says, “I am kind of strict about
these things.” He explains: “Composition along with
light and mood are [the] most important things for
me in any work. At the beginning of each project I
spend a lot of time sketching compositions and
different points of view until I am 100 per cent sure
that what I have will work perfectly. I had a classic
artistic education and that is something I use a lot in
my work. Composition rules have worked the same
for centuries and there are good reasons why it is that
way, so it’s very helpful to take time and study all of it
before you start to do anything. Once you learn how
to use these rules without really thinking about them
then you gain incredible freedom in your work.”If he had to offer some advice, he’d say simply,
“Draw, paint, study, study and study again. There’s
a lot of information and skills in the world that
you will need to use sooner or later. For the
commercial part of this line of work I have only
one piece of advice: know the price of your time
but don’t do creative work only for money. You
need to enjoy it in the first place, but that doesn‘t
mean you have to do anything for free.”© Tomáš Müller- WORK OUT HOW TO INTEGRATE
The path that led Heather Abels to matte painting
began when she saw Toy Story. “I had no idea
about any of the different roles that go into creating
movies, but I knew I wanted to be a part of the
process,” she says. “Sometime after that I caught
an episode of Cinema Secrets hosted by the late
Stan Winston. That’s when I realised that movie
magic was a viable career, one I was eager to
pursue. The first time I became aware of wanting
to be a matte painter was after picking up my first
copy of Cinefex magazine. There was a story about
the effects in The Truman Show, and the work that
Matte World Digital did extending sets and creating
amazing backgrounds. Even after working there,
I’m still impressed by all the work they’ve done.”
As well as being matte painting department
supervisor at Rhythm & Hues in California, Abels
now also teaches for http://www.cgsociety.org, so she© Heather Abelsis accustomed to explaining how matte painting
works. She says, “Feature film matte painting can
be incredibly complex, and the integration of all the
elements can be an intricately layered puzzle. Not
only do you need to know what’s going to be in the
shot, but you and the entire team working on that
shot need to have a plan of attack on how all these
elements will work together. The shots I did from
Big Miracle are the perfect example of that.”“I had to paint the ice shelf with
more contrast and no atmosphere to compensate for that
integration, and then there was a period of back and forth where we
all worked together to tweak our elements so the final image would
appear as you see it in the film,” explains Abels.“While I did paint the entire background for these shots,” says Abels, “I had to
paint knowing that there would be a lot of lighting and effects laying on top of
my painting affecting the shot and ultimately making it look like we were
under water.”“When it comes to matte painting
professionally, you don’t really have a style of your own,” explains Abels.
“Matte painters are executing someone else’s vision to the best of
your ability, but in a way that marries with the rest of the film, and the other
matte painters you are working with.”The matte paintings created for Big
Miraclewith lighting and effects to produce were used in conjunction
these underwater shots.25 MATTE PAINTING TIPS