TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

But it was essentially the matte painting technique which developed on a “large scale,” beginning in the 1920s in the United States and England in the hands of Walter Percy Day, Albert Whitlock and Peter Ellenshaw. Whether one uses a flat model painted on clear glass or cardboard or a matte painting, the goal is to extend the decor at less cost. The paintings done for Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944) demonstrate the transformation carried out by matte painters: to make a small, flat image appear to be a gigantic three-dimensional space. The glass on which the reduced-scale decor is painted is either placed on the film set between the camera and the 1:1 scale decor or added in post-production to the rushes using the matte/counter matte method. In each case, the painted model’s elements and perspectives match those of the existing decor, giving the illusion of a single decor.

Trick effects for extending the decor in analogue cinema are found in various typologies in the fields of decor and special and visual effects. The principal techniques, in use for more than a century, are trompe l’oeil paintings; painted or photographic backdrops; in-camera or optical printer matte/counter mattes; mirrors and painted or three-dimensional models (matte paintings, miniatures, suspended models, etc.) embedded either during the shooting or in post-production; decors in forced perspective; travelling mattes on black or coloured backgrounds with embedded decors in several stages (using a travelling matte or an optical printer); and projection of film footage (rear-screen projection, front projection).