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Setup a shot for Matte Painting

W

wheatgrinder

Trying to lure our new member Rob B into this tread.. ;)


I have a scene where I have a huge object in the sky peaking over the nearby low mountains. Obviously, I cant afford to rent an intergalactic space cruiser for my micro budget film, so I'm looking at DIY composting live action with a matte painting.

What are some simple tricks of the trade to pull this off? Things NOT to do are also good.

I can do the art, (or get it done) but the angles and focus planes seem like they'd cause me some difficulty. Id like to have camera movement in my shots, should I just forget about cam movement?

Thanks
 
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You could easily do this with Masking, in AEFX or similar.

Here's some cheesey object insertion I did, with an Arecibo-style radio-telescope that was placed into the background:





No greenscreening involved. Lots of mask key-framing, though, when the actors were moving in "front" of it. I didn't have time to blend it in, or add lighting/shadow.

Still, it was pretty impressive for a 2-day crash course in how-to. :cool:

At any rate, it's definitely an option you should keep in mind, for your spaceship project. Good luck!
 
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I like cheese, but I digress.

yeah, I think I have one advantage. As everything NOT REAL is in the sky, I pretty much just need a decent day and Ill have a ready made matte.

After I reviewed the document the link I posted, I found some good answers about what to measure when shooting the plate shots, etc. One thing I hadn't consider is DOF. For matte work (miniature for perspectives etc, you want DEEP DOF, not shallow.. )
 
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