Amazing Use of Matte Painting in Films

Matte painting is a painted representation to create the vision of a place that makes you believe that it really exists. Filmmakers prefer matte painting in their films rather than spending huge amount on film sets. This technique also helps them to create a seamless visual environment that is impossible to build or visit. It is a visual effects process where artists work on 3d programs, photo manipulation with different set of images and  hand-painted elements to develop an outstanding environment.

Matte paintings have been used in many films such as 300, Lord of the rings, star wars, sin city, avatar and many more. Here we have picked some outstanding matte paintings from different films which will help you to understand how these are being used in films.

Take a look and don’t forget to submit your comments.

The Last Samurai 2003

Digital Matte-Painting by Christopher Stoski from the Feature Film, ‘The Last Samurai’ (2003) showing San Francisco in 1876; Image courtesy Christopher Stoski and Matte World Digital.

Avatar

Pandora After dark, a digital matte painting that received a Golden Award and 2nd place in a pre-release competition hosted by CGTalk.ru.

300

Star Wars

The Lord of the Ring

Superman Returns

Pirates of the Caribbean

Alice in Wonderland

Dare Devil

The Chronicles of Reddick

Journey to Mecca

The Golden Compass

Sin City

Before and After Matte Painting Visual Effects

See below matte paintings with their original images. These pictures would help you to understand more that what are matte paintings and how film makers use them in their films.