Wednesday 16 June 2010

Golden Era movie special effects supervisors

above - one of my all time favourite matte painting effect shots - "SON OF KONG" (1933) - painted by Byron Crabbe and Mario Larrinaga.
As poor as the film itself was I regard this beautiful glass painting better than similar shots in the original, classic "KING KONG"

I have quite a considerable amount of great matte shot frame grabs and some interesting other images I've collected over the years which I'll be uploading here in the near future.

Great names such as Fred Sersen, John P. Fulton, Jack Cosgrove, Willis O'Brien, Warren Newcombe, Gordon Jennings, Walter Percy Day, Peter Ellenshaw, Albert Whitlock, Wally Veevers, Vernon L.Walker, Les Bowie and Byron Haskin to name but a few key figures.

I'm still coming to grips with just how the 'blog' technology actually works (I'm very slow at grasping such technology I'm afraid) but I have the time and lots of stuff I want to share - much of which I have previously posted on the SMA stop motion animation matte painting forum - but still a fair chunk of fascinating effects shots previously 'unpublished' which I hope will interest like minded fans.

In a shameless and vain effort to draw in the potential web surfer looking for great old time visual effects here are a few choice, unrelated matte shots just to 'whet ones appetite'. :)

Bon Apetite
NZPete

3 comments:

  1. this is great--please keep up the wonderful work!!!!

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  2. Let the great behind-the-scenes pics keep coming! Appreciate your efforts!

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  3. NZPete,
    I truly enjoy your site. The matte shots of The Last Days of Pompeii (O'Brien) and QUO VADIS (Ellenshaw) were the most memorable and favorite
    that I saw on the big screen. As a youngster, I had read the novel Quo Vadis
    before I viewed the movie, and hobbled on crutches (from a previous sand-lot football injury) to the theatre to see the film which I held in great anticipation. However, aside from the magnificent matte paintings of Ellenshaw, and such soaring inspiring musical score of Miklos Rozsa - those were the most memorable aspects of the movie that I cherished. The film script used the novel's title, the scenario was pure Hollywood, the choice of Robert Taylor is wrong - I just couldn't imagine the romance for the Lygia character, the Brits delivered best portrayals,but Nero's role was just too much, unlike Laughton in The Sign of the Cross, less would have been more impressive Ustinov. Such were the feelings of a 14 year youngster.
    You are deserving of much appreciation for your Matte -Shots images blog. Thanks
    Mike

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