Another Buck Rogers matte shot

Here is another of Syd Dutton’s terrific Buck Rogers matte paintings.  Syd again used the original negative / latent image compositing technique.

“V-The Final Battle”

Here are two more shots from “V-The Final Battle.”   The saucer was an approx.  30″ model constructed by Greg Jein. It was composited with the live action using two rear projection images with matte painting blends by David Stipes.

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Here comes another remake!

My son, Nathan, sent this to me with the following comment:

“Not sure how I feel about this yet…”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsZelpXj-CE

Well, here comes another remake!  Before the new “V” gets here I thought I would put up a few pix from the original.

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More Buck Rogers matte shots

"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" by Syd Dutton

This is again the fine work of Syd Dutton.  Syd told me that he ran the matte split through the guard at the left side of the walk.  The guard is partially painted and partially real.

This location is the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.

Matte painting masters

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century by Syd Dutton

Matte painting has been a love of mine for years. As a high school student I would look at the California skies and fantasize what steps I would have to take to render them out in paint.  My early dinosaur stop motion experiments often had painted back grounds or elements in the shot.  Over the years I have gathered a few fun matte shots that I can share. 

This is a painting by Syd Dutton for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979). It was shot at an existing demolition site and employed the “original negative” compositing technique.  This means that the live action was photographed with a masked off (the matte), unexposed section of the frame. This film was not developed immediately, but was returned to the studio where Syd painted the ruins and sky to fit into the unexposed section of the scene.  The negative was run through the camera again and the painting was finally exposed onto the original negative of the live action then developed.

This provided first generation quality matte painting composites.