What does the name of the website mean?

The name of the website – matteline - is a term often used when discussing 20th century, or non-digital visual effects. In the days of film compositing, the process of optically combining two separately filmed elements typically required mattes. A matte is a term for blocking off an area of the film so that it is not exposed. The matte or mask, leaves the matted area black, or unexposed. Shooting the other element required a matte that covers the opposite area of the film, to avoid re-exposing, or double exposing, what has already been shot. The mattes needed to be created in such a way that they line up perfectly with each other. Any misalignment will result in either an area of double exposure, or more often, a black line or ‘matte line’. Matte lines are seldom visible in static shots, such as matte paintings, but really became an issue with travelling mattes such as spaceships flying around, or actors inserted into a VFX background. These shots often required special photography, usually against a blue-screen, and this process involved multiple steps to make the necessary mattes to make the shot look as if it were photographed at the same time. This film elements were combined on a special device designed specifically for this type of work called an Optical Printer. Any errors in the original photography or in any of the printing steps, or the assembly on the Optical Printer could result in the mattes not aligning perfectly and often black matte lines are visible around the actor or ship.

I am big, big fan of the visual effects done in the ‘pre digital age’ and there are many truly extraordinary and spectacular images created through the technical expertise and creative artistry of the visual effects teams. By the 1980s, the talented artists and technicians at Industrial Light & Magic were producing flawless Optical composites. So that’s a little bit on ‘pre digital’ VFX. ‘Matte lines’ to me are almost synonymous with terrific sci-fi adventure films!

My Name is Matthew, and given that this is a website about artwork – drawings and paintings all start as ‘lines on paper’ AND given my love of the Visual Effects Techniques and the films that exploited the creativity this afforded, naming the site MATTELINE seemed like a good fit.

A little bit about me

I have been working in Animation on the production side of things for over 30 years, and have been fortunate to work with world class artists from all over the world. Inspiring and intimidating.  

As a Producer, a lot of my job was about making the work environment as easy as possible for the artists to do their best work and all of their efforts can all go into the ‘art’ and not ‘the process’. And ultimately get the Director’s vision on screen… or as much of it as the schedule and budget allows😊 Films I have worked on include;

‘Klaus’ (2019), ‘The Book of Life’ (2014), ‘9’ (2009), Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron’ (2002), ‘The Prince of Egypt’ (1998) and ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (1988 - my first film!)

Recently I have been doing a lot of digital painting, mostly for fun. I started painting a lot of vehicles from TV shows and Movies that I love, but where there was a shortfall in terms of still images that really showed off the vehicle. So I created my own ‘portrait’. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I have bene able to easily share this work, and have received a lot of positive feedback. This encouragement has turned into actual commissioned work!

Some inspirational artists

Derek Meddings, Peter Ellenshaw, Ray Harryhausen, Ken Adam, Ralph McQuarrie, Albert Whitlock, Douglas Trumbull, Joe Johnston, Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, Ken Ralston, Phil Tippett, Michael Pangrazio, John Dykstra, Mike Trim, Brian Johnson, Les Bowie, Fred Sersen, John P Fulton, Albert Nozaki, William Creber, Harper Goff, Ron Cobb, Syd Mead, Roy Cross, James Bama and Gerry Anderson

GALLERIES

Original Designs

As assortment of vehicles that I have designed. Some of these are for stories - film / graphic novel / game projects - while otherwise are just ‘cool’ designs.

I really enjoyed designing my own ‘Martian Fighting Machine’ from H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. 

Gerry Anderson

Gerry Anderson is famous for creating and producing a number of spectacular science fiction adventure shows in the 1960s and 1970s. ‘Thunderbirds’ is the most well known and was the perfect synthesis of a terrific idea and format for a show, which involved spectacular action and did not rely on good guys vs bad guys. The writing was superb. The production values including a vast array of superbly designed and realised vehicles was outstanding. The puppetry and direction was exceptional and the music score was second to none.

This gallery features portraits of a lot of the key hardware featured in the different shows. The designers primarily involved – Derek Meddings and Mike Trim have been highly influential.

Humans

An assortment of portraits of screen heroes and actors. Ranging from the Golden Age of Hollywood, (Cary Gran) to the stars of today (Blake Lively) as wells as James Bond, and stars of numerous adventure films and TV of the 1960s and 70s.

Classic Sci-Fi

This gallery is filled with a glorious assortment of fantastic vehicles from Sci-Fi and Adventure of the small and big screen. Some are more classic than others - the iconic ‘Nautilus’ from Walt Disney’s production of ‘20000 Leagues Under the Sea’. The Dalek Flying Saucer from the 1966 feature film ‘Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 AD’ is less well known but is a cool and original design. A big Thank You to the Designers and VFX Artists who brought these creations to life on the screen. Please contact me with any requests.

Real World

A handful of Matte Painting test shots that I did a few years ago. All hand painted in Photoshop, no digital cloning or photo-mashups employed. Without the before and after these are not that compelling.

There is a video on my YouTube channel showing some of these.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOJX06le4C0

These were done using a phone camera and creating the painting as a separate layer. Much easier on a computer with the many tools available than the way the rea matte paintings were created on either original negative or composited with rear projected plates… all excruciatingly complex work. 

A have a huge amount of admiration for the great Matte Painters of 20th Century Visual Effects. Peter Ellenshaw, Albert Whitlock, Percy Day, Les Bowie, Michael Pangrazio, and Chris Evans are among my cinema heroes in this field.  I find this work so inspirational.

Some famous aircraft are featured in the rest of the Real-World section as well as the historic Apollo 11 Lunar Module landing on the moon on July 21st, 1969.

What If?

A series that is wishful thinking of some products from yesteryear. Things that if only the toy companies and the filmmakers and producer had managed to get together and create some of these things. Mainly model-kits and predictably a lot of Gerry Anderson vehicles, in an imaginary Airfix range circa 1970s. Many of these images appear on other galleries, albeit modified for the box-tops.

I am also doing pictures of things I just wish we could have seen. Like Daniel Craig’s James Bond driving around in one of the new big, and brutishly beautiful Bentley cars. In racing green as described in the books!

Graphics

A variety of graphics that I made up to celebrate key aspects of some of my favourite films, or tools of filmmaking, From my early days making ‘home movies’ on Super 8, to some of the tools used in professional productions such as the Oxberry Animation Camera stand.

In general I tend to like the more unusual subject matter, where if you recognise it, and ‘get it’, it is something special. The Tundra Torque and The Glass Tower graphics are two of my favourites and are my designs based on existing materials.    

I am a big fan of film music and I made up a series of graphics – primarily for T shirts (currently  available through ‘redbubble’ and ‘teepublic’ - that celebrate different film composers and highlighting their speciality. ‘Everything is more Intense with music by Hans Zimmer’. ‘Everything is more offbeat with music by Danny Elfman’. Here too I have included some less well-known names, who nonetheless nailed their particular genre and have produced some truly great music. Hammer Horror films of the 1950s all had music composed by James Bernard.

Scale Models

I like making models and grew up making ‘Airfix’, ‘Aurora’ and ‘Revell plastic kits’, usually purchased from the local ‘Beatties’ hobby shop. I also did not some scratch-building of some of my own designs created from balsa wood and cardboard.

These pictures show some of my recent(ish) work. The ‘Proteus is the recent Moebius 1/35th scale kit of the submarine from the 1966 sci-fi film ‘Fantastic Voyage’. This is a favourite film of mine and this model was a labour of love to make it as accurate as possible. The project is documented on my YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItZxWGdOyPA&t=576s

Thank You for visiting.

For a bit of fun, please check out the Sci Fi Sound Effects quiz on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRSXU-NZDN8