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3DTotal: Hi Ludovic, can you tell us about yourself please and why you chose to become a matte painter?
Ludovic: Hi! I watched a lot of movies when I was a kid. A lot of different kinds of movies, from black and white classics to the most recent stuff I could find in cinema. I think the first experience I had with the SFX world was during the Harry Hausen’s films and the Star Wars first trilogy. I had a lot of questions about how such effects could be created. I started to look for answers and I learned a lot of stuff about SFX. I tried to understand the techniques that guys employed at ILM, or for stop motion animation movies. The one I found the most amazing was matte painting. You could do so much with just a painting, which was crazy! Traditional matte painters are amazing artists. At the time you couldn’t find a lot of articles about glass painting. There was a show on TV about SFX, and one day they did a subject about travelling matte. They talked about guys like Al Whitlock, Craig Barron, Syd Dutton or Mike Pangrazio. I knew then that, if I could work in the VFX industry some day, it would be as a matte painter. First I thought that there weren’t matte painters in France, because French movies are realistic. But I was wrong, because even if you can’t see anything, you always need some matte painting on a film. Jean Marie Vives was probably the first one. Three years ago, I decided to try to become a matte painter. I worked alone on personal paintings to learn the techniques, then after a few months I showed my work to a big French company. That’s how I started work as a matte painter. |
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3DTotal: So I take it you’re a self-taught artist, and must have learnt a lot via the Internet. Could you tell us which specific forums that you used to help you when you started out?
Ludovic: When I started training for matte painting, I visited a lot a forum and websites. The one I found the most useful was Mattepainting.org, because it gave me a lot of links to matte painters’ portfolios. I learnt by watching Tchook’s works, Dylan Cole’s, Dusso’s, Jean Marie Vives’ ... I tried to watch some painting too, to understand how artists worked on the composition, lighting, atmosphere and so on. I spent a lot of time on Café Salé, another French concept and illustration website. Today there are a lot of very interesting websites; the internet is now a big school where students can share techniques. |
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3DTotal:I learnt by watching Tchook’s works, Dylan Cole’s, Dusso’s, Jean Marie Vives’ ... I tried to watch some painting too, to understand how artists worked on the composition, lighting, atmosphere and so on. I spent a lot of time on Café Salé, another French concept and illustration website. Today there are a lot of very interesting websites; the internet is now a big school where students can share techniques.
Ludovic:Hellboy 2 is probably the most enjoyable film I worked on because I'm a big fan of Guillermo del Toro. I really like his cinema; it was very impressive to be part of one of his project. The work on Hellboy 2 was really interesting. I did a lot a concept design on the Golden Army Chamber, or the Military Camp. Then, I did the matte painting. Working with Guillermo del Toro and Mike Wassel, the VFX Sup was really cool. What I enjoyed too, is that, even if we were a very big team at Double Negative, the way we worked was really cool.
For Quantum of Solace, I helped to do the matte painting of the mountain on the plane pursuit sequence. I was really happy to work on this show because I saw seen all the Bond movies when I was a child. Can you imagine? 22 films now! That's huge!
On Bourne we had to create photorealistic backgrounds. I worked on photos and did a lot of stitch and camera projection work. I also worked on a large movement across the facade of a building. I painted the different offices behind the windows. Everything was a matte painting, but it had to be very realistic. I worked on the shot where the guy jumps trough the window – we had the shutters in CG. I cleaned a lot of plates too, to remove extra cameras and stuff like that.
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3DTotal: Having produced work for feature films, short films, TV and commercials, which area do you feel that you can truly express your creativity?
Ludovic: I think it depends of the project and the director. I would say that it’s not on commercials, because most of the time the agency knows exactly what they want and you have to do it. I would say that it would be on feature films. You have more time to try different ways, to talk about it with the client and decide together which direction is the best. Most of the time the brief you are given is large and I really have the feeling to create the matte painting, not just to make it. For example, on Doomsday I really could propose a lot of stuff! On each matte painting I had to do I decided on the look of the environment and I built the composition the way I wanted. Then we showed it to the client and I tried to correct the painting to be very close to what he had in mind. But the first shot was my own creation.
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3DTotal: So, with working on all these films, how do you feel you have grown as a matte painter?
Ludovic: I have learnt to work faster than before. Every matte painting I do teaches me a new technique that I can use later in another one. Today, when I’m faced with a problem I have had before, I’m more confident and I know the best way to do it. You always have to try some stuff to find what will be the best composition or good lighting, and every matte painting is different. But you always have the same basis. I have improved my understanding of perspective and my painting skills. But, if I have time, I try different ways to do the same work, to find out which one is the most efficient. |
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