Chapter 12

Changing Seasons

Matte artists are often tasked with taking a scene photographed in one season and converting it to another. The most common example involves converting a summer scene to winter. Why do this? Because snow is extremely difficult to deal with on a production schedule. If you have a wonderful snow-covered day, changes in the weather can quickly turn your winter wonderland into a slushy mess, and maintaining continuity in the look of the snow is difficult. Also, if the production requires a dramatic change in the time of year, rather than suspending production for months and waiting for the season to change, a wise director will seek out the skills of a matte artist to effect the transformation. After all, nothing better illustrates the passage of time than a cross-dissolve between a bright summer day and a shot of the same scene blanketed with snow against a wintry sky.

For this project, you’ll take a plate of a European country village and remove all modern elements so it looks like it would have in the 1800s. Then, you’ll convert the summer scene to a cold and snowy December day. Finally, you’ll tone the plate to evoke dusk just as lights are coming on.