SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
Company: Mr X FX
Matte Painting Department
I had the privilege of working on this memorable film before it was in post production. During my first year with the Mr X matte painting department I was able to work on many pieces of pitch keyframes and concept art for the film.
I worked collaboratively with several other artists in the department and helped design tree/snow elements that were stylized to match the look of the graphic novel, while realistically rendered to match the live action actors and set.
There was a lot of work put into the snow and trees to resemble the magical 'interior of a snow globe'/illustrative quality of the visuals.
I built a lot of skeletal trees that were used in several shots and did the snow/winter replacement on several plates as a dmp artist.
The X in the snow matte painting was initially a shot I attempted at first with my other snow dressing paintings (in photoshop). As Scott Pilgrim was one of the first shows I ever worked on the team I worked with was very generous in showing me techniques for solving a difficult shot.
My supervisor constructed a ‘sculpture’ of piles of baking soda on a cardboard lid and used that to imitate the snow.
We took the maquette to several of the office’s windows to attempt to get the correct lighting to match the lighting of the actors in the shot.
It really made me re-evaluate being a digital artist - that sometimes old, simple, or outlandish and creative techniques can solve a shot better than modern digital tools. Baking soda and cardboard.
It wasn’t the only shot I got to work on with my supervisor that subbed baking soda for snow. The technique was also used on ‘The Thing’ film a year or so later.
‘Translight’ matte painting: Early in production the matte painting department created large translight images that would be physically placed as a gigantic banner behind the actor. I spent a couple of weeks/weekends with the department churning out stylized trees under the direction of my dmp supervisor. I don’t know how many of these survived until the final shot, but I recall the translights being used for the doorway shots in the film. I wish I could find any behind-the-scenes photos with the translight printed at full size.