Month: November 2020

Prep/paint artist

The job of a prep artist consists of cleaning up the live action footage background for further work on it by a compositor. Examples of their tasks range from removing unwanted dust and scratches, boom microphones, tracking markers, wires, cleaning up seams of blue/green screen to colour correcting the prepped area to match the plate. The plates could be both moving or still, usually would not contain any foreground action or players. The prep artist would use specialist VFX software, such as Nuke, Maya and Silhouette.

A prep artist must have good artistic skills, such as drawing and painting using a graphics tablet, a keen eye to see where they images are required to be cleaned, patient and organised. They should be able to handle the pressure and produce high-quality result to strict deadlines. They work with the compositors, as the prep artists’ work is handed down to the compositors. In a smaller company, the work of a prep and roto artist is combined.

Compositing Artist

In post-production, a compositor works at the final stage of shot creation. They take different digital elements, e.g. animations, graphics, special effects or background plates, which were received from various sources, and put them together to make a believable picture. It is important that they take care of the composition of images and shots, via the correct placement of digital art assets and elements. Compositor enhances the lighting, creates believable shadows, matches blacks and other colour levels and adds motion blur where required. They also need to make sure that the art from different sources and artists looks the same, i.e. to ensure continuity of the image. They must have a keen eye to spot the mistakes and choose to either correct them or send the work back through the pipeline to be fixed. It is their responsibility to ensure the overall style of film to be consistent and in line with the director’s vision.

A compositor must have a good eye and be attentive to details, they must be able to work to deadlines and have a knowledge of the production pipeline. Even though it is mostly a 2D role within the 3D world of CGI, they need to have a thorough understanding of the CG process combined with relevant artistic skills. Compositor works in a wide range of software, such as After Effects, Blackmagic Fusion, Nuke, Maya and Photoshop. They work alongside the artists they create all the different elements, the lighting artists and they would communicate with the director as well.

Concept Artist

A concept artist job consists of creating a visual work for an idea to be used in film, game, tv-show, advert or a comic book. Being an essential part of creative and production process, they would draw or paint characters, creatures, environment, weapons, vehicles, mood or anything that is required for the project. In the game industry, their sketches are of great help for 3D artists, producers, programmers and publishes to understand of how the game will look. The expected quality of work could be both quick and ruff to detailed and refined. Very often a reference will be asked from the concept artist, to see what information they gathered for the ideas illustrated. They work with other art departments to make sure that a correct visual style is reflected in each part of the project.

Concept artists must have good skills of illustration, communication, understanding of design and perspective, knowledge of colour theory, excellent time management skills. They need to be able interpret briefs efficiently, explain and pitch their ideas to the client and design team, respond positively to the client feedback, adapt and refine the work based on client response. They would need to be able to work under pressure, as they would have to produce work in tight frames at the beginning of a project. Their workflow is commonly based both live as well as in creative programmes, such as Photoshop, Maya, Painter and SketchUp.

Matte painter/artist

The job of a Matte Painter is to create a painted picture of landscape, set, background for scenes that are hard to find and film. They must create realistic elements that could replace the live-action elements and/or improve the existing live action footage. They often work with live-action footage, digital still photography, CG elements, and digital paint. Despite being able to use both traditional and digital painting, most artists choose the latter.

Historically, matte painting dates to the 19^th century, as a photography technique. Old movies, such as The Wizard of Oz or Indiana Jones franchise would use actual painting on sheets of glass to create an illusion of a non-existent background. The techniques applied were based around the use of careful double exposure of the film to create the illusion of the live action happening in the scene. Firstly, a black covering would go over the “holes” of where the live action would go, and the painting would be filmed with a stationary camera for the length of the shot. Then, the initial shot would be rewound, the coverings removed and a projector behind the painting would project the live action onto those spaces on the painting. Thus, the live action would fill in those previously non-exposed areas. However, nowadays, most matte paintings are created digitally and are later composited with the live action footage.

To become a Matte Painter, one would be expected to have a degree in fine arts or design. It is a position one can be expected to be moving up to from a Concept Artist. Matte Painters must have good communication skills as they will work with a variety of people. They must be able to follow the direction of Production Designer so that they could produce complex matte paintings at a high standard. The work is often based in a fast paced, dynamic and deadline driven environment, so they need to be able to handle the pressure and keep up with the pace. They must have a strong knowledge of composition, colour, perspective, depth and lighting; knowledge of software such as Zbrush, Apple Shake and Maya; be motivated to constantly perfect their craft; be able to work both in a team of people as well as individually; be patient and flexible.