Matte painting research P1

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows film-makers to create the illusion of an environment that is non-existent in real life or would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. 

Here is a Matte painting of Iron Man of the stark industries.

Here is an example of a use of matte painting, it is used to create a scene or location that isn't real. This matte painting is a good example as its a good picture and could be quite a famous matte painting, the effect works really well and you don't notice it being a painting in the actually film but yet still give you an effect or realism. 

The first know matte painting shot was made in 1907 by Norman Dawn, who improvised the crumbling California Missions by painting them on glass for the movie Missions of California. He developed a technique that joined together a Photographer and a painting to enhance the environment that is being shot by the camera.

In the 1980's Matte painting was a from of CGI and was used on computers which highly developed to allow film makers to interact with the digital world.
By the 1990s the digitally composited live-action footage was used, the first film to used it was the well known Die hard 2. It worked well in this film and was brilliant for its time,
you don't notice that the scenery are paintings when you're watching it, unlike old films with the amateur matte paintings like western film

 when you can always see the effect happening on screen.