Thursday, 11 February 2016

film techniques - Was this movie the first usage of screen projection?

I had to watch Forbidden Planet again, and the mattes you reference are indeed combined with moving, live-action shots and enhanced with animated effects. I know that The Wizard of Oz predates Forbidden Planet by 17 years - and Metropolis predates it by 30 years.



Your link (and several others I followed) turned out to be quite fascinating and enlightening.



Ultimately though, I think the first use of rear projected matte paintings was by Georges Melies in his films from 1902 - 1904.



You can read more about his techniques here.



That said, if you are specifically looking for a film that includes a moving matte combined with live-action, then The Prodigal was released a year earlier in 1955.



One particular shot involves a large matte painting that is combined with a slow pan right to left and ends up in the bedroom of Lana Turner, all the while including live action plates that have been rear-projected into the scene.



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