From shoddy to spectacular... sort of

The low angle shot of Ben opening the door looks really terrible (top). At the size you see it here, it doesn't look bad but at full size it's buzzy and ringing because of the overexposure. Plus, I shot it wrong! I was supposed to shoot it with Ben entering from the left, but I did it with Ben entering from the top. So I tried fixing it today with my new found strategy—matte painting. I think I got the idea from Citizen Kane. I was reading about Kane and found that it has even more fx than I knew. That one shot of Joseph Cotton in the old people's home, for example... that was shot against a white wall and the background was put in later. What I like about Kane is that the effects tend to exaggerate and extend scenes, rather than visualize the impossible.

You can see my matte painting in the bottom shot. I flipped the shot so that Ben is facing the correct way. Then I had to cover the edge of the frame with something that looked like the bottom of a car and repaint the sun rays. I also stuck in a lens flare (!) to extend the shot to the right, so it didn't look too artificial. The shot came out well, I think. What I learned from watching the extras in Episode I is that a lot of effects depend on misdirection to work. In the waterfall shot they show, they use a cheap multiplane in the background but you don't notice it because the shot is short and you're looking at the foreground. Same with my shot. It only works because you're looking at Ben.