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226 CINEMATOGRAPHIC ANNUAL
the present time the methods used by the Dunning Process Company and the special effects department of the Paramount-Publix organization are essentially identical.
From the background negative is made a positive transparency from which the silver is bleached and a yellow-orange dye substituted in its place. This transparency is run through the camera together with the panchromatic film on which the foreground action is being photographed against a blue backstop. The foreground action is illuminated by tungsten lamps screened with niters having a spectral transmission comparable to that of the dye in the transparency. The blue backdrop is illuminated by white light. This drop is painted with a special blue which is complementary to the yellow-orange dye used.
Suppose for the moment that no foreground is present. The running of the transparency through the camera in contact with the emulsion of the panchromatic film would result in an exposure solely to the blue light reflected by the backdrop. This exposure would be so regulated that the selective transmission of the dye in its various depths would result in exposing onto the panchromatic film a duplicate negative transparency.
Suppose now that the entire field of view of the camera is occupied by action. This portion would photograph through the transparency as though the latter did not exist by virtue of the color of the light in the foreground. The composite obtained is a combination of the two exposures, the background being a duplicate negative and the foreground an original exposed directly through the transparency.
Just as great care is taken in the making of shots involving the use of still mattes in order to have the shadows match, as these indicate the direction of lighting, so care is taken to simulate the actual lighting of the original background in the lighting of the foreground during the making of a transparency shot. The timing where the background is moving, such as in the case of a traveling shot showing a car moving along a road, is another item which necessitates great care. The perspective of the background and foreground must be the same and the depth of focus of lenses ordinarily used must be used in the making of the background in order that the composite will have the appearance of reality. The results which are possible with traveling matte processes are so diverse and amazing that the extreme care employed is at once worth the trouble and at the same time invisible to the audience.
There has been a revival recently in several of the special effects departments of one process for the making of shots of the traveling matte type which was employed nearly ten years ago. The advent of higher speed negative emulsions has made the process practical. The process referred to is the one in which the foreground action is performed in front of a translucent screen onto which the background is projected from a standard projector. It is possible by this method to obtain effects similar to those obtained by the use of a traveling matte, that is, the superposition of action onto a moving background.