The Epics - THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY matte shots. Part four in an ongoing series

The Epics... part four, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY (1965) was the story of Michelangelo and the Pope of the day, with a certain bit of interior decor being applied to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  As such, a particular Renaissance flavour was required by the studio, 20th Century Fox.

Head of the special photographic effects department at the time was Lenwood Ballard Abbott,  better known as L.B Abbott.  I've written on Abbott previously in my JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH blog.  Abbott was a visual effects cameraman and had at his disposal the remnants of a once great special effects unit - in fact one of the biggest and best in Hollywood, previously known as The Sersen Department, after it's founder, the legendary Fred Sersen.  The sixties had seen the systematic closure of departments in all studios as the squeeze was applied due to diminishing returns.  I'm not sure exactly when Fox downsized exactly as it was still churning out big effects films throughout the decade, such as FANTASTIC VOYAGE, the OUR MAN FLINT  films, DOCTOR DOOLITTLE and CLEOPATRA.  

The studio once had the biggest matte painting department with as many as a dozen top artists gainfully employed at any one time under the tyrannical rein of chief matte painter Emil Kosa jnr.  Kosa's father, Emil Kosa,snr had been a long term matte artist at MGM and 20th Century Fox. I have a pretty good list of Fox painters employed during their glory years, but this latter period is a mystery to me. For this film I'm assuming the matte department had probably already suffered the fate of 'downsizing' as many of the mattes on AGONY AND ECSTACY were painted by former Paramount matte artist Jan Domela.  Domela had left Paramount a few years earlier as that effects department was closed down.  Domela freelanced for his remaining film career until 1968, painting for Film Effects of Hollywood, Columbia, MGM and Fox.  From what I'm told, Kosa was an extremely unpleasant individual to work under and there are well founded stories of Kosa's inherent mean streak which he directed at the artists beneath him.  Kosa passed away in 1968 after completing his iconic Statue of Liberty matte work for the conclusion of PLANET OF THE APES.

The matte shots figure prominently in just two aspects of the story - the moment where Michelangelo is delivered the message to paint, and the several later matte painted progressions of the Sistine Chapel's stages of construction.   For a career length retrospective on matte painter Jan Domela, click here.

Special Photographic Effects - L.B Abbott, ASC

Matte Supervisor - Emil Kosa, jnr

Matte Artist - Jan Domela

Terrific old style one sheet - the likes of which we never see nowadays unfortunately.

An interesting effect, presumably an on set glass shot, hanging foreground miniature or maybe just a plain old painted backing whereby the Todd AO camera follows this actor across the rooftop with Renaissance Rome in the background.

Part of a lengthy sequence whereby Charlton Heston see's in the cloud formations the unique imagery upon which he will base his frescos on.  No doubt a hell of a tough notion to pull off for the effects department, but one I find quite beautiful.

Extensive use of full frame matte art used in a most unique storytelling fashion.  We can already make out the figures.

Painted cloudscape with flock of birds overlayed.

More of the same ethereal 'cloud' sequence as beautifully painted by Emil Kosa jnr.

The construction of The Sistine Chapel - one of several extensive Jan Domela matte paintings.

Close detail of the above matte - from an old B/W frame enlargement from the Domela's collection.

Two more sequential views of the advancing construction of the Chapel by Jan Domela.

Although these frames are slightly out of sequence, some more painted construction is evident.

Another close detailed photograph of the above matte painting - from Jan Domela's effects shot collection

The Epics... THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD matte shots - part three in an ongoing series

George Stevens' THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965) was really one of the last of the huge Biblical genre films (though not the last in my series of tributes) as the theme tended to become more personalised in the forthcoming years with much smaller religious type shows such as BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON and such.  GSET is an extremely well made film with beautiful production values and even the odd guest director such as the eminent David Lean and Jean Negulesco to fill some gaps in the narrative once Steven's was done with it.

Visual effects wise it's a bonanza!  Colleagues on stopmotionanimation.com matte painting thread I'm sure are sick to death of me praising the effects in GSET, so anyone tired of this, best skip to another blog as I'm going to really sing the praises of these effects here.  The film was Oscar nominated in a number of categories, including best special visual effects, yet unbelievably lost that year to the frankly plain third rate effects in the 007 adventure THUNDERBALL!!  Incredible... a film with minimal, and quite poorly executed visuals even getting a nomination is one thing, but taking home the bloody statuette is quite another.  I guess it's all down to film popularity above quality (same story with 'ET' years later when clearly BLADERUNNER should have swept that and other awards, but don't get me started).

GSET was a mammoth production, and it shows.  It's all up there on the big CinemaScope screen - in fact in 70mm 6 track stereo on initial runs.  Glorious visual effect design by Joseph MacMillan Johnson, a long time figure in volved with big effects shows such as GONE WITH THE WIND and PORTRAIT OF JENNIE.  Not a special effects man per se but certainly the vision behind the effects concepts, most of which in this case were matte paintings.  Johnson headed the MGM visual effects department after the departure of Lee LeBlanc and oversaw a number of films.

Among the myriad of effects people concerned with GSET were veteran visual effects cinematographer Clarence W. Slifer - another key player from GWTW as well as KING KONG, BEN HUR and hundreds of others and one of the industry's most acknowledged visual effects cameramen for his applications of aerial image optical cinematography to facilitate clean, non locked off matte composites. With such a load of matte and glass shots the film employed several matte artists, namely Jan Domela, Matthew Yuricich and Albert Maxwell Simpson.   Simpson had enjoyed a long career as a matte artist and had worked extensively with Slifer on numerous shows, including KONG and GWTW.  Future effects cinematographer Richard Yuricich, Matthew's brother, was also involved with the matte photography in what very well could have been his first film.

So without further ado, on with the show....................

Special Effects Supervisor - A.Arnold Gillespie

Special Photographic Effects Supervisor - J.MacMillan Johnson

Visual Effects Cinematographer - Clarence W.D Slifer, ASC

Matte Camera Asssistant - Cliff Shirpser

Matte Artists - Matthew Yuricich,  Jan Domela and Albert Maxwell Simpson

Matte Rotoscope Effects - Richard Yuricich

Optical Effects - Robert R.Hoag

Process Projection - Charles MacLeod

Probably a Jan Domela matte painting as I have a number of before and after old photos from Jan's daughter of this view.As with all of the mattes in this film I must whole heartily compliment the wonderful final composites overseen by Clarence Slifer and in many shots such terrific atmospheric elements such as this breathtaking daybreak effect.

I love this view - and as I've said before, 'the music maketh the matte' - in this case, Alfred Newman's score.  What a magnificent shot.

I'm guessing it's the same basic Jan Domela painting with new skies added to it (?)

I recall that the show was filmed in Utah and Arizona and much of those landscapes are well utilised, and as seen here adapted with matte art to lend a terrific 'edge' to the narrative.

Classic matted set extension with upper third or so painted in to conceal studio lights and such.

Another view of what I assume to be the same Domela painting - or maybe these are all separate paintings each view?

Pretty much invisible set extension here with Matthew Yuricich adding alot of subtle architecture that's never obvious.

A Jan Domela painted addition to the Arizona landscape.

The city once again, and with beautiful dusk interactive lighting effects - maybe a whole new painting here?

A Jan Domela shot.

Not sure here, but that distant out cropping of rock may be artificial?

A vast set with subtle painted cityscape seen at right and I'm assuming the left top of the frame as well.

Possibly the real deal Arizona or Utah here.  May be slightly altered in the fx studio...I dunno.

Process projection shot with a composite painting and ocean as background plate.

That city again, with rain storm overlay.

A Jan Domela combination painting, locale and optical starburst.

A beautiful and full painted matte with minimal live action added lower centre.

Jan Domela's finished painting of the above on the matte stand at MGM.  Domela's diaries mention such a positive and happy time while employed at MGM for a year or so on this and a couple of other shows.  Domela's daughter Johanna recalls visiting her father then and told me how the effects cameramen on the shoot praised her dad for the no nonsense speed of his painting. So very different from his later years of constant stress under John Fulton at Paramount. She also remembers the matte building as "old and rickety and ready to fall down at any minute".  (*it was eventually torn down in the mid seventies and an awful lot of original classic matte art was chucked into dumpsters)

A Matthew Yuricich matte extending the view outward from just below the upper edge of the city walls.

A rare unfinished test comp of one of Domela's exteriors of the city with the sea beyond.

Yep, it's those city walls again - but this time we can see Jan Domela's original painting below...

Domela art on masonite ready for the matte camera.

Close up detail of Jan's city walls.

Another beautifully detailed aerial Jan Domela shot - and one I couldn't find in the film.  Though just between you and me, I did fall asleep for a while during this three hour marathon, so maybe I missed more effects shots?  Keep that to yourself.

The epic pullback shot  - frame one

Frame two

Frame three

Frame four

Frame five, just as it dissolves into a new scene.  Fellow matte painter and long time friend of Matthew Yuricich, Rocco Gioffre shared with me some details on the Slifer aerial image process used on this shot - ..."Clarence Slifer had been in charge of Selznick Studios visual effects department from it's beginning and as early as 1938 he had developed a technique for doing post production camera moves on matte painting shots. This method was used on Gone With The Wind as well as other features. The unique set up he devised involved a lathe bed arrangement with the camera focused on a process projector movement in the same manner as an optical printer, but instead of using a lamphouse for a light source he mounted an additional (aerial image) lens behind the projector head and focused it on a brightly lit artwork easel, which held the matte paintings and other artwork elements. [...] I'll tell you that the pullback shot in The Greatest Story Ever Told was plagued with a number of problems among which was a visible seam that appeared during a part of the scene. So they hid the problem by photographing a flock of pigeons flying in the area and then rotoscoped all these birds onto a series of glass panes (!) in the closest artwork plane of the matte stand ( which was used strictly for foreground roto'd items like people's heads crossing matte paintings, etc..) The closest art stand was slightly out of focus, so it helped a bit for fake motion blur. So even these guys use to hide their problems by devious means!"

Interestingly, this old photo of that amazing painting still in progress here as seen in the sequence of frames above was part of Jan Domela's collection of memorabilia, so I wonder whether Jan also painted on the shot with Matthew?

Extremely rare test comps of Domela's painted city with the matte cameramans (Slifer?) notations on the edges here illustrating the choice of filters for the painting shoot, filtration for the plate, the take, length of shot and lenses used.

Mood and forboding added by the matte artist during the crucifixion scenes is a pre-requisite of the genre - excluding naturally, MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, which took an arguably less regimented viewpoint.

A vivid cloudscape, possibly manufactured in the fx unit thus endeth thou George Stevens' epic

The Epics...QUO VADIS matte shots - part two in an ongoing series

Certainly one of the better giant studio epics, Mervyn Leroy's 1950 QUO VADIS is an enduring showcase of near biblical proportions.  A good cast, screenplay and a masterful Miklos Rozsa score that still stands the test of time for us film score enthusiasts.

Naturally, being a matte shot fan I have to state from the outset that QV is one of the best Hollywood effects shows of the genre, although the photographic effects aspect was, oddly, entirely British.  The physical effects were under the control of MGM's chief special effects man A.Arnold Gillespie with ace miniatures expert Donald Jahraus - both Oscar winners a few years before for the excellent and utterly deserving THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO.  Unusually, MGM's matte department had no involvement  in QV, with all matte and optical work under the control of another long time UK visual effects specialist Tom Howard who for many years ran the effects unit at the British MGM-Elstree.
Howard's expertise  largely in optical effects and blue screen work went back to the late thirties with solid credits on such films as THIEF OF BAGHDAD.  For a film as grand as QV Howard needed the services of an experienced matte artist, one able to tackle the many and varied composition and design issues on such a film.  Enter one Peter Ellenshaw.

Legendary Brit matte artist Peter Ellenshaw had spent virtually all of his professional career up until the late 40's working under the auspices of another great in English matte artistry, Walter Percy Day at Denham Studios.  After Peter's return to civilian life following the war years spent in the air force the opportunity arose to set up a matte painting department at Elstree studios under effects head Tom Howard - an opportunity which Ellenshaw seized, after years of playing second fiddle  at Denham, all the while under Pop Day's steely gaze.

 

A curious set of events took place which Peter covered in his essential biography Ellenshaw Under Glass sufficed to say, the Ellenshaw matte shop was eventually up and running.  Les Ostinelli was matte cameraman and compositor, with Peter doing all of the painting.  The draftsmanship of Peter's QV matte shots is extraordinary and I'd go so far to say that his money shot - the grand parade with Rome stretching out around the gathered throngs is the best matte of ancient Rome ever committed to celluloid!  Totally inspirational and beautifully crafted, and even better than his later variation upon the same theme for the 1960 SPARTACUS.  So with that in mind, sit back and enjoy the work of one of cinema's finest artisans... Peter Ellenshaw.

Special Effects - A.Arnold Gillespie

Miniatures - Donald Jahraus

Visual Effects Cinematographer - Mark Davis

Matte Artist  -Peter Ellenshaw

Matte Cinematography - Les Ostinelli

Optical Effects - Tom Howard

Although not from QUO VADIS, this untitled Ellenshaw matte carried out while at Metro was perfect practice for the precision blending and eye for perspective that would be essential for Peter's biggest challenge to date.

Peter was assured by Tom Howard of an on screen credit... which never eventuated unfortunately.

Peter's initial establishing view of Rome - an extensive, almost full painting complete with bird in flight to sell the shot.

The Appian way - with added Ellenshaw Roman aquaduct and horizon.

Peter was proud of his matte work, and rightly so.  The marry ups are all exceptional and the blending flawless.

Original Cinecetta set with Peter's magnificent extension that blends with perfection, largely thanks to Les Ostinelli.

I can't be certain, but the whole left frame looks painted to me, and the right may have Peter's clouds added?

The Ellenshaw sense of light and hue was unsurpassed.

The money shot - the all time greatest matte shot of ancient Rome in my book.  Most of the crowd and virtually all of the buildings are pure Ellenshaw.  What a majestic moment with the fine Miklos Rosza fanfare belting out.  Of note too for how long this matte stays on screen.  Generally painted trick shots were kept to a minimum, but all of the QV mattes have a decent screen time with this one on screen for a considerable time and shown some five separate times by the film editor

There are more mattes than these shown here with more closer views and angles of the same scenes.

The chariot battle - all shot on a stage in front of a fairly obvious blue screen and composited by Tom Howard with the sort of result the technique was always plagued with in colour films of the day.  At one point Robert Taylor's forearm disapears altogether presumably due to blue spill or matting density issues.

Now why did I put frames here of QV's exquisite maidens?...... Because I can, so sue me!!

Ellenshaw scenery extended above limited soundstage set.

An invisible trick shot if ever there were one.  Upper half entirely Ellenshaw's oils on glass.

Rome burns...is this the end for Nero?  Ellenshaw's contribution to the exciting inferno set piece with much Don Jahraus miniature work and excellent Tom Howard composites to tie the extras into the danger.

Rome burns!  Great Don Jahraus miniatures (though I think Fred Sersen at the opposition studio Fox really held all the cards when it came to this sort of epic effects sequence as seen in IN OLD CHICAGO and THE RAINS CAME, both of which will be featured right here on this very blog soon.....).

Excellent blue screen comp of miniature photography here.

Peter Ustinov's 'Nero' fiddling while Rome burns....one seriously deluded and misunderstood bastard!

There are more angles for the arena sequence and also some interesting split screens to pit hungry lions in the same space as the tired, sinewy Christians.  All top calibre work.

Before and after Peter's painted crowded forum.

A Tom Howard split screen with lions and actors filmed separately, plus Ellenshaw upper artwork.

Ellenshaw crowd art plus blue screened close ups with charging bull.

The final shot - a standard Heavenly optical ray.

A view of the set built at Cinecetta Studios in Rome prior to the addition of Ellenshaw's majestic, sprawling painting.

Two examples of Ellenshaw's flawless artistry and superb blends of live action set to matte art.

All up I've always felt that QUO VADIS had more than enough in it's favour to be a potential Oscar nominee, if not winner in the 1950 special visual effects category ... but the Academy worketh in strange ways.
The Warner DVD is exceptionally well timed and transferred and it's on Blu Ray too.  I have some Blu Ray mattes which look sensational.

Tune in again in a day or so for magnificent matte work from THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD.

Peter