American Cinematographer - December 1960 - 34

AN INFRARED
SELF-MATTING
PROCESS

A traveling matte process which takes
advantage of the selective sensitivity of
light, plus and minus infrared rays.
By

ZOLI

VIDOR,

A.S.C.

JN MAKING MOTION PICTURES

NOTE: Continuing our editorial program to bring
readers important literature on the subject of travel¬
ing matte processes and matting process substitutes,
American Cinematographer presents this third in a
series of articles-the first two having appeared in
our November, 1960, issue. (An earlier article on
matte processes by Ray Kellogg and L. B. Abbott
was published in our October, 1957, issue).
The author, who is a veteran cinematographer, is
associated with MPO Videotronics, Inc., New York,
N.Y. His paper, which follows, was presented at the
Convention of the Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers in Miami Beach, Florida, May
7, 1959 and subsequently was published in the
Journal Of The SMPTE (Vol. 69, No. 6). It is re¬
printed here by permission.-EDITOR

it is often necessary to

combine picture information from several pieces
of film onto one piece of film, which is usually called
a composite. Over the years, combining several
pieces of film has been done in many ways, with
varying degrees of success.
One method of combining one or more foreground
actions with a background is by making a matte. A
matte is usually a piece of film which has an opaque
portion. If the matte is bi-packed when printing the
background, an unexposed portion of the film cor¬
responding in shape and size to the opaque portion
is obtained. Then something of the same shape and
size can be printed into that unexposed portion from
a piece of film that has been photographed at another
time.
When this opaque portion is moving and therefore
changes its shape, size and relative position in the
frame, it is called a "traveling" matte.

FIG. 1-Showing the eight steps employed in
the infrared self-matting process described by
author: 1-Conventional modulated negative of
subject against clear background. 2-Opaque
BG (background) with clear silhouette of sub¬
ject produced via infrared exposure. 3-Nega¬
tive of BG. (A fine-grain print would also serve
here). 4-Positive matte obtained by making hicontrast print of the IR negative matte. 5-Finegrain print of BG. 6-Fine-grain print of the
visual negative with opaque BG. 7-Print of BG
in step 5 on negative stock, made by bi-pack¬
ing 4. Before film is developed, image 6 is also
printed thereon in exact register. 8-Resultant
composite negative.

740

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER



American Cinematographer - December 1960

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American Cinematographer - December 1960 - 1
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