History
The company, initially called Matte World, was co-founded in 1988 by visual effects supervisor Craig Barron, matte painter Michael Pangrazio, and producer Krystyna Demkowicz. Barron and Pangrazio had worked together at Industrial Light & Magic, starting in 1979, when they helped create the matte-effects shots for George Lucas' Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Barron and Pangrazio continued to work with the crew at ILM on notable matte-painting scenes in several classic features including Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Barron left ILM in 1988 after serving four years as supervisor of photography in the company’s matte department.
The Matte World team formed to provide realistic matte-painting effects for film and television. In 1992, the company was renamed Matte World Digital, reflecting the new technological tools available to matte painters. Since then, MWD has created digital-matte environments for films directed by (among others) Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and David Fincher. Barron is now the sole owner of Matte World Digital and in 2008 celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the company. Current projects include an IMAX production in collaboration with theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking.
Matte World Digital closed its shop in August, 2012.
Read more about this topic: Matte World Digital
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)