i worked for mr ellenshaw in his last years at his hilltop home in santa barbara. i maintained his little pond and shade garden weekly. sometimes he would invite me into his studio where he was working on the most beautifully detailed paintings of winnie the pooh scenes. i was bowled over by the vibrant colors. he was the kindest most gentle man always thanking me for the care of his little secret garden. it was a magical place and time.
Thanks so very much for sharing that. I'm a new illustrator and Mr Ellenshaw is one of my heroes. The scenes with his paintings were always my favourite. Your comment shows the best of what RU-vid is about. Adam (Sheffield, UK)
Great story about Mr Ellenshaw getting his break in the film business. Most of us have no idea what kind of work we will do but I have always drawn cartoons and spent 2 years at a film school in South Wales learning about animation. 4 years later, by chance, a friend found a newspaper advert for artists to work on a Disney film in London, it changed my life. In 1987 I worked on Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit as an inbetweener and got my best friend a job in the matt roto department doing the shadow work, painting black paint onto cells of acetate. These were then sent off to Industrial Light & Magic in the US where the hard line edges of the shadows were softened to make them look more realistic. For over 20 years I worked on various animated feature films and animated commercials and even met my wife of 30 years because of a cartoon rabbit but gave it all up when everything went digital and studio's were shedding workers in their thousands especially those working as cell painters. One digital scanner operator can do in 4 hours what had taken a team of 5 women a whole week to do. I now specialise in Lime Putty Plastering where I slake & make my own plasters and mortars and work on old churches, castles and large stone houses.
So you stayed within the creative world. Lime Putty Plastering is a fantastic medium, more 3D than your old job. The best jobs fall on us by chance and sometimes you can make that chance happen, sometimes it's an encounter, stories like these are always fascinating.
If only I could've married her, she was rather a cute sex symbol and only a couple of the animators were allowed to draw and clean up those rough drawings to make sure that they were done right. Disney as a company was a fair employer and did everything that they could to keep people working there. For example on week-ends we got double time on a saturday and triple time on a sunday and if you worked past 10pm at night you get a free taxi home.
Not really Michael, there were about 200 people working on 3 floors in Camden Town and he stuck to his own area thank fek, he was a genius with a pen and took over 25 years to make a film which Warner brothers owned and eventually took away from him he was taking so long. He was a miserable sod and made many artists lives a misery. When he corrected peoples art work he'd use a fountain pen which mean't the whole drawing had to be done again from scratch. After the film was over I worked at a German animation company in Munich called TC Studio's where I worked with his son Alex, many of the Disney animators got work at MS Studio. At TC they almost went under thanks to a fat, dodgy Russian partner called Mallakoff who stole money from my boss Wolfgang Urchs.
Back in the 1980’s my wife wanted to become a matte artist but had no idea where to start. On a whim, she did a little research and found Mr Ellenshaw’s address. She wrote a quick letter to him to let him know that he was an inspiration to her, and asked for any advice he could give her. A few weeks later, Mr Ellinshaw graciously hand wrote a letter back. Thanking her for the kind words and gave a few encouraging words to her. She cherished that letter. What a humble and kind person he was, and sadly that caliber of artist is very hard to find these days.
Peter Ellenshaw was a one-of-a-kind genius, a VFX artist with unparalleled perspective and painting skills. He was the miracle worker in an impossible maze of tricks and illusion that is cinema magic.
Totally. I mention Peter Ellenshaw in the same breath as Ray Harryhausen for sheer breathtaking achievement and innovation. With Ellenshaw I'm thinking how important his work was in those Disney films to the look of the whole film not just the quality of the art. Albert Whitlock brought a level of realism to matte work but it's hard to think of anyone other than Ellenshaw where the images were so well known without people knowing they know them because they featured so prominently in those classics (except Michael Pangrazio's Raiders Of The Lost Ark warehouse shot). It's always more fascinating to me to see how the old masters performed true camera trickery from an era when you would often be left wondering how they did it. There were times in the past when seeing an effects laden movie would be exciting just because I knew I was going to see something special and not know how it was done (but as a kid be desperate to find out). Most of the times nowadays effects are taken for granted. They're just everyday effects, not special effects.
'Was blown away by Peter Ellenshaw's matte paintings ever since my mum bought me a book on the Art ofDisney when I was a nipper. 'Didn't know he was English and his achievements and also his prowess in the art of special effects makes him legendary, especially considering his lack of formal education and lack of father figure, growing up. Wow. Incredible and inspiring. And what a joy to paint like that.
Peter understood the basic fact of old school matte painting; you don't want a photo realistic shot. You want a realistic image of a photo. There's a subtle difference between the two. The imagination can fill in so much; it's a question of putting what the eye needs in the image, and letting the viewer's imagination fill in the rest.
Two of my most prize possessions are a book and a print created and signed by Peter Ellenshaw. If I someday win a major cash prize, I’ll spring for an original Ellenshaw painting. The prefix _gen_ (meaning birth, race, or origin) appears in the words genuine and genius. Peter Ellenshaw _was_ a _genuine genius._ such men are extremely rare.
What a lovely story. I was lucky to apprentice to a great artist as well, and it changed my life so much for the better. I still hear his advice in my head 40 years later.
I just wanted to say, in my school i had to make a documentary about breaking barriers, and i chose matte painting. This was a SUPER good research reference. I just wanted to say thank you and keep making amazing videos and inspiring others.
This is very interesting, and very well done. Thankyou for sharing this with us. If any Netflix people are watching this, after seeing your ad for the 4+ time. We have got the message!
He was ambitious, met the right people at the right time but most of all he worked fucking hard at his craft. If you get really good at something by working your ass of everything else comes.
Its the hard work, artistry and imagination from artists like Peter Ellenshaw whose dedication to his craft is never recognized and his laurels was always credited to Walt Disney! What a shame, because I've never heard of him, until today!
Absolutely amazing. This video is very well put together. Never knew much about matte painting, so I actually learned a few things. Thank you for the fantastic video upload!
A good apprenticeship is better than any college or university education. I studied EE/CS and that allowed me to make my own effects for my mentalism/stage hypnosis show. Which then landed me a project as effects engineer for a TV show where mentalists battled to become the Next Uri Geller. Since I made the effects and trained the performers I also wrote their patter. But I’d written only for stage. So the AD would then rewrite and coach me to make it TV friendly. That show landed me more projects as a consultant in hypnosis and magic shows. And at one production company I ran into their vfx supervisor. I had developed image enhancement and tracking algorithms for solar telescope (that was my final year project). And I also did similar things professionally for Ct/MRI. So when he told me that these days it all is done with nodes and no line of code needs to be written, I got curious and wanted to see that program. Which was Nuke. So I basically walked in every Friday and get tutored on compositing and I automated their pipeline to do slap comps. And I learned digital mattepainting and colour theory. 6 months on Friday’s, and of course my tech background made me a compositor. Doing commercials and TV bids on my own. Then 5 or 6 years later he called me to help him out. He was a subcontractor of DNEG working on Dunkirk and he had a very tricky shot that needed some automation and he knew one guy when his request to get TDs involved was denied to help him out. So now master and pupil were at odds, it was so cool.
Top shelf stuff..great insight to a great talented man and Matte painting. Luv,d Mary Poppins the Sweeps dance is an always will be fantastic.. just as good as " Makes me Alidocious " ( however ye spell it ) .
Thank you for uploading this video This was really sweet an heart warming Enjoyed every bit of it This man really process shear amount of talent and golden heart Huge amount of respect for him
Thank you so much for this Video! It's not only a video but like a special effects class!! So glad we get to see this via your channel! Hats off to you man!💯💯🥳
Technically, the quarry scene representing the prison camp at Rorapandi was not filmed in Cucamonga. Cucamonga may have served as a jumping off point, possibly with the nearest adequate motel facilities, but the location of the quarry was farther south in Alberhill, just north of Lake Elsinore.
