Re: matte paintings
Most people have no idea just how much of the movie they are watching has matte paintings in it, especially with older movies which, arguably, used the art more skilfully than a lot of the later ones. Black and white movies. One of the main reasons, other than just the skill of the painter, is that people wouldn't suspect what they are looking would be painted. Look at this example, it's absolutely incredible. This is from Hitchcock's The Paradine Case.
If you saw the finished frame, would you ever suspect all that woodwork and the passageway behind weren't real? Hitchock obviously wasn't the only one who used this technique, they were being used long before him, but he sure did know how to use them.
