The Adventures of Prince Achmen. 1926. German. The oldest surviving animated film in history.
I am sorry BUT THIS IS NOT JUST “GERMAN” PLEASE DO NOT FORGET THE NAME OF THE ARTIST.
THIS WONDERFUL MOVIE WAS MADE BY LOTTE REINIGER! SHE WAS ONE OF THE PIONEERS OF ANIMATION!!!! SHE MADE OVER 40 FILMS IN HER CAREER USING A TECHNIQUE SHE INVENTED WITH HER HUSBAND! WALT DISNEY ENDED USING HER MULTI PLANE TECHNIQUE IN HIS OWN MOVIES! AND SHE FUCKING MADE THE FIRST FEATURE LENGTH ANIMATED MOVIE!! (she ended up fleeing Nazi germany eventually work in north america, both us and canada, on other movies.)
Look, I love Winsor McCay but I’m extremely pissed that my animation history class in college focused on him and did not mention Lotte Reiniger at all.
Before the computing era, ILM was the master of oil matte painting, making audiences believe that some of the sets in the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy were real when they weren’t. They were the work of geniuses like Chris Evans,Michael Pangrazio,Frank Ordaz, Harrison Ellenshaw and Ralph McQuarrie! Forever thank you, to their handmade art and the work of their colleagues, that made us dream of impossible worlds and fantastic places across Earth and the Universe.
There are more background paintings on this article, featuring comments by the masters/artists themselves !
Some of the following pieces were made by other artists:
Awesome.
Matte paintings are the most wonderful things. Star Wars matte painting even more so.