Harry Walton short bio :

Ever since I was eight years old I knew that I wanted to be involved with animation and visual effects. In 1968 I landed my first professional film job working for CLOKEY PRODUCTIONS on GUMBY and DAVEY & GOLIATH. A couple of years later I was hired by one of my heros in the industry, Gene Warren Sr. of PROJECT UNLIMITED and EXCELSIOR fame. Gene was my mentor for 7 years where I learned much about stop motion animation and visual effects. From EXCELSIOR I moved on to such places as CASCADE PICTURES, COAST EFFECTS, EFFECTS ASSOCIATES (Jim Danforth), DAVID STIPES PRODUCTIONS, ILM, TIPPETT STUDIO, SKELLINGTON PRODUCTIONS, DREAM QUEST IMAGES, SONY PICTURES IMAGEWORKS, etc. I specialized in character animation, although I was also heavily involved in other areas of visual effects such as optical compositing, matte painting and compositing, plate photography, lighting and setup, stop motion puppet fabrication, etc. I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the best in this industry. In 1995 I was forced to make the transition into digital animation and visual effects. I sure do miss those days of working with cameras, projectors, puppets, miniatures, sets and lights.

Harry Walton
hvwalton@verizon.net
www.vfxmasters.com
 
 
 

Those are  5 photos of a matte painting that I did in 1980 for the movie HOPSCOTCH, starring Walter Matthau. The painting was done with oil paints on a sheet of glass. I did the composite with rear projection using my RKO matte projector when I was at CPC Associates in Hollywood. I used an anamorphic "squeezed" plate, so I had to paint with a 2:1 squeeze. Anamorpic projection lenses were not as sharp as spherical lenses. Jim Danforth devised this geometric graph which allowed me to accurately paint the geometric shapes with a 2:1 squeeze.
The reason for this matte shot was it was cheaper for the production to shoot in Atlanta, Georgia and pay for a matte shot to make it look like Washington, D.C.
 

finished unsqueezed composite.
 

Harry Walton working on the painting.
 

 bg. plate with the matte for the painting area.
 

 Original bg.

Squeezed glass painting.

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