The National
Film Board of Canada produced a series
of short documentary films during the
early 60`s focused on portraits of
historical figures of Canadian History on the XIX century. The name of Wally Gentleman appears on most of
these films as responsible for special effects.
Wally Gentleman
was an English born cinematographer who started to work at Rank Studios
on films as Great Expectations(1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes(1848) or Anastasia (1956) made
at MGM British Studios, where he learned the technique of special
effects cinematography using matte paintings, miniatures, rear projection, etc.
He moved to
Canada in 1957 where he became head of special effects unit at the national
Film Board of Canada. One of his first
work was the short film "Universe" (1960) that get the
attention to Stanley Kubrick when preparing
2001 Space odyssey. Kubrick invited him to work on his project. Wally Gentleman
accepted and went to London, to do preliminary work for a few months
before a sudden illness forced him to
abandon the project.
Back to Canada
he formed SPEAC ( Special Photographic
Effects and Allied Crafts)
On the late
70´s he went to the USA working as visual
effect director on Linwood G. Dunn Company Film Effects of Hollywood, and later
on, he supervised visual effects for Coppola One from the Heart (1982)
Most of the
short documentaries made use of matte
paintings and miniatures to recreate the historical events.
As head of the unit, only Wally Gentleman got credited as special
effects. The other effects artist remained uncredited and unknown to me. There are many matte paintings on those short
films, some of them are clearly noticeable, but some others are wonderfully painted
and get almost invisible.
Some of
these matte shots were shown and explained in the book
"The technique of special effects cinematography" by Raymond
Fielding.
1961. Robert
Baldwin. A matter of principle.
Explanation from the book "The technique of special effects cinematography" by Raymond Fielding.
Another matte painting of a ceiling from the same episode.
1961. The
tribune of Nova Scotia.
1961.
William Lyon McKenzie. A friend of his country.
They reused the same set and matte painting from the Robert Baldwin episode.
The forest set without the painting.
1962.
George- Étienne Cartier. The lion of Québec.
The set without the ceiling painting.
1962. John
McDonald The impossible Idea.
1962.
Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine.
1963.
David Thompson. The great map maker.
1964.
John Cabbot . A man of the Renaissance.
The final result is a camera tilt down movement. From the first position it moves right, then zoom in, and tilt down and left until the window set.
Another ceiling matte painting on that episode.
1964. The
last voyage of Henry Hudson.
