Walter Percy DayO.B.E. (1878–1965) was a British painter best remembered for his work as amatte artist and special effects technician in the film industry.Professional names includeW. Percy Day;Percy Day; "Pop" or "Poppa" Day, owing to his collaboration with sons Arthur George Day (1909–1952) draughtsman, Thomas Sydney Day (1912–1985), stills photographer and cameraman, and stepson,Peter Ellenshaw, who also worked in this field.
Walter Percy Day was born inLuton (Bedfordshire) to Eli Day and Lucy Day, née Crawley, the second of three children. From 1908 to 1912, he resided in Tunisia, at Sidi Bou Saïd and Tunis, where he pursued a career as a painter of portraits and Orientalist scenes. The dramatic consequences of theJellaz Affair uprising obliged the family to return to Britain early in 1912.
In 1919, at Ideal Films Studios inBorehamwood, nearElstree Day mastered the art of illusionist techniques. Special effects such as those produced by Day enabled directors to enlarge their repertoire and to tackle subjects which might otherwise have been too costly to produce. In 1922, he relocated to France to its more vibrant cinema. There he introduced the use of the glass shot into French cinema. Used for the first time inHenry Roussel'sLes Opprimés, released in 1923, the process was hailed by a critic as a revolution in cinematography.[1] Among the directors with whom Day collaborated during the twenties wereJean Renoir,Raymond Bernard,Julien Duvivier, andAbel Gance. In addition to creating visual effects forNapoléon (1927), Day was cast as the British AdmiralHood in the film. From 1928, Day's studio became a team, when sons Arthur George Day (1909–1912) and Thomas Sydney Day (1912–1985) began to work for their father, the former as draughtsman and the latter as cameraman and stills photographer, starting withLéon Poirier'sVerdun: Visions of History (1928).
When shooting the façade of the department store in Julien Duvivier's filmAu Bonheur des Dames (1929) proved to be an insurmountable difficulty, Day utilised the stationary matte, a process similar to that patented byNorman Dawn on 11 June 1918.[2]
Poppa Day's team disbanded once World War II began as all three sons enlisted. Pop Day trained some promising young matte painters, including Wally Veevers, who took over the matte department atShepperton Studios when Pop Day retired in 1952.
During the war, the film studios made a series of heroic war films, aimed at boosting the morale of the beleaguered British, including Powell and Pressburger's49th Parallel (US:The Invaders, 1941),Noël Coward andDavid Lean'sIn Which We Serve (1942) andLeslie Howard'sThe First of the Few (US:Spitfire, also 1942). In addition to designing special effects for these films, Day created trick photography for many other British classics released during the forties, includingThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943),A Matter of Life and Death [US:Stairway to Heaven, 1946],Anna Karenina (1948), andThe Third Man (1949). InLaurence Olivier's production ofHenry V (1944), many of theAgincourt battle scenes were painted on glass by Day, who contrived to make the horses' heads move, the pennants flutter and whirring motion of a flight of arrows in the completed shots. The Powell and Pressburger production ofI Know Where I'm Going! (1945) contains a sequence in which the hero and heroine's boat gets sucked into theCorryvreckan whirlpool.Black Narcissus (1947) was shot entirely on thePinewood Studios back lot, but a matte of the Himalayan mountain range in the climactic scene painted by Day and his assistants.
In 1948, Day was awarded theO.B.E. for his services to British cinema. CameramanChristopher Challis, rendered homage to Percy Day's achievements: "Being able to marry painted backgrounds on glass to real action foregrounds opened up a new world to film makers. ...To appreciate the magnitude of his achievement, one has to understand the complexity of the work. Hours of painstaking labour with many retakes to obtain perfection. Now it is all too easy with computers and electronics and few people remain who can understand just how complicated it was. [Day’s] name should certainly be numbered among the great film pioneers, alongsideGaumont,Lumière, etc".[3] Michael Powell, for his part, hailed Percy Day as "the greatest trick-man and film wizard that I have ever known."[4] Percy Day's legacy was ranked by the British dailyThe Independent in 2008 as on a par with the great French special effects pioneerGeorges Méliès.[5]
Royal Academy Exhibitions 1905–1970. A Dictionary of Artists and their Work in the Summer Exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts. London: E. P. Publishing, 1977, vol. II, p. 138.
Brian McFarlane.The Encyclopedia of British Film. London: Methuen, 2003, p. 166
Maurice Bessy; Jean-Louis Chardans.Dictionnaire du cinéma et de la television. Paris : Pauvert, 1966, Tome 2 p. 21 [Attention, CONFUSION with Will Day]
Susan Day. "Walter Percy Day".Allegemeines Künstlerlexikon. Munich; Leipzig: K.G. Saur Vg., 2000, vol. 24, pp. 581–582
J.-Nicolas Gung’L, « Chronique artistique. Percy Day, peintre de portraits »,La Tunisie Illustrée, April 1910.
« Picture with a Story. Mr. Percy Day Explains his Academic Painting".Daily Chronicle, 12 May 1919.
Georges Baye, « A propos du film Les Opprimés. Révolution dans le décor cinématographique »,Ciné Miroir, 15 March 1923
« En marge du Joueur d’échecs »,Cinémagazine, n° 2, 14 January 1927, special issue
La Petite Illustration Cinématographique, n° 8, 5 February 1927, special issue
"La prise de vues", Le courrier cinématographique, 29 mars 1929, p. 18–19
Le Courrier cinématographique, March 1929 "Special Effects Teams Save Time and Money",Kinematograph Weekly, 2 October 1947 Kinematograph Weekly, 24 October 1946, p. 15
Walter Percy Day."The Origin and Development of the Matte Shot". Fourth Newman Memorial Lecture",The Photographic Journal, October 1948.
Egon Larsen, "Here is the Inside Story of the Magician of British Films",Cavalcade, 21 May 1949
Douglas Hague, "Painted Matte Shots",British Kinematographic Society Magazine, vol. 19, n° 6, 1951, p. 166
"Pop Day, 75, goes back to college".Kent Messenger, 30 April 1954
"Trauner au naturel", Libération, 13 March 1984, p. 24
Edouard Waintrop, "Blimp Blimp Hourrah",Libération, 2 April 1992, p. 42
Gilbert Adair, "The Other Side of Harry Lime",Evening Standard, 23 August 1999, p. 42
James Christopher, "Britain’s best bar nun?",The Times, 4 August 2005, p. T2
Geoffrey MacNab, "He Made Monsters",The Independent, 20 June 2008.
