Simone De Salvatore
Senior Matte Painter / Senior Concept Artist / 14 yrs
Italy
Hire Me
Stories and productions like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter forged my fantasy during my late youth and the relentless desire to be a part of them plunged me through the University years. One day the instinct tickled my brain, I picked up a pencil, a sheet of paper and for the first time started drawing. There and then my deepest desire loomed. After graduating in Cinema and Media Engineering in Italy, I retired to my own cave and for months I learned on my own how to draw and paint. My student portfolio gifted me a scholarship with a ticket straight to Hollywood. What I thought was the final destination instead became the first step. The Gnomon School of Visual Effects welcomed me and helped enrich my collection of works, eventually wandering towards the realm of Matte Painting, the art behind those worlds and landscapes that we see in films which makes us wonder whether we're being fooled by reality or an artist's brush.
Two years of endless work and self-teaching granted me a first job as a Matte Painter in the motion picture industry, across the ocean. I left California and moved to Munich. I fell in love with Europe again and decided to stay, also living across Hamburg, Stuttgart, London, Belgium and Berlin. In the years that followed, to my surprise, Hollywood kept re-presenting itself with the opportunities of a lifetime full of creative dreams.
I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, the Wachowskis and Bong Joon-ho, to name a few, trying my hand through Matte Paintings, Concepts and Digital Set Design on films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, Oscar winner for Best Production Design in 2015, Game of Thrones, Cloud Atlas, Exodus: Gods and Kings, An Officer and a Spy, Snowpiercer, Captain Marvel… and I hope the list will grow.
Curious what awaits you when you just follow the instinct and trust your original idea. It’s all in the first stories that stir the emotions, I only needed to act on them.
Today I'm writing and illustrating my own novels, in a genre that spans from fantasy to magic realism. My wish is to give back what I received from those stories, and if in doing so I’m holding a pencil, a brush or a pen, it won't matter, as long as that dream defying energy will reach the people who long for it the most.
Thank you for reading me.
Work History
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Matte Painter
RISE | Visual Effects Studios
January 2022 - February 2022
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Matte Painter
Benuts
November 2021 - December 2021
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Matte Painter
Benuts
April 2020 - June 2020
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Matte Painter
Benuts
June 2019 - August 2019Matte Paintings for the film J'Accuse by Roman Polanski
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Matte Painter
Benuts
February 2019 - March 2019Matte paintings for the project Vivarium
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Matte Painter
TRIXTER
June 2018 - December 2018
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Matte Painter
Chimney Berlin
January 2018 - February 2018
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Matte Painter
TRIXTER
October 2017 - December 2017
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digital matte painter
Mackevision
March 2017 - October 2017
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digital matte painter
RISE | Visual Effects Studios
January 2017 - February 2017
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Matte Painter
Mackevision
January 2016 - June 2016
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Matte Painter
RISE | Visual Effects Studios
February 2016 - March 2016
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Matte Painter
der Keller
January 2015 - March 2015
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Senior Matte Painter
MPC
May 2014 - September 2014LondonExodus
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Matte Painter
TRIXTER
November 2013 - January 2014Munich, GermanyCaptain America: the Winter Soldier
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Matte Painter
ScanlineVFX
September 2013 - November 2013Munich, GermanyPompeii
Die Pilgerin
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Matte Painter
ScanlineVFX
May 2012 - January 2013Munich, GermanyCloud Atlas, Snowpiercer, Generation War
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Matte Painter
ScanlineVFX
September 2011 - November 2011Munich, Germany
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3D Artist
Entity FX
January 2010 - July 2010Greater Los Angeles AreaSmallville
Breaking Bad
The good guys
The vampire diaries
Education
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Digital Sets
Gnomon School of Visual Effects
June 2011 - September 2011 -
Maya
Gnomon School of Visual Effects
September 2009 - December 2009 -
Cinema and Media Engineering
Polytechnic of Turin
September 2005 - December 2008