It’s difficult to imagine where visual effects in movies would be today without Bluescreen (or Greenscreen in many cases) technology. There would be no Lord of the Rings… heck… there would be no Sci-Fi or fantasy at all these days.
With that in mind, it was a long overdue honor that was bestowed on Arthur Widmer at the Oscar ceremony which handed out the awards for technical achievement film hosted by Scarlett Johansson on Sunday. Widmer was given the award for lifetime achievement, and deservedly so.
For those of you who may not know, Bluescreen is the term used to refer to the process of filming a subject and then putting another environment behind them. Most of the new Star Wars movies have the actors just acting in front of a Bluescreen with the fantastic environments added later.
Out of interest, when exactly is Widmer supposed to have invented this process?