This is the face of Arthur Widmer who passed away on May 28th at the ripe old age of 92. And who, you will probably ask, was Arthur Widmer? Just as I did when I read of his death.

Whilst working for Warner Brothers and later Universal Studios, Widmer worked and helped develop many technologies including 3D and widescreen. But he is best remembered for the invention of the ‘blue-screen’ technique, for which he won a lifetime achievement Academy Award in 2005.

Blue-screen or green-screen or whatever colour it is now, is of course, the technique used in so many movies these days that allows actors to play out their roles against a blank back-drop that will later contain, more often than not in recent times, a computer generated background. It is one of the key technologies in the production of special-effects that Hollywood relies so heavily on.

What surprised me however, was that Widmer developed the technology in the 1950’s with one of the first major films to use it being The Old Man and the Sea. I had thought that this was a more recent innovation, in line with the use of computer technology. Whether you like all the special effects or not, you have to take a bow to that sort of creativity.