The History of Green Screen

     The the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio Linwood Dunn used the "traveling matte" to create a wipe transition. The first use of a blue screen happened a few years later in the 1940 movie The Thief of Bagdad. The film won the academy award for special effects as well as Larry Butler who was credited for the creation of the blue screen. As his contribution to the blue screen technology Zbigniew Rybczyński created the optical printer that had two projectors, a camera, and a beam splitter. This was used to combine the actor with background footage, but the process had to be done one frame at a time. For the film The Empire Strikes Back  Richard Edlund created the quad optical printer that hastened the process.