Petro Vlahos passed away on February 10.
The pioneer of special effects Petro Vlahos passed away on February 10 at the age of 96 after a life dedicated to making possible in the cinema what seemed impossible through the use of chroma technology. Vlahos has won four awards from the Hollywood Academy for his contributions to the cinema industry and has amassed more than 35 patents for his creations.
Although he will go down in history for his best known legacy: the croma, or blue screen (also green), a technique that allows you to insert any background image into a shot.
vlahos used this system in the filming of 'Ben-Hur' (1959) as well as in 'Mary Poppins' (1964) to generate, among other sequences, the illusion that actor Dick Van Dyke danced with animated penguins.
This technology became widespread since the second half of the XNUMXth century and opened the door to blockbusters such as the saga 'Star Wars', 'Avatar' o 'The Lord of the rings'. Coincidentally, nowadays The second and third parts of 'Avatar' are in the works.
More information - Avatar 2? will be released in Christmas 2014 and “Avatar 3? at Christmas 2015
Source - fotogramas.es