An optical printer with two projector heads, used in producing movie special effects. Starting from the left, you can see light shining from the lamp house, then at A is the first projector's film gate, at B a lens that projects the film in A onto the second projector's gate C. At D is the lens of the camera, the camera's finder is at E and the adjustable shutter control at F. In the heavy base G all the electronics needed for controlling the printer are located.

An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera. It allows filmmakers to re-photograph one or more strips of film. The optical printer is used for making special effects for motion pictures, or for copying and restoring old film material. Projectors are used for displaying an image on a projection screen or similar surface for the view of an audience. ... The Eyemo spyder model 71QM in action, fitted with a metal accessory on the camera door. ... Special effects (abbreviated SPFX or SFX) are used in the film, television, and entertainment industry to create effects that cannot be achieved by normal means, such as depicting travel to other star systems. ...

Common optical effects include fade outs and fade ins, dissolves, slow motion, fast motion, and matte work. More complicated work can involve dozens of elements, all combined into a single scene. Ideally, the audience in a theater should not be able to notice any optical printers work, but this is not always the case. For economical reasons, especially in the 1950s, and later in TV series produced on film, printer work was limited to only the actual parts of a scene needing the effect, so there is a clear change in the image quality when the transition occurs. Optical effects are those film effects that are created entirely through an optical process using film, light, shadow, lenses and/or chemical processes. ... Mattes are used in photography and filmmaking to insert part of a foreground image onto a background image, which is often a matte painting, a background filmed by the second unit, or computer generated imagery. ...

The first, simple optical printers were constructed already in the 1920s. Linwood Dunn expanded the concept in the 1940s, and the development continued well into the 1980s, when the printers were controlled with minicomputers. HP2114 minicomputer Minicomputer is a largely obsolete term for a class of multi-user computers which make up the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems (mainframe computers) and the smallest single-user systems (microcomputers or personal computers). ...

In the 1980s, digital special effects began to supplant optical effects. Some of the last major films with optical effects are Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Since that time the conversion to digital effects has been virtually total. Star Wars began with a 13-page treatment for a space adventure movie which George Lucas drafted in 1973, inspired from multiple myths and classic stories. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search Raiders of the Lost Ark, also known as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a film released by Paramount Pictures in 1981. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...