Chris Davidson

— All the controls for the Acme-Dunn optical printer were accessible from one side of the machine. Photograph: The Cine-Technician, May/June 1944. Initially, the Acme-Dunn printer was manufactured purely for governmental use, with the first machine snapped up by the U.S. Navy’s Central Photographic Laboratory in Washington, D.C. After the war, widespread production began and the Acme-Dunn became what motion pictures had always lacked: an industry-standard optical printer. On 15 March 1945, the Academy Research Council bestowed a Class 3 Award on Linwood Dunn, Cecil Love and Edward Furer for the design and construction of their new optical printer, commenting, “This machine exemplifies technical advancement necessary to keep pace with the ever increasing scope of the motion picture art18.” Nearly forty years later, in 1981, the Academy recognised the same three men for the same achievement, retrospectively awarding them a special Oscar for technical merit. Experiments in Optical Once standardised, the optical printer solidified its reputation as a piece of essential equipment capable of performing a multitude of onerous tasks without complaint — and saving the production valuable dollars to boot — as illustrated in this laconic report from a 1956 edition of Motion Picture Daily: “C&G Films Effects, New York City, announce the acquisition of a new optical printer that does everything but write dialogue ... The idea, of course, is to save time in the industry where time is money19.” — Press advertisement from 1962 for an Acme optical printer.    Even though the optical printer was rapidly becoming an old dog, it was still capable of learning new tricks. For example, during the 1950s, Raymond Spottiswoode, an early proponent of 3D cinema, published a number of papers citing the optical printer as a useful tool in the delicate task of adjusting stereo displacement effects. And in 1957, Oxberry introduced the first commercially available aerial image optical printer, so named because the receiving camera was focused not on the plane of the film it was copying, but on a “virtual” or “aerial” image floating in empty space between its own lens and that of the projector.

https://vimeo.com/936475992?share=copy

Used intelligently, it "can be" and "has been" a very helpful and productive tool when working with equations.

Frame on the right side shot with B/H 414:

btw, the latter footsie is actually his left leg and foot:

Didn't care for the crop in the extant film. Others have recreated with the same camera:

The truck footage was not full zoom. Here are two that were:

A limo before its time.

Is it logical to conclude one of these drivers is applying the brakes?

Sandy, You're more than welcome to remove my "illogical" posts at any time.