Although Ub Iwerks started out as an animator, drawing the first Mickey Mouse cartoon entirely by himself, his first loves were cameras and special effects. After leaving Disney for 10 years, he returned in 1940 and invented the multihead optical printer, used to combine live action and animation in films like Melody Time and Song of the South, for which he won an Academy Award® for Technical Achievement in 1960. Some of his other pioneering work includes the development of traveling matte systems, for which he won a second Academy Award in 1965, the wetgate printer and the 360-degree motion picture screen.
