Linwood G. Dunn, A.S.C. (December 27, 1904 in Brooklyn, New York – May 20, 1998 in Los Angeles, California) was an American pioneer of visual special effects in motion pictures and an inventor of related technology. Dunn worked on many films and television series, including the original 1933 King Kong (1933), Citizen Kane (1941), and Star Trek (1966–69). Early career Dunn is noted as being very interested in cinema from as early as age 14, going so far as to compile his own rating scale for the movies he watched. This interest initiated his career, which began in 1923 in his home state as a projectionist. He was hired as an assistant camera operator by the Pathé company in 1925 and eventually moved to Hollywood, where he continued to work for Pathé until 1929. His early contributions in this capacity were for film serials such as The Green Archer (1925), Snowed In (1926), Hawk of the Hills (1927), and Queen of the Northwoods (1929). He was then hired by RKO Radio Pictures as a cinematographer and as head of the photographic effects department, where he would work from the late 1920s until 1956. His early contributions in camera work and special effects at RKO included films such as The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930), Danger Lights (1930), and Cimarron (1931), an Academy Award-winner for Best Picture, and The Monkey's Paw (1933). This early experience led to the World War II development of the first practical commercially manufactured optical printer, a device consisting of cameras and projectors allowing for the accurate compositing of multiple images onto a single piece of film. Body of work Dunn photographed the rotating RKO radio tower trademark used at the beginning of all RKO films. In the early 1930s, Dunn became part of the effects team responsible for the creation of the original King Kong (1933). He advanced his special effects techniques through extensive cutting between a miniature Kong model in full shots and fully-scaled body parts in close-ups, a technique he would repeat for later movies, including the sequel, Son of Kong (1933). Dunn worked under model animator Willis O'Brien and would go on to work with O'Brien on other projects. Dunn did optical/photographic composites for the airplane-wing-dance sequence in the first Astaire-Rodgers musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) were other well-remembered RKO