This just in from Jeff Kurtti:

[Published: Saturday, January 31, 2009

Broughton, camera effects artist for Disney, 91, dies

By JON THURBER Los Angeles Times

Robert C. Broughton, 91, a pioneering camera effects artist for Walt Disney productions who worked on nearly every Disney motion picture from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in 1937 to "The Black Hole" in 1979, died Jan. 19 at a nursing facility in Rochester, Minn., according to his son Dan.

Broughton's job was to create spectacular effects in a subtle way, according to a profile on the Disney legends Web site. Broughton helped Dick Van Dyke dance with animated penguins in "Mary Poppins." He also created the visual effect that made Hayley Mills appear as twins in "The Parent Trap," his son said. And he worked on the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds," providing the visual effects of the fluttering, menacing birds when Hitchcock contracted out the special effects work to Disney.Born in Berkeley, Calif., on Sept. 17, 1917, Broughton attended the University of California, Los Angeles, before starting in the Disney mail room in 1937. He eventually moved into the camera department and quickly graduated to the advanced multi-plane camera.]