Arnold Peterson

Arnie has worked in the entertainment industry for over 30 years. He started as a projectionist in high school and then college. He shifted over to film production in the late 1980s. His studies in advanced education included electrical engineering, photography, and mechanical engineering. Early on, he spent time in the art dept, doing still photography, then moved into cinematography. His big break came on, "Arachnophobia." This film put him in touch with Matt Sweeney and Lucinda Strub. Matt recognized Arnie's potential and brought him on board to learn machine shop practices. Soon, he was on, "Radio Flyer," which allowed him to join Local 44.

Arnie continued refining in skills and gained exposure to other influential and important mentors. He studied motion picture cameras and developed electronics for the control of the motors and accessories. As he advanced, he took on cinematography projects and learned Motion Control on the Kuper system, which got him into Local 659, as a director of photography specializing in visual effects and time-lapse. Soon, live-action projects were added to his expanding skill set.

Establishing himself as an in-demand creative, Arnie put together his own CNC machine shop and electronics lab. This allowed him to work on advanced Special Effects features. A favorite in this arena, was "Apollo 13," where he was the lead electrical engineer responsible for all of the displays, instrumentation, and main time clocks for the space capsules, as well as mission control. Arnie had the pleasure of working with NASA to reverse engineer all the instruments to be able to control them for camera.

Recently, Arnie has obtained two patents for hydraulic safety controls for gimbals and other on-set motion control devices. He continues to hone his craft, working as an engineer in the special effects field, along with Motion Control operations and director of photography projects. Lately, one of his most loved projects is designing and building replacement electronics and motor drives for the Cinema Products CP-65 large format 65mm cameras. His expertise in this area ranges from circuit board design to the software, written in Assembly, to the CNC machined rear panels, one stop shop.

In late February 2024, Arnold was honored with a technical achievement award from the Motion Picture Academy (Oscars(TM)) for the invention and design of the remote drive roof pod, along with Elia Popov, and John Frazier.