In the 70's I was part of Grupo Cine Labor
(16 mm documentary short films) as technician, to keep equipment & three VW Combis on the roll: a model '59 T1 Van, a model 74 T2 Van with venetian windows added, and a Model '73 T2 Combi
(mine) with 9 seats. I also did animations with a modifyed Bolex
(the VW of 16 mm cameras!!) to shoot frame by frame. I mounted the Bolex on a vertical tube to move it up or down, made drawings on the studio floor below that tube and for centering images, I used a jewelers eye piece looking inside the open Bolex on a 90º angle prism, to focus through the lens
(Bolex were non reflex), marc all my moves & distances before I started shooting
(sometimes from tail to head for certain effects, like destrying the map piece by piece until it was gone: gives the impression a map was being drawn until completed. Lots of Letraset colors & tapes for that!). Also did the credits with Letraset & animation cells & high contrast B&W film
(very very boring!). We shooted every image twice, at 24 frames a second that meant 12 images per second
(half the work & time!!). No
BMP's, no
Alphas, no
DXT3's much less those
DDS's!! And
HTML or
CSS were unheard of!!
Then deliver to development lab. Sometimes they said when picking up the work:
"¿Guess what? The film was in the soup when electricity failed" & I had to start all over again