For all these years I never really knew how they shot the text crawls that opened each Star Wars picture, but I never imagined it was something this low-tech:

A camera hanging from a track, shooting a printout that's been gaffer-taped under some glass? Are you kidding me? Next time I'm going to look for the cameraman's feet beneath the last line.
Vanity Fair's got a good behind-the-scenes photo essay of the Empire Strikes Back, featuring the above shot and many more that show you how the magic was made. (Here's a heads-up: They weren't above using monkeys and mattresses.)
Comments
This is great! So nice to see that you can do incredible stuff that people will love for years without super-hi-tech gadgets and computers. I wish I could have worked at that set...
This is an amazing and very surprising case exemplifying the use of the simplest solutions to solve seemingly complex problems.
P.S. Hey look, Sarah Melgen! I'm famous!