I remember really digging that when it came out. Amazing how labor-intensive it all was.

I remember watching this "behind the scenes" documentary back in 1981 or 1982. That whole "fly through" concept was brand new at the time. I didn't watch the YouTube clip all the way through, but as I remember, they used quite a few of the same techniques that Lucas used for the final "death star" fly-through in the final scenes of the original Star Wars.

What is really cool is how they did the HBO logo. These days we take it for granted that it would be CGI, but back then they did it like Bob (Farss) talks about doing effects: using solid, real objects.

You could do that starburst with a pair of PNG images I'll bet.

There's a great read in the Fbruary issue of American Cinematographer. Richard Edlund ASC has been award the Society's Presidents award.
Edlund was the brains behind the visual FXs in many, many movies right upto Ghostbusters and Alien 3. The Pignose amplifier was also his brainchild.
Edlund revived the VistaVision camera in order to get the resolution needed for much of the visual effects plates.
He started Boss Films in 1983 and closed it in 1997 after completing work on Air Force One and Starship Troopers. He realised that the days of visual FXs were over, "it became about buying computers and developing software".

Today I think we're on the brink of a huge leap in how images are captured. The process hasn't changed in a century. We've replaced film with a digital sensor but we still do the same thing, capture a moment in time from a single point. Advances in software, the use of large arrays of cameras and massive computational power could see ways of working that are hard to image. It's possible camera moves and lighting will be moved to post production. Stereoscopic imaging is only the beginning.

Bob.