The Lydecker brothers worked at Republic from its creation in 1935 until the company could no longer afford to maintain full-time contract players and behind-the-camera artists in the mid-1950s.
Thereafter, they went freelance and found themselves in significant demand for both film and television work.
The brothers' success came from building large, detailed models and filming them in natural light, often in forced perspective to create realistic impressions that they were in fact life-size in relation to other objects and people in a shot, instead of the small models used by others, and the use of slow motion to give the models the appearance of realistic weight when in motion.
[3] Later they worked in feature films and Irwin Allen productions such as Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
In 1966 Howard won the Emmy for "Individual Achievement In Cinematography" with L. B. Abbott for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.