Comments from Jeff Smart

Marc mentioned:

Hi all,

>Jeff Smart, the person who recorded the extra UFO >commentaries on the A&E
>UFO DVDs and also will someday release his video >THE FUTURE IS FANTASTIC
>video, was browsing our SHADO archives and had the >following comments:

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>- the number of UFO paddles was indeed 16, a picture >in a guide book of a
>saucer with a missing paddle caused the mess. Derek >Meddings told me it
>probably fell off when the photo was taken as the >paddles were only glued
>on!

Although I respect Jeff Smart's views on this,particularly as he'd spoken to Derek Meddings about it,it is still likely given the study of the DVD's that the UFO model was filmed with 15 paddles and not 16.I think the evidence is with us on this.

Might I offer an explanation and some other observations about the model that might prove interesting.

Derek Meddings was the boss.Most photographs I,ve seen of him on the set of UFO show him smartly dressed.May I suggest that perhaps for UFO most of his responsibilities required him to be off set and thus not necessarily involved in the day to day shooting of scenes which he left in the capable hands of experienced members of a team he'd worked with for quite a few years.Obviously Derek would be around or consulted when problems arose.But I suspect he would not have had the hands on and hands in approach he probably had on the intensive special effects filming involved with the likes of Captain Scarlet or Thunderbirds.
I,m not suggesting of course that Derek did,nt know what was going on,but is'nt it possible that decisions of an unimportant nature (like look this model looks and flies better with one paddle missing) he would simply have left to experienced members of his team like Shaun Whittacker-Cook,Peter Wragg,Alan Berry and Ian Wingrove.Behind the scenes pictures always seem to feature these men scruffed out in dirty jeans and lose shirts.Is it likely that when the model arrived from the shop the first thing they did was to break off a paddle.I,m sure this sort of thing goes on unspoken of in film making time after time,film after film,week after week.It gets the job done.

How often for instance have you heard anyone comment on the fact that all of the UFO models were different..hardly ever,but they were.Again there was a probable reason,which was taken at the time by someone,because it seemed better that way.
Another aspect of the UFO model I have only just found out about is regarding the highly reflective material used to cover it.It is mentioned by Eric Backman (model maker on UFO) as Chrome tape and a corrugated silver plastic.
It might help to know that the model was built in basically three sizes 3 or 4 inch,6 or 8 inch,12 to 15 inch.
The smaller model was I believe covered all over in Chrome tape.The intermediate model was covered in both chrome tape (paddles and disks only) while the central cone structure was covered in the unknown corrugated silver plastic material (which was in fact chrome reflective).
The larger model was covered completely in the corrugated silver.Again study of photographs (Marcs website,The UFO 1971 Annual and the DVD's bears this out)
It would be very interesting to know what this corrugated silver plastic actually was and where it was obtained from.I don't believe a cheap and readily available chrome effect was easy to produce even in the latter part of the 1960's.

The other day simply by chance I realised that it was a material used quite extensively in at least three Anderson Productions: UFO (the model UFO,trimming to the Molly used by Roper in Flight Path and Straker in Timelash)
Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 (Usually used as linings to a model of a fridge or a safe) Thuderbird Six (the frequently seen revolving coils in the gravity unit of SkyShip 1 are completely covered by it).
I havent chance to look in any more detail,but I wonder where and on what else it might have been used on in other Anderson shows.Comments,Opinions and criticisms welcome.

Mark UK




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