Special Effects in UFO

I watched all 26 episodes of UFO last week, not in any particular
order, on laserdisc. One thing I noted was how sparse many of the
episodes were with respect to effect shots. There seems to have been
some stock shots that were used repeatedly in almost every episode.

The most obvious shot is where the three interceptors take off from
Moonbase. This same shot is present in almost every use of the
interceptors. One thing I noticed is that, just as the three
interceptors get to the right side of the screen, something pulls off
the bottom of the leftmost interceptor and falls to the ground. I saw
that same piece of plastic/wire/whatever pull off in many an episode,
or the shot was cut just before the interceptors got to the crater
wall.

Another shot that was reused a lot is where three UFOs are flying
towards Earth (I guess flying towards Earth is always from right to
left, while flying away is from left to right - who would have
known?).
Anyway, the shot that is reused seems to be a shot from the Dalotek
Affair. In that episode, the three UFOs fly past a point of light in
the middle of the screen. When the UFOs retreat past that point of
light, it heads down and crashed on the moon. The shot that seems to
be reused is those three UFOs flying past the point of light the first
time, even though that point of light never comes into play in the
episode.

I guess what I need to do now is watch the episodes in order and try
to figure out if the cost cutting came at the start of the show or at
the end. Anyway, those shots were something that seemed to stand out
when viewing the series over just a few days.

>I guess what I need to do now is watch the episodes in order and try
>to figure out if the cost cutting came at the start of the show or at
>the end. Anyway, those shots were something that seemed to stand out
>when viewing the series over just a few days.

One of the things I'm looking forward to with regard to the UFO DVDs is
(hopefully) the chance to see them in production order. And, in reponse to
your 'cost cutting' comments, you're probably right. Though it's worth
noting that although the series was effects driven there are other costly
things that have to be taken into account - location shooting, new sets,
guest artistes etc.


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--- Gareth Bevan wrote:
>
> One of the things I'm looking forward to with regard to
> the UFO DVDs is (hopefully) the chance to see them in
> production order.

Although the production order isn't a bad idea, Gareth, I don't think
that it is really of importance as long as they print a list of the
possible orders too. Finally we are not constrained to watch the
episodes in the order they have put 'em on DVD :-) And if Carlton (or
A&E) doesn't list them we can always use one of the existing orders
on Marc's Homepage -->
http://www.ufoseries.com/faq.html#16

But as I can see from Fanderson News Carlton is using the production
order with the exception of having EXPOSED put before SURVIVAL for
continuity reasons.

Christian

You also have to take into accout the time factor. The usual production time
for a single TV episode is around 10 days per episode. That might seem like
a lot of time but it isn't so it is easier to use shots of effects that have
been shot before than having to film new ones for each episode.

James K.