Professional studios like the ones used in Slough by Derek Meddings crew were very large.
They had to be,in order to produce realistic model effects.It is a rule within the film special effects world that in order to be as realistic as possible your model's should be as big as you can make them.In his book "21st Century Visions" Meddings states this unequivocally.
Large models require light..a lot of light in order to illuminate them,not simply because the models are large,but also because their backgrounds and settings become large.
For the Amateur to reproduce these effects to any degree would be extremely difficult if tbey used models of similar size.We would need to rent a warehouse size studio,hire very powerful professional studio lights and have access to lots of time, talent and materials to produce the required models.In order to try and simulate similar effects we need to use small models.Using available domestic lighting of up to 100 watts the UFO I use is only 50mm in diameter.I realised that you simply cannot create big models and light them with
the sort of bulbs available at your local supermarket,then expect to photograph them in your spare bedroom.To illustrate:If the effects on this and the previous page were to be created using a 50mm model then you would need 250/300 Watt lamps,and double the amount of space.The smallest model used by Derek Meddings measured 4ins,that equates
to 4 times the room size and lamps over 1000 Watts each.Bear in mind small models were used in long shot,which might require even more space.Typically UFO used flying Saucer models between 6 and 15 ins in diameter.Minimally here we are talking about warehouse size studios and lights that are big and powerful.You would also need a lot of them.
This is what is meant by the Room,Size,Lighting Ratio