For the hill jump movie the set up is exactly the same as for the pendulum film. There's a line from the model to a tree branch above that goes through a metal loop and back down into your hand so you can pull it up smoothly. The metal loop is roped up to the branch - I used a key chain type clip. There's another line from the outer edge of the model to your belt which prevents swaying and wobbling and is the reason the ship appears so steady I think (Meier only has one hand so this line has to be tied off to your body somewhere, so when you walk the model moves closer or further from the natural suspension point - directly under where it's suspended). The hill jump was the first film Meier took in March 1976. This particular piece of footage took some working out but in the end it became easy. All of Meier's films are easy to reproduce when you know exactly how it's done by a guy who only uses one hand.
What you need is either a tent peg that you can drive into the ground just behind where the model is, when it's the furthest from the camera, or another tree to wrap the edge line around before it comes back to you. It's a bit tricky to visualize without being there and I haven't taken a complete "how to set it up" type film so an explanation will have to do unless a demonstration is demanded. So imagine you're Billy Meier and you're standing behind your camera to start with. The model is suspended directly from a tree branch in front of you at some distance. The model is only 13" wide so it doesn't have to be far away to appear small to the camera. You can hold it up and pull it further up with one hand and then switch the camera off with the same hand while continuing to pull the model. The camera may also be tilted to the right producing a left tilt as a result which is what we see in the original.
Now the camera is off, and the sky is crystal blue allowing you to take a little time between takes, the second line is already tied to the models outermost edge and you carry the model to the point at which you want it to be and leave it on the ground while you drive the tent peg into a position just behind it. Wrap the edge line around the tent peg and walk with it back to behind the camera tying it off at your belt. Now pull it up slightly by the suspension line and look through the camera viewfinder to see how close it is to the hill brow. When it's just above it start the camera again and look through the viewfinder as you lower it down to the hill brow, which is only a small hill - it just looks massive without relative objects to judge it by, like trees - and pull it up again to a point just above the hill like in Meier's film. Now you simply walk toward the model while staying out of the frame, which you can mark off in the distance with a coat or something.
As you walk toward the model, away from the camera, because the edge line is going around the tent peg behind the model, the model itself will move toward the camera. So the further out you go the closer it gets to the camera. Meanwhile you're holding the suspension line as you walk, which brings the model up at the same time creating a resultant horizontal motion. (If you didn't pull the model up while walking forward it would move in a downward arc and drop everytime). If you then stop and pull the suspension line down it will travel up, which is exactly what we see in the original. It moves sideways and then up, over and over again. Mostly up really, but it gets closer to the camera every time, doubling in size between the two extremes.
An interesting side note here concerns the fact that someone would spend so much money on pictures and 8mm movie films of UFO's to "prove" the existence of Pleiadians when all he had to do to prove it was introduce another person to one of his alien friends and get a definite picture of it or a film of someone entering a saucer and taking off or landing for that matter. Anything conclusive would do and that's what I was looking for years ago when I saw Meier's films for the first time. Boy was I dissappointed! No take offs or landings or aliens. Just what looked exactly like models hovering in the wind being very unimpressive.
With a digital camera I could see what I was filming on the back as I used it. This meant I could see straightaway if I had enough distance between the camera and the model to frame it as close to the original as the location would allow. I say that because you need a high enough tree branch, without lower branches getting in the way, as well as a hillside in the same spot. I was very lucky to find the only one I could use round the corner on the same heath I took most of the other pictures so any final inadequacies are simply due to lack of exacting details in the location, short of being in Switzerland itself. I think Meier was looking down on his scene at the site called Hasenbol. In my scene I'm looking up toward the model so there is a discrepency.
So Meier's location is very hard to replicate without actually being there. I ended up doing the first film at sunset when the field was dark. Meier's film shows the ship lit by the sun from above but the hill is dark so it's shaded, probably from trees nearby on the right, out of frame, blocking the sunlight. The fact that it's shaded helps fool the eye with the trick and yet it helps reveal a discrepency between the ship and the hill that can only come from using a model much closer to the camera than the other side of the hill. Surely if they were of the same position and the scale was as Meier alluded then the amount of light on both would be more consistent with each other.
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