The Purple Plain 1954

 There are some interesting if not altogether successful miniature aircraft effects in this film.

There are model Mosquito aircraft filmed against a large miniature landscape meant to represent the island of  Borneo. Typically for British miniature effects of the period the model work was shot in a studio and the lighting is never really convincing as sunlight. One of the products of the studio bound lighting is that the shots generally suffer from a too shallow depth of field with the closest aircraft being out of focus, a sure fire signal that the shot is a miniature.

The shots of the engine leaking oil and catching fire outside the cockpit window are more convincing.

More distant shots employ smaller models with flak bursts added via an optical printer.

There are also a number of Matte painted shots with both distant mountains and foreground rocks, tree and branches added with paint.

There is also a very odd ground explosion that appears to be cell animated flash for a couple of frames wirh an optically added black smoke element that is just a silhouette. It would appear that all the black smoke and flak elements were just hold out mattes on the background plate as they have no internal lighting of their own.

Miniatures supervised by Bill Warrington with matte paintings and probably opticals supervised by Charles Staffell.