 While preparing to film the Fireflash controlled landing sequence, Meddings was faced with the difficulty of having to build an extended, dynamic runway set in the limited shooting space available at AP Films Studios. His compact and cost-efficient solution was to isolate the basic set elements – the grass verge foreground, the sky background and the tarmac separating them – and construct separate loops of canvas, all painted to represent one element; these were fitted to rollers that, when run at speeds proportionate to their respective distances from the camera, simulated a continuous backdrop. This "rolling road" (or "roller-road") technique marked a progression from the "rolling sky" that had been pioneered in previous Anderson series, such as Stingray.
