MOVIES : A Model Shoot : It’s Earth vs. flying saucers time again, and director Roland Emmerich is relying not just on computers but on tried-and-true, ‘low-tech’ special effects for his ‘Independence Day.’

Roland Emmerich was promoting his 1994 hit science-fiction movie “Stargate” when a reporter posed a question: Did he believe in space aliens?

When the easygoing German director answered that he did not, the reporter became indignant. “How can you make a movie like ‘Stargate’ and not believe in aliens?” he asked.

“I believe in fantasy,” Emmerich replied. “I believe in the great ‘What if?’ What if aliens showed up? What if tomorrow morning, you walked out of your door and these enormous spaceships hovered over every single city in the world? Wouldn’t that be the most exciting thing that could happen?”

As he left the interview, Emmerich walked over to his writing partner, Dean Devlin, and said: “I think I’ve got our next movie.”

The result is “Independence Day,” an epic science-fiction thriller about Earth under attack by aliens from outer space. One of three Earth-invasion movies planned by major studios, it will be released July 3 by 20th Century Fox, where officials are banking on it being the studio’s biggest 1996 release. Warner Bros. has just greenlighted director Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!” reportedly with a budget of $70 million, while TriStar will begin shooting “Starship Troopers” in March.

The story line begins on July 2, when strange atmospheric phenomena begin to occur throughout the world. All eyes turn skyward as alien spacecraft suddenly appear over major cities. As terror sweeps Earth’s inhabitants, governments mobilize their armed forces. Then, over the next three days, city after city is systematically destroyed by the invaders.

The ensemble cast includes Will Smith as Capt. Steve Hiller, a cocky Marine Corps fighter pilot; Jeff Goldblum as a computer genius who figures out the aliens’ plans; Bill Pullman as the president and Mary McDonnell as the first lady. Also starring are Margaret Colin as the president’s communications director and Goldblum’s ex-wife and, in no particular order, Randy Quaid, Judd Hirsch, Harry Connick Jr., Robert Loggia, Harvey Fierstein, Adam Baldwin and James Duval.

“Waterworld” and “Terminator 2” have shown that the cost of mounting an effects-laden action film can now top $100 million. But Emmerich and producer Devlin say the cost of “Independence Day” will be “not much higher than ‘Stargate,’ ” which came in at $57 million.

To achieve this, the filmmakers decided that instead of relying solely on the latest digital computer magic for their visual effects, they would also utilize such simple, “low-tech” methods as filming scale models of cities, airplanes and spaceships.

“What is planned is the largest model shoot ever attempted,” Devlin boasted.

When the movie is completed, he said, it will feature not only huge aerial battles using models built in a shop, but replicas to depict the wholesale destruction of New York, Los Angeles and Washington. Even a scaled-down White House will be blown up.

“We don’t believe in budgets over $100 million,” Devlin said. “We are trying to redefine how it’s done.”

Since March, a team of craftsmen headed by Mike Joyce, who supervised the model work for “Batman Forever,” has been creating models of everything from the presidential jet, Air Force One, to a 20-foot-by-8-foot Los Angeles street scene.

The array of models also includes assorted incarnations of the White House, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Huey helicopters, F-18 fighters and several kinds of spaceships, from “attackers” to “destroyers” to the controlling mother ship.

“I have shots in this movie that are basically models hanging on strings,” Devlin said, “and I defy you to find those side-by-side with real shots of real planes or side-by-side with the digitally animated shots. . . . Very often, putting a model on a string in front of a photo of the sky is still better than computer graphics.”

To create the effect of a fleet of fighter jets soaring through the sky, several model jets were hung by fishing wire against a moving painting of sky and clouds. They were shot with a “zero gravity cam,” which simulates the point of view of a camera placed inside an airborne aircraft.

To simulate cities being incinerated, visual effects supervisor Volker Engel and supervisor of pyrotechnics Joe Viskocil employed what they called a “wall of destruction.”

Models of cities were tilted toward a remote-controlled camera, shooting at high-speed, which was placed on a scaffold near the ceiling. Viskocil then ignited a fireball below the model sending flames over the tops of the buildings.

“It looks like fire was rolling down the street,” Devlin said proudly.

This shot will be combined with live-action shots of extras running in a panic against a blue-screen background. Meanwhile, the filmmakers then went to downtown L.A. and filmed stunt cars flipping over, and those will be edited into the scene.

In all, Devlin noted, the film utilizes 400 special effects shots. Each one can have 10 or more elements and each element requires its own shot.

“Now, you’re talking about well over 3,000 shots to make 400 shots,” the producer explained. “The compositing of those elements will go on right up until the last second.”

For one major battle sequence, Emmerich took Will Smith, hundreds of extras and stunt players to the airport in Wendover, a small town straddling the Utah-Nevada state line.

In the story, Smith’s character leads a convoy of 164 motor homes--refugees of the great attack on Los Angeles--to a mysterious military base that does not appear on any map. In his parachute, Capt. Hiller has an alien he took prisoner after shooting it down in an aerial dogfight.

At Emmerich’s cue, the extras and stuntmen begin running across the tarmac as if under attack. Special effects supervisor Clay Pinney sets off 18 explosions in the sky, strategically placing each blast where the alien fighters will eventually appear.

Back in Los Angeles, meanwhile, a model is scanned into a computer, which then replicates it, generating an entire fleet. Those images will be superimposed over the live-action airport scene to give the effect that spacecraft are strafing the tarmac.

Devlin, a former actor, said he became impressed with what Emmerich could do on a tight budget while appearing in the director’s 1990 sci-fi film “Moon 44.”

“Roland was financing the film out of his own pocket,” Devlin said. “We were near the end of the shoot and we ran out of money. In the script, the lead character is supposed to walk into a futuristic prison 40 stories tall and 40 stories deep. Roland was pacing around like a crazy person [wondering what to do]. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out all that was left--$3,000 in petty cash. He said, ‘I need mirrors!’ ”

Within hours, Emmerich had put mirrors on the ceiling and floor and also built two rows of bars using 10-foot-long cardboard dowels on each side of the room. He then filled the room with smoke and had crew members stick their arms through the fake bars.

“It looked like the prison went on forever, and the whole thing only cost three grand,” Devlin recalled. “When I saw him do that in the course of a couple hours, that is when I wanted to be in business with the guy.”

While the models were being assembled and destroyed back in the studio, Emmerich and Devlin spent weeks conducting principal photography in New York City, Washington, downtown Los Angeles and Wendover (including the nearby Bonneville Salt Flats).

In one scene that prompted telephone calls to local TV news operations, Emmerich had hundreds of extras and stunt players gather atop nine high-rise office buildings and hotels in downtown Los Angeles. They portrayed UFO buffs hoping to make contact with the aliens.

Emmerich directed the action from a command center on the 66th floor of the First Interstate Bank building. As the director cued 12 cameras, five helicopters hovered around the skyscrapers filming the the extras waving flares and signs.

Emmerich had only one hour of twilight to make all the shots work.

Building 15 is a hangar located at the old Hughes Aircraft plant on the Westside. When Hughes departed, Hollywood production crews began using the huge, vacant hangars as sound stages.

One recent autumn day, Will Smith--looking tall, lean and muscular in his Marine Corps aviator uniform--sits in his trailer on the set waiting for the next scene to commence.

For the scene, pilots from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County have been brought in as extras. As they take their seats in a briefing room, Smith enters followed by Connick, who plays his Marine buddy, Jimmy.

Cigars are handed out to each pilot before they go into combat. Jimmy asks Hiller if he is afraid and Hiller says he isn’t. Then Jimmy, trying to create levity in a tense situation, leans his head on Hiller’s shoulder. “Hold me,” Connick says. “Pay attention,” Smith says. “This is serious.”

When the commander ends the briefing, a roar goes up among the pilots and Connick quips: “Let’s kick the tire and light the fire!”

Emmerich calls cut, and then asks Connick the meaning of the curious phrase that the actor has just improvised. Connick, who was born in New Orleans, assures him it’s an old saying he picked up in the South. OK, the director says, we’ll keep it in.

Smith admits he hasn’t a clue what “Independence Day” will look like until it reaches the theaters.

“A huge part of the movie is special effects,” the actor said. “So, yesterday, Jeff Goldblum and I are sitting inside the alien attacker. We are pretending there are bombs going off and all this stuff. But it’s actually just sitting still. So, when we see the film, it will actually be the first time, just like the audience.”

Smith’s character is a crack fighter pilot who has long dreamed of being in the NASA space program, but is continually turned down. Perhaps it is because of his unmilitary-like candor or because he dates an exotic dancer named Jasmine Debrow (Vivica Fox).

Smith said the film “goes with the assumption” that the U.S. government has been hiding an alien spacecraft since it crashed near Roswell, N.M., in 1947.

Does he himself believe in space aliens?

“I’m one of those conspiracy junkies,” he said. “I read all the alien folklore stuff. There has to be something to it. I don’t want to go as far as saying there are definitely aliens, but it is a little arrogant of humankind to think we’re the only living beings in the entire universe.”