carpenter was interested in creating two distinct looks for the movie "one is the police state high tech lots of neon a united states dominated by underground computers that was easy to shoot compared to the manhattan island prison sequences which had few lights mainly torch lights like feudal england" certain matte paintings were rendered by james cameron who was at the time a special effects artist with roger cormans new world pictures cameron was also one of the directors of photography on the film as snake pilots the glider into the city there are three screens on his control panel displaying wireframe animations of the landing target on the world trade center and surrounding buildings carpenter wanted high-tech computer graphics which were very expensive even for such a simple animation the effects crew filmed the miniature model set of new york city they used for other scenes under black light with reflective tape placed along every edge of the model buildings only the tape is visible and appears to be a d wireframe animation