Ahh, the simple joy of motion tracking. Especially when it works and you don't have to do it all by hand. This is the first attempt in 3ds max for 3d based motion tracking, as apposed to 2d based motion tracking used in The Hitchhiker.
3d based motion tracking allows for a virtual camera in the 3d computer world to move exactly the way the original camera moved in the real world. This is done in films all the time for special FX, and those titles on Heroes and Fringe.
Here I used a UFO that was modeled in a few minutes, I lit it very quickly and tracked four shoes on the driveway as reference dots. The shadow from the saucer is cast onto non-renderable but shadow receiving objects. Everything has to be measured and entered into the computer for it to work. A problem - because my tape measure wasn't big enough. So, that thing I'm not good at - Math - was involved.
kinda cool
