Daleks

Happy New Years; I (Ben) don't want to tempt fate by saying anything about the year just gone, the year ahead... so here's a project about Daleks.

Or to look at it another way, something inspired by a race who were forced to isolate themselves inside protective casings when they'd poisoned their dying world.  Topical.

Ok, so the BBC screened their Festive Episode of Doctor Who tonight, which features the Daleks, one of my favourite monsters in one of my favourite TV shows.  And being as just before Christmas the BBC held a 'Dalek Day', and I'd needed a distraction from a stressful and annoying meeting, I decided I wanted to do a miniatures project with the megalomaniacal pepperpots.

The first step was to review my Dalek collection, almost all of which are photography props; not bad, but not many in good nick.  I reckoned I'd want to be shooting something in a large-scale as I'd been reading up on the model shots done using the R/C toys in the recent series ("The Witches Familiar/The Magicians Apprentice", "Into the Dalek", "Day of the Doctor/Time of the Doctor").  Time was against anything too involved, as well as budget.  On the right is my R/C Dalek I got as a Christmas pressie (at age 21; never too old for toys at Christmas!), the other two were bought cheaply off eBay as spares/repairs.

I ended up refurbishing the broken black Dalek with a relatively simple paint job; the Daleks in the publicity pictures for the new ep were in silver and black, classic 80's Supreme Dalek colours, so I went for something similar, based off the episode "Remembrance of the Daleks" from the late 80's.  I painted in details with citadel acrylics, and gloss-varnished it to make it a bit shiny.

I wanted to do something with Daleks in a sci-fi (ish) corridor (more on which anon) with steam/smoke effects, and some creative lighting.  All the stuff I read up on mentioned Daleks look more menacing when shot from low-down, backlit.

The set meant some restrictions, so I ended up shooting a lot of things with dutch angles and slanty cameras.

The set was a bit of a bodge, with no budget and about a day to build it.  Amongst the detail parts repurposed was (appropriately) this set of flashing lights from a Playmobil lorry.

My trusty mini humidifiers, now onto their fourth project.

The set; I was following the set-design ethos from "Red Dwarf" which had them using walls with slats/holes/grilles to create interest and texture.  They still looked a bit bare, so I added some pipes; a flexible plastic pipe (spare part for our tumble drier) and black plastic circuit conduit.  The lights were strip-lights bought for a model railway project, the doorway is scraps of plywood and a bit of MDF, and the floor (with rails inset) are a couple of lengths of Scalextric track).  An inspection lamp provided a nice way of backlighting the Daleks.

The slightly chaotic set-up, showing yes, the set is indeed a laundry basket.  I couldn't actually paint it, and all the details had to be tie-wrapped to it...  The placing of the humidifiers was a little haphazard; the one at the front fell off, snapped the wire, and I got a small electric shock off it  All part and parcel of these 'improvised during a time of chaos' shoots I suppose.

Still, looked the part.

I wanted to try something to look like the 'storming the ship/space station' type scenes from the likes of "Into the Dalek" and "Resurrection of the Daleks".  I could only accommodate two of the Daleks in the set at any time though.

It seemed to be missing something, so I added some red 'emergency' lighting with a flashing red bike lamp.

Trying some close ups and landscape shots; lit to try and disguise the chief weakness of the toys, the guns in flexi plastic.  When the TV series used these, they rebuilt some of the details.  I didn't have time before this shoot.

I borrowed one of the New Paradigm Daleks (this is Elder Childs).  As with the actual series, I found many problems here with this design of Daleks.  To start with, the eye light wasn't working, so I had to do this in post production.

It also has problems with the gun stick, and keeping the old end up, as it were... There's an 'elevate' joke hanging there if anyone wants to pick it up...

On the plus side, the gun looked more realistic than on the other ones.

This illustrates the main problem; it's just too damned big for the set...

So, back to the Supreme Dalek, and some attempts to play with long exposure...

...and lighting effects.  When I did the shoot last year, I was trying some stuff with red LED Christmas lights to give the effect of laser guns firing.  I tried rigging up something similar this time, taping some lights to a length of brass channel/rod, but the tight size of the set limited things a bit.

I tried just flinging the lights at the Daleks...

...which gave a weird effect, but not quite what I was after.

More post-production effects, to go for a 60's look.

With the indoor shoot done, I headed out into the great outdoors the next morning...

It looked like being a decent morning for the weather, and I'd seen a load of publicity shots for the Festive Special that had the new Dalek outdoors- I wanted to try something similar with my modified Supreme Dalek model.

I was aware of how odd it would look, getting the pictures, but figured one of my usual haunts, Damems, might be quiet.

The (now sadly much-vandalised) viewing platform would allow me to get the model elevated a bit, and help with the perspective issues.

To try and replicate the atmosphere of the BBC pics, I'd taken a bit of equipment with me... one of the humidifiers is battery operated so could be used on location, and I had some spot-lamps and reflectors with me to balance the lights a bit.

Job done then- I was really happy with how the photographs came out, and might be returning to it soon (now I have some modified props) with some real pyrotechnic effects and things, shot outdoors.  There might be another development with the project too, I'll put something on here if that's the case.

Oh and the episode was good too :)

We hope everyone reading this is ok, and has had as good a Christmas and New Years as possible under the current circumstances.