Monday, 25 December 2023

Daleks Revisited


Well, Dr.Who is back on at Christmas, so it seemed appropriate to drop this on here today.  With it recently being the 60th, I (Ben) wanted to do a project on the theme, but typically work was stupidly busy.  Stuck for time, I decided to revisit the old Dalek Corridor shoot I did back in lockdown, with my custom rebuilt Radio Controlled Dalek model.


Here's that first shoot, with my other Dalek (yes, I have several, nerd-alert).  The corridor was our laundry basket, with a few accessories cable-tied in place, and I was never totally happy with it; lockdown prevented me buying anything else though, so it was all a bit improvised.


No such restrictions this time, so I dug out the original floor for the corridor (repainted Scalextric track) and the LED strip lights, and bought a new laundry basket; a slightly different shape this time, but seemed to better fit the Daleks.


This one I could properly rebuild a bit, so I glued in parts, added pipes, details from the scrap bin, and dusted it all with paints.


All glamour, once again, these shoots.  USB-powered humidifiers for special effects, and a lot of precarious balancing of the sets on a slightly rickety folding table.


Still, it was worth it, giving much more the effect I was after.


Creative lighting with some bike lamps.  The extermination effect was done by replacing the moulded blaster with a micro LED torch, with a plastic drinking straw for the beam.


Playing with the different lenses on the phone, as opposed to the SLR.


The drifting steam really added to the atmosphere of the shoots; those humidifiers are great fun!


The main shot I was after; I'd set out to do as much as possible in-camera, so the poor bugger getting zapped was a 16-inch-high plastic, posable skeleton (a Halloween decoration, being sold off cheap), sprayed black and wrapped in clingfilm, before being backlit.

A small, but successful shoot which lifted a bit of the gloom from a busy patch at work.  I'm hoping to get the chance to do a bit more of this sort of project next year.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

 

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