2010 news archive
01 July 2010
Strange New Worlds
Strange New Worlds
Worthing - St Paul's Centre Chapel Road
24th July 10am-5pmThe website for this one day event is here -> www.strangenewworlds.org
Strange New Worlds is a community-run one day FREE EVENT featuring...
- sci-fi heroes & deadly aliens ready to ‘Exterminate’ you !!!
- toys books and comics stalls
- a create your own monster competiton
- a costume competition - come along dressed up as a sci-fi hero or monster!!!
- sessions where you can learn how to create a comic with award-winning artist Glenn Fabry & Alan Mitchell
- meet a sci-fi author (Simon Messingham confirmed at present)
It is intended that some of the Devious props and sets will be on display at the event. They will be there in their capacity as an homage to Doctor Who. We hope to have a large number of our daleks at the event to complement the number already attending. We are hoping to have the first reconstruction of our TARDIS console for many years, along with the surrounding walls - this will take some planning and we hope it will be there amongst the other exhibits, props and costumes from the world of sci-fi.
This event is being organised by a committee and is intended as an event to promote sci-fi in Worthing.
22 June 2010
educational daleks!Educational Daleks!
If you recall years ago we lent a couple of our daleks to a local school in Brighton as part of a project to help with childrens literacy. They were placed in the library at Patcham School and were very successful in increasing awareness of science fiction reading - so much so that they even made the inside cover of the school brochure the following year as well as appearing on BBC South's South Today magazine show as part of a week long series of Dr Who - themed items. The teacher responsible - Mr Rowlie Darby was interviewed by Sylvester McCoy for that feature.
Well in an echo of that event some of the Devious daleks this week "invaded" a local school in Worthing.
We will have more news and hopefully some pictures from their surprise arrival during school assembly this last Monday! The daleks will be there for a number of weeks based in the library area and will be used for a number of class projects encouraging reading, storytelling, mathematics, science and doubtless other things too! We have asked the teacher responsible for setting up the project to write a small piece for this website and let you all know how it went as well as his thoughts on how the project will work.
As for Devious' part we are delighted that the dalek props can continue to be used in this educational way to stimulate young minds. The daleks were donated for use freely (as always) once we realised the great integrity and enthusiasm behind the project. Ashley went along to the school on the launch day and helped with the logistics - showing staff how to use our "moogerfooger" to get the best voice as well as briefly train the teacher operators in the use of the props.
More news on this project as soon as we can!
July 24th Event
The event for the 24th of July will be a one day event entitled "Strange New Worlds" at the St Paul's Centre in Worthing from 10am until 5pm. Some of the Devious daleks and props will be in attendance we hope, as it will be a celebration of SCI-FI generally!!! There will be a dedicated news item showing the links to the dedicated site as soon as we can as well as other details for the event as we hear them. Should be a good day!
23 May 2010
Hi there and the 24th July...etc etc...Hi there!
Hi there everyone - sorry for the lack of news - we've been busy, although not necessarily on things you want to read about here! Ashley is leaving his employment now and is on the lookout for programming jobs, so if you know of anything in the php/mysql line then feel free to drop him a line! Seriously though, in looking at the website we've just realised that the "say hello" section had gone down due to the system being upgraded but no-one actually chjecking if it affected that page! Well done.
Oh well, you can now let go all those pent-up thoughts about Devious and let us know again!
July 24th Event
On the said date we hear that a sci-fi event is being planned for Worthing in sunny Sussex. It will be a one-day thing and we suspect that some of our daleks and props may make an appearance. When we know more we'll tell you here!
ADR
The ADR we are doing will recommence in a week or so when the team are free from immediate commitments. More news as and when.
Fibreglass
News reaches us that Ashley is itching to get going with the fibreglass again (and itching is the word if you don't have the right gloves) and is eyeing up some new domes for the fleet. He's never been happy with them and thinks the time is right to replace the domes reshaped for the plays with some new "classic" ones as per the original Devious design (ie "Evil/Power"). This is despite having more modelwork to complete!
27 March 2010
ADR first goADR - round one!
Well that was fun. And it worked better than we had thought. The trio Stephen Ashley and David met with Tony our Doctor last evening (26th March) and started on our epic quest to do the ADR for Devious.
Above you can see Tony in his custom-made soundbooth reading from the newly transcribed script whilst keeping "a weather eye" on the action displayed on a monitor in front of him. His headphones played back each segment repeatedly whilst he refined the sentence in question.
Generally we managed to accept a take after five or so. It takes a short while to get into the swing of it and recreate the acting performance and try to match the mouth moves of the original footage. Not particularly easy at all - in fact when Ashley and Stephen (on the adjoining pc) were passing each take thinking it was just right, David in the adjoining room was finding he still had issues in trying to match the vocals with the footage.
An iterative process we think we can only get better with this. When you are concentrating on looking for exact matching of mouth to sound you tend to think it's not working as well as you want. But when we assembled to watch a scene that David had worked on from matching the new takes we were astonished by the results. We managed to rescue a scene that was so badly marred by traffic noise into something which has real potential. The was the scene where the Doctor, Bradley and Phillip had reached a dome which turns out to be part of the dalek complex.
Here we see David in the next room working on the takes Ashley and Stephen were preparing elsewhere on the network. We thought it best to work like this so the takes could be checked and retaken if necessary. We've yet to refine this process, so next time in a week or two we'll have the technique a little better...
More soon!
19 March 2010
back to blueBack to Blue
Just found a few photos when downloading from the digital camera and thought the website should have these! These were taken this January and February and concern the dalek which you may recall was last seen in silver and white. It had been one of the black and silver models as per the Dalek Masterplan play in 2007. It had been decided to make it the first one to return to the Devious colours, and so an undercoat of white was used to cover the black matt on the base and the middle shoulder section.
It did look quite interesting and had a couple of outings in this colour scheme - the first of which being a birthday party of one of the cast's children!
Of course by now we have spare sets of balls so we need not denude a dalek to repaint - only refit when the balls are ready! Now that's something odd in print: "denude a dalek" - perhaps that sounds marginally better than de-ball! There must be a proper term for this...
Here's the middle with the white overpainted with silver again. For Devious we used Silver Smooth Hammerite which is painted on thickly and then rollered with a small foam paint roller to get the finish we like. No brush strokes are left and the resultant finish takes close inspection. The plunger and gun were unlocked and pushed back in to allow for the painting to commence - the photo below shows them before they have been relocked.
Next the base was painted and the balls fitted. These were in French Blue (Humbrol no 14) which is our own variation on the blue. It was used after looking at the colour photos which survive from "Power of the Daleks". This is the colour we have always used also because it is most accessible and does not require we have to mix it ourselves.
Now this dalek base is a fibreglass resin casting done in 2006 for the first of the two Dalek Plays, and the original base was chucked away (much to our friend Alex's regret) along with the middle (which Alex rescued!). However as this was a base that had been with us for many years the top was kept as it had been signed in December 2003 by JNT - and this was built this into the new base accordingly.
Now with the base in silver and the balls fitted it looked almost like the Devious dalek of old...
... except that the dome is still the Evil / Masterplan variant and the "Devious-D" double front shoulder slat is still in place. They will both be replaced when time permits. Ashley will be unemployed in a few months, and will be looking for work ( he's skilled in PHP, MySQL, ASP and fibreglass !!!! ) so will still be too busy to do this but we're willing to bet he won't be able to resist it. He has had a new delivery of resin we hear...
More soon, including a full set of images from the Brighton Show back in February.
17 February 2010
Brighton Modelworld a successBrighton Modelworld 2010 a success!
Well we think it was. Mind you what were the criteria? Only one - that people who came to the display of dalek props enjoyed what they saw. Ashley had been offered the stand to display daleks and had called it "Dalekworld". Visitors could see eight on display, all with Devious heritage!
There were three in the Masterplan colours of matt black with silver and the the fourth was the Masterplan second-in-command in matt black and blood red. The fifth and sixth were in the original Devious colours which in itself were a version of the "Power of the Daleks" and "Evil of the Daleks" colours. The seventh was Alex Scutt's excellent build in "Genesis of the Daleks" colours. This dalek was built using one of the original Devious middle sections - the original "Chico" with the rest being completely new with a great finish.
The eighth dalek was the giant Emperor Dalek from "Devious" and "The Evil of the Daleks" stageplay, now in the original black and white colour scheme.
In the foreground of the picture above you can see an "Emperor Guard" daleks - ie the Black Dalek from Devious in it's original unchanged colour scheme. This was the fully-radio-controlled dalek and took several turns around the venue throughout the weekend. It had been radio-controlled by Ian Watts from Robot Wars back in 2001 and was last seen at Modelworld back in 2002.
Visitors could see images charting the history of these dalek props.
10 February 2010
Brighton Modelworld 2010Brighton Modelworld 2010
Well, this year we have been invited to display some of our daleks at the annual Brighton Modelworld show. We were there years ago with "Onya" the remote controlled one and it was great fun. After a few years gap we've been asked to bring some along for people to enjoy.
As a modelmaker and set builder Ashley will be there, and members of the extended Devious Team will be on hand throughout the three days. If you can make it along then please seek us out and say hello - tell us you've seen this news item even!!!
We hope to have quite a few daleks there including a couple of surprises. We'll say no more at the moment, doubtless we'll have a few photos after the event if all goes well. Certainly one of our fleet has had a repaint and this weekend will be it's first in it's colour scheme...
Brighton Modelworld is, as the title suggests, a celebration of modelbuilding and hobbycraft, with emphasis on model railways, boats, planes, cars, tanks, and er, daleks! The focus is on the models - we can show the props off as representations of the daleks "off the telly", just as people show their 0-6-0T or Spitfire models. As exhibitors not trade we're on a stand showing off our work - i.e. not a stand where you can buy things - we have nothing to sell anyway! We will however point people in the direction of local shops where people can buy the BBC merchandise such as the DVDs and the various models etc... (and speaking of models, has anyone got their 5inch Matt Smith model through yet?).
Below is an image from years ago (probably around 1964???) at the Modelworld...
29 January 2010
Looping AlongLooping Along...
Well, we tried our hand at "looping" last night. A simple scene with some lines said between David's character and Ashley's...
CHALDAR:
Auriga - he's conscious! He must not know what we are doing! We must render him unconscious now!AURIGA:
I have gone to a great deal of trouble to create an artificial reality that the Doctor can live in - how can he do that if he's unconscious?
CHALDAR:
If he's conscious he'll see all this
AURIGA:
I'll put a selective block on his memory. He'll only remember certain events
CHALDAR:
certain events? like what?
AURIGA:
He'll remember the trial, but then instead iof what happened he'll believe that he was pardoned and that he left in his TARDIS then he'll believe that he met Callisto and myself on the beach and then he'll go through a whole series of adventures until he comes across Imberhorne - i.e. you
CHALDAR:
You're so confident this is going to work
AURIGA:
Because I know what I'm doing
CHALDAR:
You're just playing games with his mind Auriga - I've never approved
CHALDAR:
Yes, I was ordered to!
AURIGA:
Well then follow your orders and leave me to get on with mine - if you must make life difficult for somebody, make it the Doctor. Go and be Imberhorne!A lot of terse words and some shouting - with most of the first lines containing the word "conscious" it seems! (still when you hear it the repetition works) So an evening spent shouting the same words over and over again seemed in prospect. Actually what actually turned out was more useful for Devious the project.
At this, one of our regular-as-a-blue-moon meetings David and Ashley decided to concentrate efforts on testing the various software methods of doing ADR. After many experiments we decided on using VEGAS as this seemed to have an excellent looping facility - ie once the section to be re-voiced had been set up then the system allowed you to record the same section over and over again without having to click a mouse for each start of each recording. This way you could attempt the lines as many times in rapid succession until it seemed right. The software obviously also allows you to see the footage in the timeline, so if you have good noise-cancelling headphones and a reasonable microphone you have a good chance of getting it right.
For a clean sound on the new dialogue we have to ensure where we record the voices is a good spaced room. We ought also to be standing when delivering the lines as it helps with the diaphragm apparently. In the end we only concentrated on the first few lines of the script above, with Ashley repeating "we must render him unconscious NOW" line over and over. Once you start to match up the new takes with the footage, the software allows you to tweak the lengths and do various transitions between takes if you want to be totally accurate. We found we could get a good match after only a few takes - even though Ashley realised through constant repe-repe-repe-tition of lines that he couldn't say some words properly in the first place! It really makes you analyse how you speak!
Of course we can now concentrate on getting the right filters for the voices to match the rooms or outdoor locations for the lines. The freedom at last to see old footage with new, clean audio tracks is something to behold. Unfortunately there's a great deal of it to be done and we will meet once more for more tests with Stephen before we get each member of the cast in. It's primarily outdoor footage that benefits the most from this work.
And of course, this is what happens in REAL DOCTOR WHO. In the real world! And in real films too!
And just for a bit of fun, here's a screenshot of the editing program David is currently using. If you click on the image you can open a larger version (192K) in a new window. You have to really want to though, as we imagine it's quite boring but it does give you an idea of how we do things!
And in other news, we've started liasing with someone who answered our news item from 14th December last year regarding some of the effects. More news on that in due course!
And, oh yes, the daleks are out and about again soon near us in Sussex! Valentine's weekend in fact!
More soon...
12 January 2010
Dalek props2010 - the year we finish?
Well we do tend to say something like that each new year. However this year we are more hopeful. Our news item for Dec 14th 2009 has drawn some interest - and we'd still like others to come forward if they (/you!) have anything to offer! We want Devious to look good and for that to happen we need people who are enthusiastic and good at what they can do. People who fancy cgi-ing a spaceship-asteroid-tardis or a flying arrow for example.
And in other news here's Ashley with some of the dalek model props invading his kitchen! A smile please Ashley? Maybe next time.
...and a mockup of David with the Emperor set showing just how wrong the focus is in this image !! ...
We look forward to properly compositing the shot above. The final version will look entirely different - ie will be populated with daleks for a start!
