Ben Flay

Ben Flay: GRAPHIC DESIGNER

shameless plug but all information you will ever need

http://flavors.me/anachist77

this sort of sums me up well enough
cant help but feel we have lost something 

Technicolor Dalek

The Making of a Groovy Dalek

 And what a Groovy film it is 


Another bloomin Dalek post,im sorry,i to am fed up now as well, last one for a while promise tho it was a three pack

Well got me a nice Dalek set 2 ,cheapo, and it was a model kit to me
 so i did Remembrance grey now for the saucer Dalek Invasion Earth variant

so this Dalek the boss ,king of kings 
Lord of the Dalek race answers to big gold ball himself the Emperor right ,
well i saw these films as a kid visually impressive still are now ,but little to nothing to do with the program in characters (all Human) no console room no real aliens about it, very much a typical 50s Day of flying Saucers B movie Sci Fi affair think any old classic like Forbidden Planet 

Movie review click link


http://redscharlach.livejournal.com/164272.html



Filmed in 65 and in windscreen and Technicolor this was a big screen outing for the Daleks based on there huge British Popularity at the time, "Dalekmania"  ,

Dalekmania on the streets of London 64

They wouldn't be on TV in color until 1969 and then not in everyone's home until much later ,a fact often overlooked ,so Big screen Big Daleks
 http://www.dalek6388.co.uk/dr-who-and-the-daleks-film.htm see here for Details no point in rehashing them out here why have a dog and bark yourself ?, also this is something will need to browse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor

So  i want to make the black Dalek ,as i find these impressive and well as a kid thanks to Gibbins and Lee Sullivan, these are the High Council of Daleks the officer class and this is also going to be striking in my collection and something always wanted

 funds would never stretch to Sevans 2 foot bad boys, or PE commercial variants and  other reason to do this now ,well cheap Dalek set 2 with three Daleks in it and ...................

 Al DEWER head product guy for CO company tweeted this pic before vanishing so new talkie Dalek from chase ,(props used in the chase TV and AARU movie Daleks before they came out on the screen) so 2 movie Daleks 

Problem as i have said before about reference and research to death this is Technicolour (did you read that link ?) and they use Red Green Blue process three strip and dyed filmed
 its all bright so can be caught on film and saturated and soft looking sometimes with a little grain Superman and Star Wars (How much would we all love original copy of Star Wars from may 77 no messing by lucas original ?apparently private 35mm film exists and those who have stay quiet as lucasfulm lawyers are everywhere ,apparently )   were also filmed same way in the late 70s 
 this is a process that went on until the 90s and still used now sometimes  ,personally love it i find digital anything clinical and   cold 

So i got to have reference and the Daleks are in Technicolour so i tried reversing in photoshop bring down the saturation, the heavy colour and light and sharpen off a remastered screen grab ,which is nice enough but somehow i miss the slight grain,occasional circles top of screen(reminder to change the reel to the projectionist )
End result is one nice Dalek they seemed so much better made and the bright vivid sets and nice box for the TARDIS  visually can see how it can be striking to a whole generation 

Such a shame props didn't go to BBC Pertwee in that TARDIS , facing AARU Daleks 

well three days of work lots of drying time needed and swapping of some parts for correct gun ,which is a interesting thing as i pulled the gun off whole thing ball and all came off in my hand go figure cant fit through small hole but it did
 ,i also had to make the new dome lights but otherwise strait forward really

Hardest part was working out the exacting shades and the day long drying time for the enamel i didn't realise that the model Daleks CO make  are not perfect accurate, and that must be some resizing stretching going on screen because my model is really skinny in comparison

so no washes clean, flat and  new and shiny

Dalek in Technicolour

And clean shot

and with a little play in photo shop

original the Co2 fire extinguisher extermination gun blast was going to be a flame thrower gun
Id love to see how that was going to work ,right Malcolm stand there while this Dalek shoots you .....WOooooosh
No Malcolm,.......no set half of sound stange smoldering ruin


while i am at it how about this its very clever and i really like the Dalek voices from the movies deep grating


got to love the soundtrack to yes i do own it :)

got to have something to play while modeling

 

If you think toy story it could be a cool picture to see

Ray Cusick and his sliver machines

 Ray Cusick, designer of the Daleks, died on February 21st 2013 , aged 84

Modern television favours media-studies graduates able to spend time toiling as unpaid interns. In Mr Cusick’s day it was different: a job you could drift into when other careers did not work out. life was so much simpler 
He had originally wanted to be a sculptor, studied maths and science,and was a Art Teacher before landing a Job at the BBC

now sadly passed on ,on this the shows fiftieth anniversary year

 Perfection,is rarely achieved at first attempt ,The Daleks however proved themselves to be the spectacular exception to the rule
From Written concept and story to the rough drawings to blue print to screen in little under two months ,the Designers and engineers who rushed out a TV Robot to last six weeks ,unwittingly or unknowingly created a legend who's popularity would show no sign of diminishing after fifty years and even a seventeen  year hiatus off our screens 

The BBC commissioned a script from a freelance writer Terry Nation known for writing comedies like hancocks half hour and he created the Daleks.
 Skaro the radioactive war the scorched earth  (this is 1963 height of the cold war ) all there in first script to be retconned some years later in Genesis of the Daleks but the first stories were there ,The Dalek was revealed to be not a machine but a protective shell in which a mutant creature – the result of the genetically disastrous consequences of nuclear war – was housed.what wasn't was the Description two lines in the script stage directions referred to them that is all

Terry Nation,suggested they should make a gliding movement "like the Georgian state dancers", but there was little other visual description in the script. a eye like a lens and thats it 
There was a general consensus among the production team that the cliched "man in a suit" look be avoided in favour of something more otherworldly.
 Cusick demonstrated the creature's style of movement by grabbing a pepperpot and sliding it across the table to the model maker Bill Roberts (whose company Shawcraft built the Daleks). (,there is a story of Bill a large person sat on a stool and for measurement drawn round for size of the Dalek skirt ) 

 An initial design involved the Dalek operator propelling the machine with a tricycle housed inside it but eventually the actors moved the squat, castor-mounted props along by shuffling their feet.
These two men Roberts and Cusick designed and engineered a enduring legend  
Ray coming back in the Chase (1965) and redesigning new elements to overcome initial limitations for what was supposed to be a one off appearance in one story 
he created the now famous slats mesh solar panel look for the Chase (1965) in answer to the Daleks power problem as well as various different equipment to replace the sucker on the Dalek arm (originally conceived to be a claw as used in the Movies  ,considered dangerous and replaced by a sink plunger)  and the Mekon's for that story 

http://www.richingspark.com/newhistory/shawcroft.html

 for more info on shawcraft,click link

making of at Shawcraft

  But Mr Cusick did much more ,his time as Designer and head of Art Department during the tenure of William Hartnell era saw some great innovations with no time and no budget.all this some years before anything else, the program was unique and the only one of its kind so this was new

Cusick had to contend with a number of Doctor Who adventures that required new sets each week. The Keys of Marinus (1964), for example, featured hideous brains in jars one week, a lethal jungle the next and a snowy vista after that. Cusick felt that the show's low budget was stretched particularly thinly on stories of this kind, but was assisted by the low-resolution television picture, which, he admitted, covered a multitude of sins. Planet of Giants (1964) was a humdrum story made remarkable by Cusick's impressive renderings of an over sized science laboratory, dead insects and a moving giant fly.
Cusick left Doctor Who after the 12‑part epic The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-66), on which he shared the intensive workload with a fellow designer, Barry Newbery, (who had taken over from Peter Brachaki) a man in interviews who seemed somehow pleased with what he did but sorry about lack of acknowledgement he got for the Daleks 

He recalled appearing on the TV discussion show Late Night Line-Up with Nation and asking him afterwards about potential involvement with the forthcoming Dalek feature films (made in colour by Aaru productions and starring Peter Cushing in 1965 and 1966). Nation was enthusiastic and reassuring about the projects "Oh leave it to me Ray"  but, Cusick said: "Then I never heard from him again." From these films and many other commercial exploitations of the Daleks, Nation, a freelancer with a hard nosed  agent, became a rich man. Cusick, on the other hand, was a BBC staff member, and only after a lengthy and hard-fought battle by his head of department, got a special merit payment that amounted to no more than a few hundred pounds. He was, however, the proud recipient of a gold Blue Peter badge for his work

 more here
Guardian newspaper
 http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21572725-ray-cusick-designer-daleks-died-february-21st-aged-84-ray-cusick.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/24/raymond-cusick 

 He spent a lot of time not wanting cash but acknowledgement as Dalek designer ,well Ray many do, i for one always have 
Ray designed the Dalek, the maker was Bill Roberts who had to contribute to the design to make it and make it work  ,the writer who dreamed them up was Terry Nation, basing the Metal meanies on Nazis and gestapo with layering's of cold war 
fifty fifty owned by Nation and BBC