Return of the Daleks - Behind the Scenes 5 - Star Wars Composition

I really enjoyed doing this one. When I worked on the Star Wars bits, I got to pretend I was working for the great George Lucas and when I was adding the Dalek, I got to pretend that I was working on a 'proper' episode of Dr.Who. :-)

Maybe one day, I'll not have to pretend, but for the time being, this is just a flashback scene for the final episode of my Dalek comedy. In this episode, the Daleks will be interviewed and explain how hard it is for Dalek actors to get jobs outside of Doctor Who. Talk about being typecast!!!

I also hope to do flashbacks of failed audition tapes/cut scenes from Star Trek, Coronation Street, Stargate and an audition for Hamlet (holding up the skull) - "Alas, poor Yorick! I Exterminated him, Horatio" - Well, I think it would be funny ;-)

If you have a scene for a film that you think would work well having a Dalek added, then let me know. If I can find a high quality version of the scene and enough other people want to see it too, then I'll do my best to try and fit it in.

Regarding this Star Wars scene, if anyone can do a passable imitation of the great George Lucas saying, "CUT! Lose the Dalek!", I'd really appreciate it if they would send me a sound file. PM me for details.

For those wanting to know how I removed the droid, here's a brief description of the technique:

The first stage was to take a still from about half way in. I brought this still into Photoshop and painstakingly painted out all the droids until I was left with a still of an empty corridor.

Then, I tracked the still to the background plate using After Effects. The effect breaks down at the edges as the still doesn't have parallax, so I masked out the edges with a feathered mask - I hid one seam behind where C3PO was on the original plate.

At this stage it looked like the original scene - but with no droids at all. So the next part was to add back in C3PO and R2D2. To do this. I just duplicated the background plate and rotoscoped out C3PO and R2D2.

This was the longest part of the process and involved tracing the outline of both droids using masks in After Effects - to effectively cut them out from the background. This process had to be repeated frame by frame for the whole sequence until I had a layer that contained just C3PO and R2D2, with everything else transparent.

The layer of C3PO and R2D2 was placed on top of the empty corridor layer - the result was the "Droid Removal" footage as can be seen in the video.

I could then add anything to the scene by placing it under C3PO/R2D2 layer and above empty corridor footage - simple ;-)

That's about all for this behind the scenes installment, I hoped you enjoyed it enough to rate and/or subscribe ;-)

Thanks for watching :-)

This a fan-produced endeavor, done without any affiliation with, or endorsement from, Lucasfilm Ltd., BBC Worldwide, BBC Television, The Terry Nation Estate, or any holders of the Star Wars, Doctor Who or Dalek copyright. No infringement on any such copyright holders is intended. But if they'd like to give me a job, then I hope they get in touch ;-)

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[Samuel24842]

This is really impressive, well done, I'm sure it must have taken a while to make so cheers this was fun to see :)

[planetmirth2001]

@Samuel24842 Thank you. I had hoped to do a few more of these by now - but real life is getting in the way. Hopefully get around to it eventually. :-)

[MrMovieBrat]

How about a Dalek in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?

[planetmirth2001]

@MrMovieBrat Thanks for the suggestion. I'll definately check it out.

[hugoleo777]

Really cool, man!

[planetmirth2001]

@hugoleo777 Thanks Hugo and thanks for favoriting :-)

[190shepard]

daleks to 3poc hi you will be exterminated

[PlanetmirthXtra]

@Teletran35 Thanks :-)

[Teletran35]

Sweet!

[planetmirth2001]

@whatastorymark1 Cheers :-)