Have you ever dreamed of making your own TV show? Do you want to tell a story full of action, adventure and alien invasion? The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) could have given you the path to start with their Mission DALEK competition.
This competition offers a collection of sound, video, and photo assets (worth about 1 GB) that fans of Doctor Who want. use to create a new adventure. This should be shared online and linked to Twitter using the #MissionDALEK label.
(Although the competition is only open to UK residents, the assets are available for fans to download and use worldwide.)
It's part of the station. Go digital Initiative, a big push to promote digital creativity (which also includes the launch of the micro:bit, a small programmable computer that we'll talk about later this year).
Is he nibbling on the bit for the TARDIS to materialize outside his house? Do you want the Daleks to roam the center of your local town or invade the mall? Dalek Mission gives you these powers, and more.
Ignoring the small chance of victory, the real prize here is the collection of assets. The BBC offers a collection of images, videos and audio clips that can be reused in your home projects, and all you need is your own imagination and a few editing tools.
To get started, you'll need to head over to the Mission DALEK resource page and download what you need. This could be some images for a story with photo captions or video clips for a more TV-like experience.
Don't limit yourself by assets, though; you don't have To use them if you have something more suitable at hand. For example, you may be a talented artist, in which case you can create a stop-motion animation project or an animation using computer software. Alternatively, you can rely on the popular figures from the series, covering over 50 years of Doctor Who .
The sound effects asset pack might come in handy though...
In addition, you will need an application to edit your images and sound. Video editing tools for all desktop platforms are widely available these days (we recently covered Windows Video Editors Best Free Video Editors for Windows Best Free Video Editors for Windows Everyone takes videos these days Yet Powerful Free Video Editors Are Still Rare Introduce The Best Free Video Editors Available For Windows Read More , Stable &Versatile [Linux, Mac &Live CD] Kdenlive - A Stable &Versatile Free Cross-Platform Video Editor [Linux, Mac &Live CD] Kdenlive is a free cross-platform video editor that probably means more to your average user than Linux than Windows or Mac. If you're looking for a decent, all-in-one solution to edit video on... Read More), so make sure t Have one you're happy with before continuing.
In the meantime, if you need additional dialogue, register it with a tool like Audacity. This open source sound editor can be easily modified to allow the addition of authentic Dalek and Cybermen voices, as demonstrated here:
I'm a bit of a Doctor who fanatic:You may remember that I recently provided a roundup of must-see Doctor Who episodes, and have published the online magazine Kasterborous.com since 2005, which offers readers everything from a podcast and even a print and digital magazine How I published my magazine online and in print How I published my magazine online and in Print In August 2013, I came to the end of a project that had its origins two and a half years earlier. I finally published my magazine online, but how did I manage it? Read more.
With this in mind, it should come as no surprise to discover that I decided to give Mission DALEK a try. My first thought was, “Wow,” as there really is a lot of material available. There's certainly enough to give you plenty of inspiration for planning your story, which should be up to 90 seconds long.
The premise is as follows:
This is where you'll find the clues:
It may take a while to download the assets. Unfortunately, the BBC's servers aren't particularly fast (certainly not during daylight hours), so don't expect assets to be immediately available. The best route is to plan ahead and preview assets to ensure the type of footage you want is available.
Under the competition rules (whether you're entering as a UK resident or a global fan) only assets from asset packs are allowed, and this is worth bearing in mind:
In a nutshell, you need to stick to the Doctor Who sections universe portrayed in the assets, which is largely everything from 2012.
My story was relatively simple and short. The TARDIS would deposit the Doctor on a Dalek spaceship in which he would reprogram a Dalek to distract the Dalek fleet with civil war.
But the assets support this?
You know about the video, audio, and photos in asset packs. But what do they show? And what can they contribute to your story?
Well, there's everything here, from footage to footage of the Daleks exploding, from laughing villains to the Doctor landing on them. Want footage of a Dalek council discussing events? You got it! Cybernetics, Daleks, Ice Warriors, Missy/The Master, The Silence, Silurians, Weeping Angels, Zygons, they're all there.
Better yet, some of the audio clips come without sound, so you can add your own and expand on the narrative as you go.
Here is my final Mission DALEK entry:
It turns out that making a story last 90 seconds is surprisingly difficult...
Reaction to this competition between Doctor who fans have been supportive, with many posting their videos on YouTube the same day the competition was formally launched.
We believe that these are reasonable efforts given the assets on offer. But it seems likely that more ambitious Mission DALEK projects will surface on YouTube in the coming days and weeks.
Will you be creating a Doctor who episode with the Dalek mission? Should more TV shows provide assets in this way for fan productions? Tell us what you think in the comments section below..
