don@allegra.UUCP (Don Mitchell) (09/30/85)
Does anyone know how the visual effects in the Dr. Who opening and closing credits were done? The early shows (Hartnell to middle Pertwee) show a wavy pattern which looks like video feedback (what you get if you point the camera into the monitor). The psychedelic-tunnel effect at the end of more recent shows is nice. I have no guesses as to how it was done.
goldman@umn-cs.UUCP (Matthew D. Goldman ) (09/30/85)
In article <5162@allegra.UUCP> don@allegra.UUCP (Don Mitchell) writes: >Does anyone know how the visual effects in the Dr. Who opening and >closing credits were done? The early shows (Hartnell to middle >Pertwee) show a wavy pattern which looks like video feedback (what you >get if you point the camera into the monitor). The psychedelic-tunnel >effect at the end of more recent shows is nice. I have no guesses as >to how it was done. As I understand it, the tunnel effect is achieved very easily by changing the way the monitor is being fed the signel. A normal view is created by feeding the moniter a view line by line of pixals such that the image is formed from left to right. The tunnel view feeds in a circular motion from the center. -- ------- Matthew Goldman Computer Science Department University of Minnesota ...ihnp4!umn-cs!goldman ...stolaf!umn-cs!goldman Home is where you take your hat off... Banzai! Kyllara : What did you just do? Moederan : I don't know but it's going to be fun...
scs@wucs.UUCP (Steve Swope) (10/01/85)
In article <5162@allegra.UUCP>, don@allegra.UUCP (Don Mitchell) writes: > Does anyone know how the visual effects in the Dr. Who opening and > closing credits were done? The early shows (Hartnell to middle > Pertwee) show a wavy pattern which looks like video feedback (what you > get if you point the camera into the monitor). The psychedelic-tunnel > effect at the end of more recent shows is nice. I have no guesses as > to how it was done. The credits up until Pertwee's last season were, in fact, done using video feedback. Pertwee's last season and the first six seasons of Tom Baker used, I believe, a form of slit-scan photography (The opening of the stargate in 2001: A Space Odyyssey is a good example of this technique). It involves covering a photograph or piece of artwork so that only a sliver of it will be exposed, and moving a film camera toward it while holding the shutter open on a single frame. The artwork is repositioned and the process repeated for each frame. The last Tom Baker season, and the Davison and Colin Baker seasons I'm not sure about, but I believe they were hand animated (somewhere I have a photograph of a BBC special effects man holding up what looks like an animation cell with Peter Davison's picture on it). My sources are varied, and it's possible I've forgotten or mis-remembered some of the information. I would welcome more detailed information for my own sake. Steve Swope (aka scs@wucs.UUCP) "Brigadier, A straight line may be the shortest path between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting!"