01x03 - TARDIS Tales

[bunniefuu]

SIMO N: While there may have been
nine Doctors, there's only one Tardis.

What's a police public call box?

SIMON". But if a big blue box landed
on your doorstep...

Does it fly?

...wouldn't there be a few questions
on your mind?

The inside's bigger than the outside?

, take , A camera.

Action.

You've got such a great planet...

SIMON: It's : in the morning

and Christopher Eccleston is sh**ting
his first scene with the Tardis.

I came around this corner,

I just glanced to my left,
and there was the Tardis.

And that's when it dawned on me,
kind of, what I was doing.

And I also realised how much the Tardis
is part of our cultural lives.

I didn't say police telephone box,
which is basically what it is.

I thought, "Tardis, there's the Tardis."

The interior of the Tardis,
from a technical point of view,

and for Doctor Who fans, who are legion,
is a, you know, an important area.

On this production,
we've really gone for it.

The design team have created
a massive space.

I was so overwhelmed
by the size and the scale of it,

how beautiful it was, as well.

And...

you know, there are no limits
in that Tardis.

We can do anything in that thing.

Right. Where do you want to start?

- The inside's bigger than the outside?
- Yes.

- It's alien?
- Yeah.

It's quite daunting at first for Rose.

And, obviously,
it's a completely alien experience,

it's something she's never seen before.

The Tardis has changed over the years,
so many times

so I wanted to make it feel as if it had
arrived at this junction in history.

So, we looked mostly to nature,
to organic structures.

Things like coral
were quite a nice idea.

, the main metal structure
of the Tardis

has been covered
in this coral-type effect.

, you've got a range of ceramic,
glass, wood, metal.

It's all sort of living things, really.

We've got some Gallifrean text which
spells out all the different information

that's relevant to flying the Tardis.

Because the Tardis
is nigh on years old,

it's really made up of an amalgamation
of lots of bits and pieces.

There's very few of the original
switches on it anymore.

So, it's what the Doctor's
cobbled together over the years,

which are all relevant
to making the beast fly.

DOCTOR: Hold that one down.
ROSE: I'm holding this one down.

DOCTOR: Hold them both down.
ROSE: It's not going to work.

I promised you a time machine
and that's what you're getting.

That Tardis that we see is supposed
to be manned by six or seven Time Lords.

And he does it all on his own,
hence his energy and his chaos.

-. How does sound?
- What happened in ?

I don't know.
Let's find out. Hold on, here we go.

The Doctor loves the Tardis.

He speaks very admiringly
and affectionately about it.

I did it. Give the man a medal.
Earth, Naples, December , .

And he loves it and he kind of
treats it as if it's alive.

And that's part of the mystery
of the Tardis. Maybe it is part organic.

It's nice in the new series that it does
take the Doctor to the wrong places.

It does get him embroiled in the
adventures by just being a bit rubbish.

- I got the flight a bit wrong.
- I don't care.

- It's not , it's .
- I don't care.

- And it's not Naples.
- I don't care.

It's Cardiff.

Right.

Episode three is designed to show off
the range of the programme,

to go back in history.

I decided the template for the series
right at the beginning so it was like...

I wanted to go back to the Victorian,
I wanted an episode set in Cardiff.

'Cause I think if we're made in Cardiff,
we put Cardiff on screen

and get a Welsh cast in there.
And I wanted Charles Dickens in there.

Charles Dickens, you're brilliant,
you are. Completely % brilliant.

I've read them all.
Great Expectations, Oliver Twist.

What's the other one,
the one with the ghost?

- A Christmas Carol?
- No, no, no. The one with the trains.

The signalman. That's it. Terrifying!

The best short story ever written.
You're a genius.

- You want me to get rid of him, sir?
- No, I think he can stay.

MAN :And set.
MAN : Set on A.

SIMON". If the Doctor is going to go back
in time, he has to do it in style.

But the challenge of creating
a th century scene

is not as easy as some might think.

Cardiff in
was a relatively small place

and not much of Cardiff from that period
has been left behind.

So that meant
that we had to go elsewhere.

we ended up going to Swansea,
which is where I'm from.

So it was fantastic.

SIMO N : And the director
wasn't the only one

pleased to see Doctor Who come to town.

I was born in Swansea and always,
as a little schoolboy, loved Doctor Who.

I used to walk around dreaming
of Doctor Who being in Swansea.

Now it's actually here
and it's not the episode I wrote,

which is, like, so close.
So close and yet so far.

It seems so unreal.

I never really thought it was happening.
It seems like a strange dream.

'Cause I waited, honestly,
all my life to do this.

And I was quite overwhelmed
for a few moments. I had a few tears.

It was like... I got the kind of
Saturday night feeling again.

First time, I don't know how long,
it just felt amazing.

It was not only I was watching
Doctor Who being made,

I was watching my Doctor Who being made.

SIMO N: Bringing the period to life
ls a massive task

so the first job of the night
is to recreate a scene

that Dickens would be proud of.

Obviously there was gas
in Dickensian time,

but mostly fire-lit and oil lamps
and candles.

The way I'm making it warm

is a combination of
putting colour filters on lights

and putting filters on colour.

Please turn on the CFO on the inside.

Sixth light as well, please.

SIMON". This is the production 's
biggest sh**t to date,

where time is money
and the pressure is on.

It's always very complicated,
but it's doubly so tonight

'cause we've got special effects,
we've got horses and carriages,

we've got something like extras all
in period dress this evening as well.

And so it's an enormous thing
to coordinate. Terrifying.

Here we go. Stand by, then.

And action.

From the very beginning of that night,
we knew that we were up against it.

SIMO N: Not only were they running
against the clock,

they were battling against the elements.

LYN". There was a wind kind of howling
and the snow is actually made of paper

so it kind of gusts it up into the air
and the horses were terrified.

(HORSE WHINNYING)

Action.

Keep her knees up.

The whole central idea of Doctor Who,
the time, the time travel things,

means that you are always really dealing
with matters of life and death.

Hey, I saw the fall of Troy,
World w*r V.

I've pushed boxes
at the Boston Tea Party,

now I'm gonna die in a dungeon.

In Cardiff.

SIMO N : But in his latest adventure,

all the Doctor has to worry about
are the ghostly Gelth.

They wanted the make-up
not too long really, not hours.

So, really, we just ended up shading it,
really. There's no prosthetics on it.

It's just, like, light and dark
and shade and colour, really.

And just, basically,
shading in the temples and jawbone

and all those things
that sort of give us that skull

and that eye socket look.

Zombie look, really.

And then just really adding veining in,

big veins and broken capillaries
and brown teeth

and everything very unflattering really,
for a grandmother.

(WAILING)

In episode three,
set in Victorian Cardiff in ,

there's a visual effect, the Gelth.

(GROANING)

It was decided to sh**t
a live action plate

of a lady called Zoe Thorne, who was
playing the part of the Gelth speaking.

We descend.

(RUMBLING)

There's a -D apparition for her body
that sort of hovers around.

Then there's a plate of Zoe
sh*t against black

with a red light,
a green light and a blue light...

so that we could actually control light
direction on her face.

We've come to help.

CO H EN: , actually, it's quite
convincing as one -D looking model.

But the head speaking
has been sh*t live-action.

SIMON: As the dust settles
on this Dickensian drama,

where will the Tardis
take the Doctor next?

I sh*t episode one,
and that was set in the present.

And there was aliens, first ingredient
of Doctor Who, the aliens.

When we got to episode two

and we're suddenly transported
into the future,

I realised that was another element.

This is the day the sun expands.

Welcome to the end of the world.

And then episode three with Dickens,
we went to the past.

And, by then,
I was getting to know the territory.

Nice to meet you. Fantastic.

Bye, then. And thank you.

Part of the fun of the series
is each time you turn on at :,

you just don't quite know where you're
gonna be, past, present or future.

Oh, that's just not fair.