03x02 - Stage Fright

[bunniefuu]

There's "Much Ado" on the set of the
Doctor's latest historical hoorah.

I picked up the script
and I couldn't believe that we
were about to embark on this.

Filming this epic adventure
took the Who production team across

the country and all over the Globe.

CHEERING

It's the Bard at his best.

So sit back and relax,
because Confidential
has the best seats in the house.

miles east of their South Wales
studios, the Doctor Who team

have travelled to London to film
at Shakespeare's spiritual home.

It's a really big deal for us,
being here at the Globe.

It was very important for us to get
in here for this episode,

because it's so much about
Shakespeare,

about the performance of his work,

and we really wanted
to kind of show the audience
what it would have been like.

The Globe itself
is the most extraordinary place
and when you walk in,

and just see
this beautiful space,

recreated so painstakingly
and so lovingly,

it's not like anything else.

It was probably the ultimate
location if you're filming an
episode set in Elizabethan England.

It couldn't be more perfect.

It may well be the perfect location,

but back-to-back performances
of the Bard

mean some very long Midsummer
Nights for the cast and crew.

The performance has just
finished about half an hour ago

and all our guys have got in now
and we've got about an hour

to set up our backcloth
and dress this Globe

as the Globe as it would have been
and , Shakespeare's time,

so that's a hell
of a daunting challenge.

The script was originally day, but
because of the Globe's availability,

we had to flip it into night.

As you can see, it's a m*llitary
operation to get in here.

We're the first drama
ever to film in here.

It took a lot of
quite delicate negotiation

between ourselves and the brilliant
people who run this theatre.

I think I remember saying
to Russell and Julie,

"You're sure we can get it?",
and Russell was going,

"Oh, yes, of course we can...
I think." You know?

So it was always there, and I think
we sort of had a vague talk

of a back-up plan
if we couldn't get it!

The Globe wasn't easy to get,

cos it's not easy to get into there
and it's a long way for us to travel,

to fill it in the way we've done,

and to have the whole climax
of the adventure, I think,
brings Shakespeare to life.

Guys, let's just start clearing
everybody out now, please.

If you don't need to be in here,
step outside. Thank you very much.

Filming there was quite daunting,
but fantastically exciting -

the idea of doing it - but
logistically, extremely complicated.

We've had to bring in extra make-up
people, extra costume people,
the whole design effort's massive.

Action!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING

The hardest part was to say exactly
what Shakespeare was like

because, quite famously,
not that much is known about him.

Genius! He's a genius, THE genius,

the most human human
there's ever been.

Now we're gonna hear him speak!

There's no record of Shakespeare,

what he was like,
what his temperament was like,

if he was a beast of a man, if he
was like most tortured geniuses,

there's that real dark side.

So there was no record.

You've got excellent taste!

CHEERING

When he comes on stage,
I wanted rock star screams,

as if Robbie Williams
or Liam Gallagher
or Mick Jagger had walked on stage.

Shut your big fat mouths!

Shakespeare is a Northern monkey.

LASCIVIOUSLY: Nonny nonny!

♪ Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star

♪ Tonight,
I'm a rock 'n' roll star... ♪

He's got that indie rock star feel
and he does it effortlessly

and also gives him the wit
and the wisdom and the humour.

It's just a lovely performance.

Loves Labours Lost, that's a funny
ending, isn't it?

It just stops.
Will the boys get the girls?

Well, don't get your hose in a
tangle, you'll find out soon enough.

Love's Labour's Won
is a genuine legend.

Love's Labour's Won.
I don't think much of sequels.

It's mentioned in someone's diaries
and in a list in a folio somewhere.

Have you seen this last bit?
He must have been dozing off!

The possibility that
there was a sequel that's
lost really appealed to me.

Love's Labour's Lost
isn't one of the best-known plays.

If it's the last thing I do, Love's
Labours Won will never be played.

Well, then, mystery solved. That's
Love's Labours Won over with.

I thought it might be
more mysterious.

One of the other hearts
of the whole story

is how Martha's eyes open to the
Doctor's incredible lifestyle

and to take her back
to Elizabethan London.

I promised you one trip
and one trip only.

Episode two is where she actually
just embraces it and goes,

"I'm so fortunate
and this is gonna be fantastic",

and you can sense her sort
of enjoyment of it all, really.

Outside this door, brave new world.

Jumping out of the TARDIS and looking
at that side of the street thinking,

"Look at the work that's gone
into this, we ARE in ",

It was the same
as what Martha was feeling.

Back on location at the Globe,
director Charles Palmer is tackling
the episode's biggest problem -

packing out Shakespeare's
performance with just
a handful of supporting cast.

The challenge was in Shakespeare's
day it held , people.

Now, it holds , people -

but in Shakespeare's day,
it held , people -

and we only had extras.

It was, "How were we
gonna pull that off?"

We've filmed some elements here

of people in the upper row,
upper levels...

, take one, A camera.

And we're gonna take those sh*ts
which have mainly empty seats

into a green screen studio, line up
some green screen elements of crowd

and film those
and composite it all together

to make it look
like all the boxes are full

and the ground
is heaving with people.

The Mill will paint those people
into the whole theatre

and when the whole thing's spliced
together, it'll look like it's full.

We'll actually have two, huge,
sweeping sh*ts

that come down across
the Globe onto the stage,

that are full of screaming,
baying, cheering people,

as it would have been
back in Shakespeare's time.

But computer graphics really
took centre stage

during the show's ambitious finale.

The finale was a real challenge,
you know, not least because we had to
split it into all sorts of sections.

, take one, A camera.

Sometimes when you write something,
you do write it and then you're sort
of half-expecting a call saying,

"Could we scale that down just a
bit?", but I got the call saying,
"No, go bigger."

Stage door!

I storyboarded the whole thing
to within an inch of its life

and I sat down with the visual
effects supervisor,

and worked out where we needed
the visual effects sh*t,
cos we couldn't have one everywhere.

I'm always aware when we get
a sequence like that,

that we're only gonna
be able to do , sh*ts
at the most within the sequence,

so I have to kind of
think of a way to sh**t stuff

around our
visual effect sequences.

In the air above the Globe here,
we're gonna have

a kind of giant whirlwind into which
these Carrionites will fly,

all of which we'll be putting
in as CG elements later,

so what we're filming here are just,
generally,

empty plates with crowds
and plates with the witches.

Come on, Will! History needs you!

But what can I do? Reverse it!

Lots of physical effects go into
making the CGI witches

that are flailing around,
bedded into that sequence,

so, you know, we had two
humungous wind machines
blasting air at people.

Stand by!

Cue wind machine. And Action!

MENACING LAUGHTER

The Doctor! He lives!

Then watch this world
become a blasted heath.

They come, they come!

I think the Carrionites are one of
our best designed creatures.

I'm not sure
I could draw a Carrionite,
cos they're quite indefinable,

they're really oddly structured
and they're really quite original.

They've got the kind of witches'
chins and the witches' noses,

but it's more like
a kind of armoured shell,

and their bodies
are much more kind of...

much less corporeal.

They're very, kind of,
floaty rag things,

so they can fly around gracefully.

I'm amazed.
It just looks incredible.

The final result, I think,
is absolutely glorious.

There's smoke, there's people
screaming, they're trapped,
the clouds are opening...

Love's Labour's Won. There it goes!

Great, big, epic ending
to what is quite an epic story.

SCREAMING

The Doctor! Where is he?

Martha!

It's a dark story.

It's very Blade Runner.

It's kind of a frightening vision.

You can see the Doctor coming
and literally
saving the whole world.

Magnificent!

The Doctor feels a responsibility
for what happens to Martha.

It's the first episode
that he realises
that he's becoming attached to her.

He finally reveals his secret.
Big set-ups, even bigger picture.