Eyes Wide Open Doctor Who Confidential

-B camera.

-Action.

-River?

As Confidential goes backstage,

some old friends, good and bad, pay the Doctor a flying visit.

So you've got River Song coming back.

Yeah, it's an angel.

I think the weeping angels are absolutely terrifying.

We had to bring them back.

And they are out in force.

Set?

Set.

And...

action!

The show gets off to a flying start.

River Song makes a surprise return,

and this time she makes sure she does it in style.

We were trying to achieve a kind of shock moment,

and surprise, and just the sense that River is this kind of...

mad adventurer.

I needed to see what was in your vault.

Wait till she runs. Don't make it look like an execution.

Like I said on the dance floor,

you might want to find something to hang on to.

BEEPING

So it was quite a complicated set-up,

certainly the most complicated set-up that I've done before.

It was green screen,

River on wires,

the TARDIS on this rostrum. It was a bit of a number, really.

Your arms came out a bit, I wondered if you'd done that consciously or...

I just kind of did that, I can do whatever...

-No, no, natural is good.

-When you come out naturally,

you naturally put your arms out like that,

and then we have got to cut to her doing the turn, whichever way.

We had a stunt double for Alex today, anyway,

cos when we are doing wire stuff and jerk-backs,

pulling artists backwards, fast, we have to have a stunt double there.

Rehearsing, and it's all yours, Crispin.

OK, three, two, one, action.

Oh, I'm definitely doing that! Oh, my God!

-Hang on a minute, that's half speed.

-It's like Tinker Bell.

Oh... Yeah!

Oh, that looks really exciting.

OK, let's set it up for a full-speed take, please.

I've never been on wires before,

I've never done any sort of stunt like that, and I really was excited.

-If you start with your arms behind the wires, once you're up.

-Behind the wires.

For when you're backwards, but when you go forwards, you've got to lift them through.

-I've got to lift them through.

-So, watch your hand, basically.

OK. Because I've got to be back...

-Yeah, you'll have that this side to start with.

-OK.

Do I have to have it out like that?

Can I not have them like that, forward?

-See how it feels with the wires...

-All right.

It is very complicated, because we have got to get

Alex to be thrown backwards, exactly in frame in the cameras.

We've got to make sure all our wire rigs are exactly the same position,

we've got to do the speed for Alex to get blown out of the airlock.

We've got a complicated rigging system to make her come out very fast, but also in a straight line.

John, when we put Alex on the wire, we will just lift her up with Bob,

so she can take the weight off her feet and see what it feels like.

You just let me know when you're happy.

-Is everything all right?

-Yes.

-Stand by to shoot.

-OK, Bob?

BOB: Yeah!

Just to confirm, guys, this is a full-speed take with effects and everything, OK?

OK, and three, two, one, action.

MUSIC: "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz

Poor Alex Kingston was sort of

hoisted up about...I don't know, 15 feet,

and she's got a wind machine behind her.

-Stop there.

-OK, Alex?

I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

It was like being on a fairground ride for her.

We did her first one very, very slow, at a slower speed,

just to get her used to it.

Just the look on her face was saying, "I want to go again."

She was very good. Alex is very good.

The other coverage of that scene was River

actually landing in the TARDIS, which we shot in the TARDIS.

In fact, it was Matt's...

It's not actually scripted that she lands on top of him,

but it was something that Matt came up with in rehearsal

and we just thought it might be quite funny,

if River was suddenly like, bam, and he's looking up at her.

-Doctor...

-River?

Rehearsing, and action!

I'm sort of leaning out like this,

and then she is thrust, at great speed as well, into me

and lands pretty much directly on top of me.

Matt was standing there and I sort of just had to throw myself at him,

and we both had to collapse onto the floor.

THEY GROAN AND LAUGH

She would try to land as politely as possible.

And I know that a couple of times, I absolutely did knee Matt

in the goolies.

River! Oh, nearly.

Nearly on me knackers!

A knee would sort of go somewhere where the sun doesn't shine,

as it were, can we say that?

And we would laugh greatly.

-Oh!

-River! THEY LAUGH

Sorry, go on! Time is money, people!

The Doctor's day is going from bad to worse

as some far-from-heavenly visitors rear their angelic heads.

Doctor, what do you know of the weeping angels?

Well, let's be clear, I'm running the show

and those were my monsters,

and they were incredibly popular,

so I'm bringing them out for a...a lap of honour.

I think the weeping angels are absolutely terrifying.

SNARLING

CRUNCH! CRASH!

I think that they're the scariest monsters in Doctor Who, ever.

When you see them at first, they're all so beautiful and graceful

and there's something really, really eerie about that.

Then, when they get all fanged and feral, it's just...

It's really shocking when you look at it.

It does actually make your heart go pfft! for a second.

I think they're terrifying.

Most of the weeping angels aren't statues at all.

They're girls painted like statues

who stand around and chat to you while you're on set,

which is simultaneously reassuring and a little bit creepy.

The stone effect painted on them is really convincing.

There are a couple of angels that are actual, proper statues.

But mostly what you're looking at are actresses painted in stone.

-Morning.

-Morning.

'To dress the artists in their outfits'

and make-ups, it takes on average two to three hours, depending

on which angel it is.

This is the base colour.

We've got to cover all her arms, chest and back,

everywhere we can see skin.

And we need to do two to three layers so we do a whole layer,

hair dryer, dry it, powder it, because it's quite sticky.

Another layer, same thing.

And, hopefully, then there'll be no pink showing

and we can get on with the next stage.

It's cold when you get it put on, but it's like, kind of, insulates as well.

MUSIC: "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga

This is the corset they wear underneath the top.

This is for the wings.

If you turn round,

the wings clip on here.

The worst part is when you get an itch, you can't do anything.

You've got to rub it or poke it.

But she's brilliant, Sarah. I don't know how she does it,

but she's one of the best ones for keeping it on.

-MUFFLED:

-It's not too bad. You try not to speak.

You just, like, give thumbs-up or, like, yeah.

MUSIC: "Devil In Disguise" by Elvis Presley

# You look like an angel

# Walk like an angel

# Talk like an angel

# But I got wise

# You're the devil in disguise

# Oh, yes, you are

# The devil in disguise

# You're the devil in disguise

# Oh, yes, you are The devil in disguise... #

That wasn't us. It wasn't us.

And...action.

The Angels give Amy the roughest time of all.

It's down in the caves that she starts to see their true colours.

If you get in position, Henry.

WATER GUSHES

Oh, that's good. That's it.

That's exactly the sort of thing.

It's getting rid of all the dust stuff that comes off it.

Which is difficult, isn't it?

What I can do is try to reduce it slightly.

What's really nice is just that stream.

Obviously, it's because the material itself is dust,

basically, so you'll always get a residual amount.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Um...

OK.

That was good. Just that last bit. You know when I went....

Fine. OK. Fine. So it's a case of backing the fingers off.

She's got to slightly cup her hand.

-It will hit her hand and just fall out.

-OK.

'My original brief was'

quite a sizable amount of dust coming through the fingers.

But it's changed slightly. So I've adapted the rig slightly

by just simply putting a patch on the eye,

making a little pocket full of dust so when she applies pressure,

it just comes through the fingers.

-So this will be over your eye. It will be a little shelf of dust attached to the eye-patch.

-OK. Ah.

-So when you rub your eye, it will just feed through your fingers.

-Yeah.

I'm just going to put something over there and then build it up.

It was strange because they had to seal my eye off with this kind of sticky thing.

So that was really strange because I was completely disorientated.

-Ah, this feels really weird.

-Does it? Are you all right?

Yeah, it's fine.

Let's take you up now.

-OK.

-Are you OK?

-Yeah.

-Come with me.

-Right.

-Are you all right?

-Yeah, I'm fine.

'And then they had to sort of put a little ledge'

on, sort of, the centre of my eye on which they put lots of dust.

And that was quite strange because it was kind of going everywhere.

175, take one on the MD camera.

Cameras cut.

End board.

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