After Effects Doctor Who Confidential

Action.

SCREAMING Amy!

The ground's got my legs!

Poor Karen Gillan getting sucked through the earth.

It was one of the scariest things... Definitely the scariest stunt I've done.

We exclusively reveal what happens after the cameras stop rolling.

We follow the making of an episode from edit suite to broadcast.

'Now on BBC One, here's a sneak preview...'

Five, four, three, two, one...

We're on set with the cast and crew of Doctor Who

as the companion prepares for the earth to move.

# There I was, digging this hole Hole in the ground

# So big and sort of round, it was

# And there was I, digging it deep It was flat at the bottom

# And the sides were steep When along comes this bloke

# In a bowler which he lifted and scratched his head

# Do you mind if I make a suggestion?

# Don't dig there, dig it elsewhere

# You're digging it round and it ought to be square

# The shape of it's wrong It's much too long

# And you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong

# And that's that. #

Poor Karen Gillan,

getting sucked through

the earth. She was very brave. Gotta love her.

Was that fun down there?

It's just like a little hole.

I'm quite scared now!

I've just been shown the device that's going to be used

for me being sucked under the ground

and it's quite scary cos there's just this hole, room-type thing,

underground, and then there's this kind of rubber ring that expands

when I come through it, and I have to hold my breath

and go under the soil, and it's... I'm quite scared, I have to say.

But, no, it should be an experience!

B camera.

Here we go, and...action!

SCREAMING Amy!

The ground's got my legs!

-I've got you!

-Don't let go.

-Never.

-I've got you.

-OK.

-NO!

-No!

It's pulling...

I'm not going to let you go.

Amy, no!

No, no!

No, no...

NO!

It was one of the scariest things... Definitely the scariest stunt I've done.

The cast might be done for the day,

but the magic of TV has only just begun.

I don't think any show on television

goes through the transformation that Doctor Who does...

in its post-production.

As soon as the camera stops, the first thing that gets done is

I jump into the edit suite, really,

and we start to put things together.

The job of the editor is to...

go through all the material in the director's shoots

and find the best performances, the best storytelling,

and basically bring it all together

to make a good scene which then goes into making a good show.

We're sort of re-birthing the story, in a way,

finding out what actually the nitty-gritty of the story is,

and really honing that over quite a number of weeks, really,

and quite a number of versions.

What do we do now?

That process takes three, four weeks.

Once that's done, then it goes off various directions as a programme,

gets split everywhere.

Next, it's off to visual effects company, The Mill,

where they add all the computer-generated images.

At the end of episode eight, the Silurian city is revealed.

It's a sort of classic...

map painting, which is one of the main areas of work we do

on Doctor Who, to create environments that don't exist.

That will be shot against a big green screen,

with a partial set,

and we will then go and set about creating

the under-earth city of the Silurians

to try and match the concept that's been approved.

Aside from making the majority of the visual effects

in the new Doctor Who series,

we also grade the programmes as well.

That involves one of our colourists

sitting down for two days, generally, an episode...

..having a look and balancing out all the colour in the picture

for an episode.

So what we have here is an end sequence in the TARDIS,

and if I just run three shots together, we have this shot...

..the next shot is ungraded...

..that's straight out of the camera, and then this shot is graded.

So my job now is to make this scene here

fit in with the other shots around it.

So if I start, and just put some contrast in first

and just make the picture start to look a bit more interesting,

maybe this is about right. But the only problem we've got here now

is that, over on the left-hand side of the screen,

where the Doctor and his assistant are coming into shot,

we can't really see them.

So...

here, I can start drawing shapes on the screen.

If you can imagine doing all this with your Photoshop at home,

and wondering how quickly this is responding,

I now have to hide this, cos I don't want anyone to see what I've done here.

So, using some of these tools here...

So we can now run that.

If we just run the shot to make sure it looks OK.

It's starting to feel right.

I can see what's going on. The whole point of this shot is they're coming in.

I think we could probably go with this.

I'm in my nighty.

Sound is incredibly important in Doctor Who.

Just the noises of places - it's no longer clunking, wooden sets,

it's metal corridors or stone corridors.

CLUNKING

'I'm a Foley artist.'

We have to replace all the physical sounds

for the whole programme.

It's basically replacing everything

to add to the finished product

and for when it's sold to other countries

and the dialogue is removed and their own language is dubbed on.

I'm the sound effects editor on Doctor Who.

Sound effects are all the extra things, the additional things

that we put into the show.

The backgrounds, you have to create atmospheres to make you believe you're in these locations,

things like punches, the sonic screwdriver, explosions,

all the juicy bits, really, all the additional bits

that the sound didn't exist on location -

I add all those in.

# I'm a sucker for your sound

# And I love it when you're loud

# I'm a sucker for your sound

# You know I'm playing with you now... #

For the soil, when the character gets dragged down

by the Silurians...

Soil's quite difficult to do,

because it doesn't actually make very much noise on its own.

So we've got it on a big cloth,

and that sort of enables you to get more volume out of it.

SOIL CRUNCHES AND RUSHES

When David Tennant left the show last Christmas,

he took the TARDIS with him.

It was in a bad state, and so now we've got a new TARDIS,

regenerated, and with the regeneration

comes a new set of sounds.

Out has gone the creaky door for the TARDIS,

um...he's finally oiled it after all these years.

It's not altogether new, because

I've got access to the Radiophonic Workshop archive

and I thought, it looks to me more like some of the older TARDISes,

so I've got a sound in there that is one of the background sounds

that was used in the '70s and '80s.

This is what it sounds like altogether.

WHIRRING, HUMMING

LOW-PITCHED HUM

But that's the old Radiophonic sound. It's just one element...

HE PRESSES BUTTON

WHIRRING OVER LOW-PITCHED HUM

If you play them together, you may not hear it. But I know it's there.

LOW-PITCHED HUM

That's it by itself again now.

With the TARDIS door, Paul the effects editor

will have laid the specially-created sound

for a TARDIS door.

So what we're doing is adding the physical... An extra element,

so if the Doctor touches it and does something with the latch on it,

that will go with the other effects and be mixed together in the dub.

-DOOR CLOSES

-Well, that was quick.

We don't always use the same object because we may not have access to it

and also sometimes things don't make the sound you expect them to.

The actual, physical object may make no noise,

but you want it to make a specific noise

you have to add to it or just improvise.

RATTLING Can't be.

RATTLING

It is!

-It's you two.

-No...

-RATTLING

We're here. How can we be up there?

RATTLING

THUD

Sonic!

Well, the new Doctor's got a new screwdriver

so we're using a vice,

which has got lots of nice clicky bits on it,

but it's good for the handling,

but sometimes you do need to add another element to it

just to make it easier to use.

..Now it doesn't...

RATTLING

..recent seismological shift and blue grass.

And again, all the beeps and technical sounds

will be put on afterwards. So it's just for the handling.

The sonic screwdriver on location doesn't actually make a sound.

(No, no, no, no, no...)

SILENCE

It would get in the way of the dialogue.

I put the sonic screwdriver sound in here, and I use this synthesiser.

So every time the Doctor uses it, I will make a new sound.

I could make it maybe...

HIGH-PITCHED WHIRRING

..a bit higher frequency.

I'll bend the sound... PITCH BENDS UP AND DOWN

As he moves it around, if you don't change the sound,

it doesn't sound like he's moving it around.

DOCTOR: Restricted access. No unauthorised personnel.

Hmm.

WHIRRING, BANG

That is breaking and entering!

What did I break?!

Sonic-ing and entering. Totally different.

RATTLING AND CLUNKING

That was great!

We just missed Amy's hand on the gate.

One of the best parts of the job is you know that millions of people are watching it.

I remember doing the stomping sound for the Cybermen.

STOMPING, CHILDREN GASP

And then, in the school playground,

I saw a kid pretending to be a Cyberman,

going, "Stomp, stomp, stomp!"

My sound, the kids are reenacting my sound,

because Doctor Who's that big, it's that good!

Once all the elements have been finished,

it's off to the Broadcast Centre for transmission.

A tape will be delivered in from various sources,

it will be put into the Flexicarts and we will then

start to record onto our system.

from this centre it goes to Television Centre,

from Television Centre it goes to BT Tower,

and then from BT Tower it goes into your homes.

We've got our clip, which today is a Doctor Who trail,

we've got a helicopter ident, we've put that into our system

and now we'll run it down with a continuity announcement

as we would the programme when it goes to air.

So that's five, four, three, two, one... Cut.

Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six

-five, four...

-'Now on BBC One, here's a sneak preview

-'of the new series of Doctor Who.'

-..three, two, one... Cut.

-Who are you?

-I'm the Doctor.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]