I worked on season one Doctor Who when working for Neill Gorton at Millennium FX. I was lucky enough to work on episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12 & 13 or in monster terms, the Autons, Moxx of Balhoon, Face of Boe, Slitheen, Space Pig, Ann Droid, Triny & Suzana and the Emperor Dalek. My input on these characters ranged from Workshop, Onset duties to Puppetering.
Millennium FX had about 15 artist in total working around the clock making sure deadlines where met and onset duties where taken care off, it was an amazing journey with plenty of ups and downs, but with no time to allow the downs to get to us all. It is not every day you can say you had an input with a cult Sci-Fi program like Doctor Who and I am proud to be able to share my photos for all to view.
EPISODE 1 (THE AUTONS)
The holding racks for the Auton masks. Getting ready to shoot the shopping mall and street scenes.
Fitting the Pyro shooting hands.
Fitting masks and and drilling more breath holes.
(Left) Autons take a breather before shooting the mall scene. (Middle) Auton Brides pose for a photo in the sports shop, which is also being doubled as the front of the bridle shop. (Right) Trying to cool down with a hand fan, we also ended up putting wegges and pipes in the mouths so the artists could breath better.
The Autons Finally. and time for bed or breakfast.
The worst part of the whole of episode one was the heat in the basement, which also happened to have every hot water pipe under the sun running through it. This particular scene was a 2 day shoot, for the artists wearing the masks, it would be an uderstatement to say it was very hot.
Episode 2 (Moxx of Balhoon & Face of Boe etc...)
The Moxx Body Sculpture in Progress. with my ugly mug next to it. (Right) Photo of the fibre glass helmet that makes up the Moxx's phallic looking head.
The Moxx head and Life cast of Jimmy Vee are moulded together to creat a acuate base, so the facial prosthetic can be sculpted by Neill. (Right) The Moxx's head falls off.
(Left) This scene was far harder then it looked. the aim was for Jimmy to glide gracefully through the door, unfortunately there was not much room and it took about 15 shoots to get it without hitting the door frame.(Middle) Jimmy straightening out his teeth.
Time to get the make-up off. Only another four days of Moxx to go!
(Top Left) Supervisor, Rob Mayor touches up his make-up on Jabe (Top Middle) Jabe, Lute and Coffa pose for a quick pic. (Bottom Right) Alan Ruscoe and Paul Casey In their tree people make-up, created by Charlotte Greenwood.
(Bottom Left & Right) The Face of Boe, Sculpted by James Salmon and John Cormick also painted by Charlotte Greenwood. I was responsible for puppetering and making sure the battery did not die.
Episodes 4, 5 & 11 (The Slitheen & Space Pig)
The Space Pig Scene happened to be the very first two days of filming, when we got Jimmy Vee dressed in the mechanical mask and costume for the very first time it hit me that Doctor Who had finally landed again. (Big Smile)
(Bottom Left) Jimmy goes through rehearsal. (Bottom Right) First day shooting for Christopher Eccleston as the new Doctor, thankfully I can see no brightly coloured scarf.
(Left) Human skin that the Slitheen use as their disguise. (Middle & Right) Alan Ruscoe gets ready for a green screen shot for when the slitheen emerge in front of the Doctor for the first time.
(Left) Paul Casey gets his Slitheen costume fitted for the first time. (Middle) Alan gets ready for another green screen. (Right) Alan and Paul take a break. The one hazard from this was that we had allot of wasps around, so you would occasionally see a Slitheen running hell for leather, avoiding the possibility of one flying into the costume, very funny to watch, but not that funny for them at the time.
(Top Left) Slitheen mechanical masks with controls. (Bottom Left) Put 1 human in a Slitheen costume at gas mark 6. (Bottom Middle) Lightly fan and cool when time allows during a 13 hour day. (Bottom Right) Take Slitheen costume off at the end of the day, and you are left with Alan, who looks like he has run two London marathons on the hottest day of the year, no joke when we got the leggings of each of the artists we could wring a good couple of pints of sweet out of them.
Group photos of the Slitheen, originally sculpted by Rob and Tristian
Ann Droid costume going through some final painting in Cardiff before it is to be worn by my good friend Alan, What I am not aware of is that he might not be after this shoot?
(Left) Shooting the weakest link scene with Alan in Costume. (Middle & Right) Back on the Tardis set myself and Ian Moorse plan to puppeteer all the spoken lines of Ann Droid, to make life easier for the editing phase.
(Left) Gelatin chuncks and tenticles from the mould of the emperor dalek. (Middle & Right) Dressing up a dalek for the scene in which Captain Jack shoots it with a really big gun.
Alan and Paul mount up once again as Trinny and Suzana, test fitting to filming.
The weapons of Trinny & Suzana. (Top) Scissor hands, saw blade and actual working chain saw, created by Gustuv. (Bottom Left) Freddy style syringe fingers. (Bottom Right) Jo Grover helps to support Alan at the end of a long day.
Emperor dalek submerged in metosil (food thickener), controlled by myself Ian Moorse, Anna, Lucy and Ellie and sculpted by Rob Mayor. This saw the end of a 7-8 month shoot and wrapped Doctor Who season one, Time for the pub.
