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Transmat:Doctor Who

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference
Revision as of 00:09, 16 January 2019 by SOTO (talk | contribs)
PlaybackExampleTheArk.jpg

Playback was a television production technique in which pre-recorded material was literally played into a scene, rather than being added as a post-production effect. It was universally used in the 1960s as the method by which actors were seen on view screens. As seen in the picture at the left, William Hartnell was pre-recorded separately, then projected live into the scene with the actors in the foreground. Though antiquated, the technique was used even into the 1980s, most notably for the title sequence. The quality of the opening titles for the 1963 version of Doctor Who was never high, because it was never a first-generation copy of the titles. Instead, they were played live into the recording of the first scene of many episodes, causing actors to have to time their first lines to the final notes of the studio-audible Doctor Who theme.

The women who gave Doctor Who back to us
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Click for video

Think Doctor Who is just for boys? Don't you believe it. Not only was the show's very first producer a woman, but it would never have come back without the fierce advocacy of Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner. Considering her importance to Doctor Who it's somewhat ironic that Tranter's only on-screen credits are for Torchwood: Miracle Day. But Gardner, her "partner in crime", is tied only with Russell T Davies as the most prolific producer in Doctor Who history.

Industrial action

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Click for a video of a 21st century geek as he takes delivery of one of the two Paintboxes used by the BBC in the 1980s
The Quantel Paintbox was a graphics workstation that allowed Doctor Who to have a primitive form of colour grading in the 1980s. To find out more about the "business of show", go to category:production information, where you can read about colour separation overlay, low loaders, telerecordings, vidFIRE, rostrum cameras, 2" quad tape, Ealing Studios and tons more.
Surprising guest star
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Pauline Collins, OBE is one of the rare actors that Doctor Who has seen on both sides of her career. She guested as Samantha Briggs in the Patrick Troughton story The Face of Evil, before she became a British household name in Liver Birds. She then came back to the programme after her Academy Award nomination to play Queen Victoria in the David Tennant story, Tooth and Claw. Find out more about the thousands of actors who have been on Doctor Who by exploring Doctor Who guest actors.
Ex-Doctors never die, they just make audios

The careers of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors are significantly longer in audio than on television. Check out their latest works at category:2024 audio stories

The relevance of comics

Officially, only The Lodger has been explicitly adapted from a comic strip — also called The Lodger.

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However, several stories have clearly taken material from comic strips — often those in Doctor Who Magazine. The Shakespeare Code contains a good amount of material from A Groatsworth of Wit, and the notion of the Doctor absorbing the time vortex in order to spare a companion was explored in both The Parting of the Ways and The Flood.

The first of the "money men"

Donald Baverstock was the BBC executive who set the the wheels in motion that eventually led to the creation of Doctor Who. Essentially the original commissioner of the programme, he hired Sydney Newman and later imposed a sense of financial responsibility upon producer Verity Lambert.

But Baverstock wasn't the only BBC executive to have a profound impact on the development of Doctor Who. Make sure you read about Lorraine Heggessey, Mark Thompson, Danny Cohen, George Entwistle, Tony Hall, Shaun Sutton, Sydney Newman and others.
Things released on 4 November


Did you know…


4 November births and deaths
Production history for 4 November


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