Vision mixer

File:Special Feature - Vision Mixing - Doctor Who - The Sensorites - BBC

Clive Doig, Doctor Who's first vision mixer, explains his job.

Vision mixers were regular members of the production crew of the 1963 version of Doctor Who.

During the recording of a programme, they sat in the control booth above the studio floor and decided when to switch between the — usually four – cameras that were being used to film an episode, according to the director's instructions. They were thus "live editors", who controlled when a particular camera was actively recording.

They also were responsible for some visual effects, such as the insertion of pre-recorded material played back into a scene, and indeed the achievement of the original title sequence. Undoubtedly, however, their most important visual effect was that of regeneration, which — as established by Tenth Planet vision mixer, Shirley Coward — was always achieved by some form of camera cross-fade.

Interviewed on The Sensorites DVD extra Vision On, early Harnell-era vision mixer, Clive Doig, had this to say about his job:

What I'm doing as a vision mixer is cutting to the camera against the dialogue of the [camera script that the director has prepared]."Clive Doig

Because no mainstream DWU show after Survival has been produced in a multi-camera environment, vision mixers essentially haven't been used since 1989. Very brief exceptions occasionally crop up, however, as when characters are seen to be watching television programmes. The clearest examples of vision mixing in the BBC Wales era are perhaps Trisha Goddard's scenes in Army of Ghosts.

Although Survival was the final story of the regular run of Doctor Who to employ a vision mixer throughout its production, the last BBC-licensed story to use vision mixing was The Curse of Fatal Death. It in fact parodied the work of vision mixers in the original series by showing how quick cutting between cameras created the "endless corridors" down which the Doctor and his companion typically ran.

List of vision mixers

Season 4

• The Tenth Planet - Shirley Coward

Season 5

• The Evil of the Daleks - John Barclay

Season 7

• The Ambassadors of Death - John Barclay

Season 9

• The Mutants - Mike Turner

Season 10

• Frontier in Space - Mike Turner and Shirley Coward
• Planet of the Daleks - Mike Turner

Season 11

• Death to the Daleks - Nick Lake
• The Monster of Peladon - Mike Turner and Nick Lake
• Planet of the Spiders - Nick Lake

Season 12

• The Sontaran Experiment - Mary Kellehar
• Revenge of the Cybermen - Nick Lake

Season 13

• Terror of the Zygons - Nick Lake
• Pyramids of Mars - James Gould
• The Android Invasion - Nick Lake
• The Seeds of Doom - Sue Thorne, Heather Gilder and Graham Giles

Season 14

• The Masque of Mandragora - Graham Giles
• The Face of Evil - Nick Lake

Season 17

• Destiny of the Daleks - Nigel Finnis
• City of Death - Nigel Finnis
• The Creature from the Pit - James Gould
• Nightmare of Eden - Nigel Finnis
• The Horns of Nimon - James Gould

Season 18

• The Leisure Hive - Paul del Bravo
• Meglos - Graham Giles
• Full Circle - Carol Johnson
• State of Decay - Carol Johnson
• Warriors' Gate - Paul del Bravo and Jim Stephens
• the Keeper of Traken - Nigel Finnis

Season 19

• Logopolis - Carol Johnson
• Castrovalva - Carol Johnson
• Kinda - James Gould
• The Visitation - Carol Johnson
• Black Orchid - Carol Johnson
• Earthshock - James Gould
• Time-Flight - Nigel Finnis

Season 20

• Snakedance - Carol Johnson
• Terminus - Carol Johnson
• The King's Demons - Nigel Finnis
• The Five Doctors - Shirley Coward

Season 21

• Warriors of the Deep - Nigel Finnis
• The Caves of Androizani - Dinah Long

Season 22

• Attack of the Cybermen - Nigel Finnis
• Vengeance on Varos - Nigel Finnis and Jayne Beckett
• The Two Doctors - Jayne Beckett

Season 23

• The Mysterious Planet - Jim Stephens
• Mindwarp - Jim Stephens
• Terror of the Vervoids - Shirley Coward
• The Ultimate Foe - Shirley Coward and Jim Stephens

Season 25

• Remembrance of the Daleks - Fred Law
• Silver Nemesis - Barbara Gainsley

Season 26

• Ghost Light - Susan Brincat

Documentaries about vision mixing

Vision mixing has been the primary focus of two documentaries in the classic Doctor Who DVD range.

Documentary	Released on	Interviewees	Subject
Vision On	The Sensorites	Clive Doig	Basic description of job, as it existed in the Lambert era
A View from the Gallery	Day of the Daleks (2011 DVD release)	Barry Letts and Mike Catherwood	Relationship between the director and the vision mixer, primarily as experienced in the Letts era