Principal photography: Difference between revisions

[[Barry Letts]] introduced a new principal photography schedule with ''[[Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)|Doctor Who and the Silurians]]''. He decreed that the studio work for two episodes be completed on consecutive days each week. Thus, instead of it taking a month to complete the studio work for an entire four-part episode of ''Doctor Who'', it would now only take two weeks. The innovation was born of necessity. The outside contractor [[Barry Newbery]] had used to build the cave sets for ''Silurians'' had delivered flimsy sets. Because they would be damaged by striking them each week, Letts came up with the solution of recording two studio days back-to-back, greatly reducing the number of times the sets would have to be taken down and put back up.<ref>[http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/bbb.html Shannon Sullivan's guide] to ''The Silurians''</ref> The plan kept the cave sets from disintegrating. The patten of once-a-week studio filming never returned to ''Doctor Who''.

An episode of ''Doctor Who'' during the [[Russell T Davies]] era of the program typically had a long principal photography schedule with greater commonality to the TV movie than the original series. However, it is difficult for those not on the production to speak intelligently about what the actual schedule was, since individual episodes were almost invariably described to the press as "behind schedule". Nevertheless, ''[[Rose (TV story)|Rose]]'' was likely fairly close to meeting its schedule; it took about two months of almost around-the-clock principal photography. Principal phtography was achieved in the RTD era through the use of recording blocks, typically comprised of three to four episodes, with photography from one episode sometimes overlapping with that of another. In the case of the [[Cyberman]] [[story arc|arc]] from [[series 2 (Doctor Who)|series 2]], for instance, action from all four episodes was filmed jointly over the course of about three months, although material from ''[[Rise of the Cybermen (TV story)|Rise of the Cybermen]]/[[The Age of Steel (TV story)|The Age of Steel]]'' generally took up the first six weeks, while ''[[Army of Ghosts (TV story)|Army of Ghosts]]/[[Doomsday (TV story)|Doomsday]]'' was mostly recorded in the latter six weeks.<ref>[http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/2006lm.html Shannon Sullivan's guide] to ''Army of Ghosts/Doomsday''</ref> At the other end of the scale, an episode like ''[[Fear Her (TV story)|Fear Her]]'', with limited sets and location work, had only about three weeks of principal photography.<ref>[http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/2006k.html Shannon Sullivan's guide] to ''Fear Her''</ref>

Despite the general inability of non-crew members to ascertain the exact nature of the principal photography schedule on the 2005 series of ''Doctor Who'', a key difference between the original series and the modern one is obvious. Whereas "classic" ''Doctor Who'' was filmed at a leisurely, weekly pace, the Russell T Davies era, through to the [[Chris Chibnall|Chibnall]] era, was characterised by long, gruelling [[production block]]s in which work was completed every day for weeks on end.