Reference Pictures: The Brachacki TARDIS (Original) (1963)

Started by peted, May 09, 2009, 10:31 am

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peted

OK. Seeing as no-one has added anything here, I will, even tho many of you have these pics already.
I'll put a few in that I think I very useful reference, and I'll add a little note to say why.

[attach width=600 height=598]215[/attach]
Nice crisp early pic of the Brachaki, pre weathering etc. The important thing to notice here is the 'proper' wooden frame for the telephone panel, which actually opens.
However, by the time of the reshoot, the prop has been redressed - the panel's frame is now blue with rounded edges, probably cut from a single piece of hardboard:
[attach width=353 height=444]217[/attach]

The picture below is very interesting. It shows the lintel boxes on the sides were not like the front/back. They were solid, rather than having a cavity where glass/perspex signage was placed. We know both the front and back let light thru ('ark in space' springs to mind along with the 'terror of the autons' promo shots of Pertwee in the Tardis doors - you can see through the lintel at the back:
[attach width=700 height=432]219[/attach]

The pic below is one of very few colour shots of the box from that time. I just thought it might be useful for getting the general tone of the box correct.
[attach width=700 height=488]221[/attach]

Finally, a couple of screen caps I took from the pilot episode, which raises a few questions. The first being 'why did they cut this?' as it actually explains visually just how the 'police box/roundel doors' actually work together. The second is what doors were used? Did they make another set of doors, or take the doors directly off the prop and hang them in front of the set doors?
[attach width=720 height=540]223[/attach] [attach width=720 height=540]225[/attach]


Rassilons Rod

I get my info from people like Purple Blancmange, so I believe it :)

Lintel Signs: That grab from the pilot is from before it was finished. It hadn't been artexed and the signs hadn't all been put in yet. You will see that sign in later pictures.

Doors: I believe the TARDIS was originally designed to come
apart and it did so for this shot. But after they decided to
remount the pilot episode, they stuck the whole thing together
permanently and then artexed it. This was then sanded back a
bit for The Daleks.

You can see at the end of the broadcast version of Unearthly
Child that the TARDIS is still in mint condition, cos they actually
reused the original shot of the caveman's shadow coming up at
the end.

-Marc
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

peted

I've known Purple for many years and yes, he really knows his stuff. We might have to agree to disagree here on some things here tho. I'll check the pilot, but it is highly unlikely the the prop would be placed on set 'unfinished'. I would say it was more likely that the kind of details like artexing would not have been done until the programme actually got a commission. Also re: the doors in front of the roundel doors - I don't believe the prop came apart at all. It would be fairly easy to take the doors off and rehang them for that shot - and we don't see the lintels or any other aspect of the box.
As I understand it, the prop was first dismantled for it's first location shooting for 'the smugglers' and breaking it apart to transport it pretty much ruined it - it was this 'cut and shove' job that led to the lowered roof and unsquared sides, I believe.

Rassilons Rod

Well there's unfinished and there's unfinished.

I think in the case of the signage, that it would be ok if that side of the box doesn't get seen. Isn't that pic just a set photo rather than a screen grab?

As for the artexting, well that evidence is onscreen.

Whether or not it came apart? Hmm... I don't know I guess there's valid arguments either way but there's no way to be really sure unless someone has seen some paperwork.

-Marc
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

peted

OK. Some caps I just took from the pilot episode.
As the extended theme plays out and the camera pans round the junkyard we see a very clean police box, with no artexing, no dirtying on the window frames and the clean wooden telephone panel:
[attach width=352 height=240]227[/attach]

As the camera begins to pan up:
[attach width=352 height=240]229[/attach]

Finally we see one empty lintel:
[attach width=352 height=240]231[/attach]

This pretty much clinches it for me - for the pilot the clean prop was used with missing lintel signs.


peted

Here's something else very interesting. A little later, when the Doctor turns up and the camera zooms in to show him opening the tardis door, he rotates the barrel of the yale lock and then begins to pull it out, as if to remove it. As well as being able to see the very clean wood, we can also clearly see holes - where it looks to me like handles had been added to the prop and then removed:
[attach width=352 height=240]233[/attach]

Also, compare how different this shot looks to the same shot from above in the 'finished' episode.
[attach width=352 height=240]235[/attach]

DoctorWho8

The original prop was originally built to be separated.  It was done only twice, once for the pilot in front of the console room doors, and once for The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve where Dodo first sees the TARDIS.  They had to separate the prop because they needed it for the outdoor shoot when Dodo sees the TARDIS and it had to be in studio at the same time.  Since there weren't two props, they had to undo the box again.  After this story when they put the box together, it wasn't keeping together as well, which eventually lead to the refit in the middle of shooting The War Machines.
Here is the pic from St. Bartholomew's and you can see what is part of the real TARDIS prop and what is a mockup (a BAD one).
[attach width=350 height=533]237[/attach]
Bill Rudloff

purpleblancmange

I'm ill for a couple of days, I come back and the place is a flurry.  Which isn't a bad thing.

Just to pick up on a few points here, it's been well established that in the Pilot episode, the prop can be seen in two forms in its unfinished (or unfinalised) state.

For the film recording material, it's painted in an unweathered, gloss blue finish with three door handles; one on either side of the door divider and one on the phone panel frame.  This was suspected for a long time up until the remastered DVD confirmed it.  As noted, not all the sign graphics are in place.

For the studio work, the handles are removed and the paintwork is redone, this time in a matt finish.

The Police Box doors stood in front of the console room double doors are the ones from the prop, we can tell this as you can still see the screw holes left over from where the handles were as the camera pushes in past Barbera.  I do believe that at this point, the TARDIS prop could still be dismantled.  It was certainly designed to be flat packed if you've ever seen the inside of it.

When we come to the remount for the transmitted episode, the prop has undergone another change, the artex is applied and the weathering is very heavy.  The artexing is probably what sealed its fate, quite litterally in terms of it never coming apart again.  Break the seals, break the artex and it'll look quite bad... this is also most likely why this push through from the exterior to the interior was not used in the transmitted version, despite it being in the Pilot.

The phone panel frame wasn't clad in hardboard (with rounded inner edges) as we can see from this photo evidence taken sometime later:

[attach width=366 height=592]239[/attach]

The top green box shows the "rounding" but this is simply artex build up in the corner, look at the bottom green square and you can see there is no rounding and that there is even a join showing - it's the original panel, just painted and weathered like the rest of the prop.

The two sets of red boxes show the screw holes for the handles that were on either side of the door divider, this again goes right back to the original form in which it had the handles and was painted gloss blue in the film insert recordings (still used in the transmitted version) you can see these holes in the doors in both the scene in which is shot in the Junk Yard as is pointed out earlier with a nice picture as well as in the "push through" scene that I mentioned a little way above.

That's enough from me now, I'm still not feeling at my best, so I'll just push off now.

Anyway, it's nice to have these sections added to finally.

Ta ta.

EDIT: replaced the image

chriskingbees

Hi All and get well soon Purp
This is very interesting, and promotes one thing I've always considered true. As more photographic evidence surfaces, it creates more questions, rather than reveals answers, if you know what I mean.
Anyway here's the full picture that Purple posted.

[attach width=544 height=406]241[/attach]

This seems to show the lock with external barrel, and is a very good shot of the St john's badge, even though slightly obscured, and lastly, a great example of the weathering technique.
The hi-res version is on the BBC site, I believe
KB
PS that was superb wig, the 'ol fellah was wearing, too ;D

peted

May 09, 2009, 06:46 pm #9 Last Edit: Dec 06, 2009, 11:10 am by tardisbuilders
Now this is the kind of discussion I've missed! Something to get our teeth into, where people contribute, theorise, take screen caps and generally push the envelope. Reminds me of the RPF - some members here I first met there, many years ago. It was great for comng up with new theories, finding previously unpublished photos and slowly piecing the evidence together.

One thing I don't like is DOGMA. Just because because someone read something in DWM in 1990, or someone wrote it on a forum, it doesn't mean we should accept it. People, including learned historians, get it wrong.

Always question, offer alternative theories, look for better evidence and share it. I totally stumbled on that handles thing. Looks like Purple has already been there, but now I'm going to comb the pilot to see if I can see them on the box. Were they removed because of the reference in the script to the tardis having no door handles?

Do we know for definite the prop came apart? The Ealing box definitely did not. Maybe that's why they didn't use that? But surely if it came apart, it would have come apart much more happily than it did. The Smugglers followed the War Machines and that was definitely the first time the show went on location. I know about the Dodo intro bit, but was that already planned because they were going to break the box apart to take it on location for the next serial? And where did the 'too tall for the lift' story come from? Is the any truth in that story?

purpleblancmange

Quote from: peted board=history1 thread=40 post=1678 time=1241894792And where did the 'too tall for the lift' story come from? Is the any truth in that story?


It's a bit of an urban myth, perpetuated by Peter Haining in his books.  It's actually an obscured truth - a full sized Police Box was too tall for the lift, so the proportions of the TARDIS prop were scaled down.  The "sawing off" of the roof to make it fit is tangled up from the refit of three years later into this myth to make one muddled factoid.

As usual, if something gets repeated enough, it becomes fact.  Rather like the Pilot TARDIS prop being a completely different prop from the remounted episode prop... and we all know that's not true either.

purpleblancmange

Just to save you the trouble of wading through hours of footage, here's a couple of screen caps from the film inserts which was the first ever footage shot for the programme.  All this footage was reused again for the remounted / transmitted version.

One, not so good where you can just about see the handles either side of the door divider:
FilmInsertUnearthly1.jpg

And one from the end of episode four, showing all the qualities of the original form of the prop; gloss paint and 3 handles... in much clearer quality:
FilmInsertUnearthly2.jpg

EDIT:  And to add, it also looks as if the phone panel was originally hung with the hinges on the right side of the frame but then later switched over - you can see what appears to be the remains of this straddling the green boxes in my earlier shot.  I still haven't been able to varify yet if this was the case or not.  Obviously during the film inserts, the handle would have been on the same side as this, so perhaps it was one of those things where they were deciding what goes where during the rejiggling stage between the Pilot and The Daleks.  Further investigation is needed on this.

Rassilons Rod

If the phone panel was hung on hinges, how does this tally with  it being on the wrong side during season 5?

-Marc
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

purpleblancmange

I've often wondered about the panel switch over myself down the years, never could fathom it.  It's easy to speculate why, but I've never been convinced with my own contrived theories.

The best I can come up with is that (as usual) it was simply a mistake.

throgmorton

Love this type of discussion to me thats what its all about, this web site and Tardis building.
It takes things from the 'established' accepted  norm and expounds with an educated common sense approach.

Chris E.