Season 14 Console Panel Control Layouts

[celation]

Okay - so here's a few screengrabs I made to back this up.

I've cleaned up a few to make composite images of a few different frames, where hands obscured buttons, etc.

These show the yellow-top-row panel with the stickers on. They really do look like the orange fluorescent stickers you can get.





The next is the yellow-top-row panel with the "wheels".



Still can't work out what they are. They look a little like small rubber door-stops or something - on the end of toggle switches. Note the absence of the orange dots on the top row and the buttons.

This above image follows this following shot, I think (can't quite remember, but that's the order of screengrabs I have):



This shows the yellow-top - probably with the wheels - two to the right of the writing desk. This backs up the two versions of the yellow-top-row panel theory (or the YTRPT for short   ) and possibly backs up the double desk theory (DDT? ).

[Rassilons Rod]

Now this last grab seems to be very interesting. I would suggest they had the console rotated in this one. It would be consistent with the plan I made. The covered panel at the front of this image would appear to be the unseen panel. My suggestion is that this confirms the 2 desk theory - and supports the symmetry too, meaning the hidden panel is probably like the one odd one we have that seems to be just lights.

The one before it is really nice too - I like how we can see that the black panel is not wall-to-wall. It is sort of inlaid in the same wood as the rest of the console (or ply with sticky backed plastic).

Great captures!

[celation]

Except it still doesn't explain the yellow-top; writing desk; blue-top from Assassin and the top-down shot of yellow-top; dotty-buttons; writing desk from Masque (?).

Either they've changed order, or there's another writing desk. The covered panel therefore wouldn't be an unseen panel - it would be the blue-top.

That would mean that the only semi-unknown panel we have is the writing desk to the right of the dotty buttons. We can see it is a writing desk from the leather inlay on the cover and the spilling papers, but otherwise, we don't know exactly what it looks like. It does look remarkably similar to the writing desk we've seen, though. Identical even...

My gut feeling is that panels have been moved and/or modified, and there are indeed one or maybe two unseen panels - possibly blank. The result of making them all work together does make it rather asymmetrical, though. And the presence of two writing desks doesn't make a great deal of sense.

[Rassilons Rod]

I think two writing desks would make sense if it was an old prop from something else that they tarted up to look like a console.

Hmmm... you make a good point with the yellow-top panel, I hadn't spotted that with all the bouncing up and down...

I would agree that one (or two) writing desks, probably wouldn't be movable...

[Scarfwearer]

It certainly looks like the last diagram nails it with respect to the general arrangement. I'm not seeing anything that's inconsistent with it. Anyone?
The top down shot seems to be the only evidence so far for a writing desk, but it does seem like a good assumption.

At this point we should be able to look at any grab and put a number on the panels shown with some confidence.

This is brilliant! As far as I know this hasn't been brought to light in public before, and of course I have a fairly immediate use for it.

Crispin

[Scarfwearer]

BTW,
I think the last grab shows panels 4 and 6 open, with 5 (the blue top row buttons) closed between them.

Crispin

[celation]

Cool!

Can't wait to see what you produce, Crispin.

Hope you've got a bit of spare cash, though - those rectangular push-buttons look expensive! 

[Scarfwearer]

It looks like there are close to 100 of them. Hmm. I'll be looking into some creative way of *not* buying 100 buttons in individual blister packs at a several quid each...

Crispin

[Rassilons Rod]

I've started making some layouts to describe what's in each picture... Either we can produce a working theory or assume they modded it once or twice in the run...

I'm half convinced the "blue-top" panel was incomplete in some shots and finished off with the "toy car wheels" and "stripey speaker grill" during the run - something which could go someway towards proving a single layout (or not)...

Let's see

[celation]

Personally I doubt the blue-top was reconfigured. There would be little point in rearranging the buttons in a different order.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if a single yellow-top was modified. If you compare the one with the wheels, above, with the one with the stickers and lights - you can see that the contours of the button positions are very, very similar. The first in the row are slightly lower - every button appears to be in exactly the same place. The positions of the switches are exactly the same as the positions of the lights, and the white button looks identical. The location on the console looks different, though.

Plus - from looking at the price of these buttons on the web - you're not going to spend a couple of hundred quid of your design budget populating console panels with bits you're not going to see.

However - from a series continuity perspective, the arrangement above *seems* to work so far. Unless anyone has any other pictures to disprove it...

Of course, there's nothing to say that the Doc didn't change the position and switches between stories - he did it with the other console after all - which would still give the option to put another panel in there.

[Rassilons Rod]

I meant added to rather than re-arranged... hmmm...

But in anycase I'm not at home at the moment and cannot check the pics.

[meantimebob]

if they don't all have to be illuminated buttons you could get these. They're £2 for 10 on ebay

[handofomega]

From the cleaned up pic that Celation posted it seems as though the small wheel-like things could be some sort of push button.  The non-cleaned pic make them look like some sort of pull switch (like in a car or on an organ).  It really is hard to say exactly what is actually there.   However it seems that whatever they are they are the same on all panels.  Just that some have florescent dots on them.

[celation]

Going back and looking again, you might be right. It's easier to see what's happening when the picture's moving, though. I'll check again when I have a chance.

There seems like a definite green glint there in some pictures, but it might just be comet-tailing from the highlights with the old tube cameras.

I wonder if averaging several frames might help the detail... Hmmm.

[Scarfwearer]

Here's a slightly better grab of Panel 6 from Hand of Fear, Part 4, 18:05


You can see the seven wheels better and it also looks like the mesh is coming unstuck.

Crispin