TARDIS set tour 2017

[brenk9carter]

So i went on a set tour of the TARDIS console room set the other day and i totally forgot to take any proper reference piccies but i still want to show the pics that i did take.

the whirligig

here you can see that it still doesn't have a proper underside to the telepathic circuit panel in fact upon closer inspection it just looks like a bit of unpainted plywood has been shoved in there ( and yes that's me )

and i just took a quick snap of the "big lever" as i call it

and a round thing, they said that they are made out of the bases of plant pots

they had the out of order sign hung on the door which i think was a pretty cool thing to do
and you can see for some reason the base has a sort of silver speckle to it, maybe when they painted the first bit of the floor inside perhaps

the exterior of the interior as it were, i always said it looks like a pumpkin

a good pic of the interior doors

[galacticprobe]

and a round thing, they said that they are made out of the bases of plant pots

What... you mean like the drip pans that go under the pots to catch the water that runs through? Those aren't expensive. (Anyone have a good guess or calculation of the diameter?)

Those are some great photos, Bren. And the one with the "Out of Order" sign on it is perfect. It's head-on enough to gauge how large that sign is!

Thanks so much for posting them!

Dino.

[timewomble]

What... you mean like the drip pans that go under the pots to catch the water that runs through? Those aren't expensive. (Anyone have a good guess or calculation of the diameter?).

Argh! I'm on the 13:00 Set Tour today and I've forgotten my tape measure!

[Volpone]

[Checks WorldClock for UK time] Arg!  Too slow.  I was going to say use your forearms (assuming you're an average sized adult human male).  The Biblical measurement, the cubit, is 17" and is measured from the tip of the middle finger to the tip of the elbow.  My forearm happens to be about a perfect cubit. 

When I worked in supermarkets, if I didn't want to get out the tape measure, my quick way to see if a store had 3' or 4' shelves was to hold my arms parallel to the floor, chest height, with my fingertips pointing at each other and my elbows straight out--so roughly 34".  If the shelf was 3', it was about the size of my arms.  If it was more, I knew it was a 4' shelf. 

There are other old Imperial measurements like the hand (4"), the span (thumb to pinkie with the hand wide open--I forget the standard length), the yard (nose to fingertip--36") and of course, the foot, but those are mostly less useful to me (less precise or my body measurements aren't close to the standard, or I don't feel like taking my shoe off and holding it against something) although I will roughly use "feet" to measure something on the floor. 

[timewomble]

My painfully spread hand is 24cm from tips of thumb to little finger, and I'd say it was another 2 cm to the center of a roundel (no touching!) so that would give us 52 cm diameter.

They told us they were plant pot bases too, but looking at those online those are typically saucers. That would allow for the recess around the edges, but it would also mean that there was something filling the saucer or fitted across the front.

Anyway, something like this would be about right:
http://www.plasticboxshop.co.uk/home-storage-c1/garden-and-outdoor-plastics-c6/plastic-garden-pots-and-plastic-saucers-c59/vista-52cm-round-tray-for-60cm-round-vista-planter-p1916/s3192?gclid=CLvzycvQytMCFULjGwodxvsDOA

As it happens I was lucky enough to meet whovian-almighty there, with some friends. I'm afraid my hearing made conversation a little difficult but on the way back they shared some of the things they've built and made us very jealous. Well, when I say us jealous, I mean my son and me; mostly it made my wife nervous!

Separately, I already had a good idea how the console's "under pods" were constructed, but with the panel cut out from under the telepathic circuits you got a kind of cross-section.

[galacticprobe]

My painfully spread hand is 24cm from tips of thumb to little finger, and I'd say it was another 2 cm to the center of a roundel (no touching!) so that would give us 52 cm diameter.

They told us they were plant pot bases too, but looking at those online those are typically saucers. That would allow for the recess around the edges, but it would also mean that there was something filling the saucer or fitted across the front.

That would be about 20.5 inches (for us U.S. folk). The something filling those saucers could be the light strings (rope lights?) that give them the backlighting. (It's possible.)

Anyway, something like this would be about right:

That definitely looks about right. Plenty of room inside them for rope lighting. All you need then is a little paint and imagination and you've got some "round things" to mount on your wall... once you line out those hexagons for the round things to fit into!

As it happens I was lucky enough to meet whovian-almighty there, with some friends. I'm afraid my hearing made conversation a little difficult but on the way back they shared some of the things they've built and made us very jealous. Well, when I say us jealous, I mean my son and me; mostly it made my wife nervous!

I'm sure whatever he's built would make most of us here jealous! At least you got to meet someone there. I'm stuck on the wrong side of the pond, and have yet to meet anyone from TB in person. The closest I've come so far was talking to Tony on the phone a few years ago when he helped our daughter find her way from Heathrow to Uni of Bath, for which we'll always be grateful.

Separately, I already had a good idea how the console's "under pods" were constructed, but with the panel cut out from under the telepathic circuits you got a kind of cross-section.

Do I sense a possible drawing or sketch in the works? Maybe one that would be scanned and posted?

Dino.

[type63]

I got told off for trying to touch the big lever when I went.

[timewomble]

Yes, the temptation to touch was almost irresistible, wasn't it? Touch is such a critical part of human experience that without it you might almost as well be watching it on TV. Thankfully we were allowed to touch the Tardis doors, the railings, etc. And the last time we did the set tour they had one of the Police Boxes in that studio as well. The most frustrating thing was how they fenced things off so we couldn't walk around to the other side of the console, but it would have been much harder for them to police things.

[tony farrell]

One of the nicest things about my visit (apart from how friendly the Production Team Members were and the level of access I was given) was the freedom to touch things, pick them up and have a look inside things.....

I love to see how things are made - often very simply yet, incredibly effectively; for example, the sculpted tops of the Capaldi Tardis' book cases are actually carved from polystyrene (I know, because I lifted one off). Similarly the ballustrade on the Chamber of the Dead's staircase was made of polystyrene sprayed with plaster and then skillfully painted to look like stone.

In no particular order, the circular grilles on the Tardis curved control panels are nothing more than Perspex discs (approximately 1 cm thick) with the grille-shape being CNCd into them - they're not even fixed down (and lifting one off revealed the thin bell wires underneath used to power the little multi-coloured lamps) whilst the main Console's telepathic panels were simply sculpted foam and had a wonderfully squidgy, tactile, feel to them!

For fairly obvious reasons I particularly enjoyed having a good look at the recreated Hartnell Tardis interior set. At one point in our discussions whilst he has preparing his set plans, Matt Sanders had asked me how the original zig-zag doors had been operated. I explained that they were mechanically driven with the chain/cog mechanism being hidden under the curved sections at the bottom of each door. Obviously for a one-off recreation of the set, such an expense wasn't justified - Matt's brilliant solution was to fit each door with a length of fishing line which was fed through a small hole at the bottom of the adjoining walls to enable off-camera stagehands to pull the doors open and closed! Simple, elegant and well-nigh invisible even in HD!

I don't want to give people the impression that everything is done 'on the cheap' - that certainly wasn't the case: Like the original Brachacki set, the screen frames behind the scanner on the recreated Tardis set were made from metal. The incredibly heavy 'ceiling canopy' was suspended from heavy-duty chains which looked strong enough to moor The Titanic! I do hope that someone has had the presence of mind to retain this set!

Similarly, the enormous Jules Verne-like laser cannon from The Empress of Mars was 'parked-up' in the rear outside storage area behind the studios. Whilst its tubing was nothing more than the kind of thing you'd find in external household plumbing, its chassis was metal, heavy-duty and looked as if it would be at home on a railway engine. For a one-off prop, it was incredibly solid, well-made and - presumably - very expensive!

I was surprised that the gold Empress of Mars was actually made in the same way as the full costume with her chin actually being made of silicone rubbed rather than cast in plastic or fibreglass. The Ice Warriors' silhouettes seen in their ice 'tombs' on screen, again, were very simply achieved being nothing more than sheets of MDF cut-out to match the shape of the Martians which were then back-lit (some wag had drawn a simple emoji-like face on one of them)!

I also didn't realise that there were two Davros' "chairs" - one at the DWE and one in the studios' prop store which - itself - was a glorious clutter of costumes, masks and other ephemera from Who, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures with bits of computer keyboards and various guns, etc seemingly stored in no order what-so-ever - I nearly trod on a burgundy New Paradigm Dalek dome which had just been left on the floor! I am amazed that anyone could find anything in there but it was great fun to have a rummage with Matt.....

Organised chaos it might be but, seeing the tricks of the trade - some cheap and cheerful, some incredibly expensive and well done - was definitely a highlight of 2017 for me and one which will remain with me for a very, very long time to come! Thank you Mr Sanders!

P.S., when I donned my Pertwee cape to be photographed with the 1966 Tardis exterior, one of the stagehands burst out laughing. I remarked to him that he had no room to talk as - at the time - he was carrying a dummy Cyberman. Whereas, up to this point, Matt had introduced me to everyone as the person who had provided them with the plans for the Tardis, on this occasion, he introduced me as "the next Doctor" (he politely declined my offer to try on the Inverness cape though)!!

T

[Cardinal Hordriss]

Mum and I were the only two on the set when we went in, everyone else crammed in at once despite being told not to so people could get good photos while mum and I chatted to the staff and I had my photo taken in the police box. Anywho, as we were alone they let me open the liquor cabinet roundel, all the drinks and glasses were still in there from The Husbands of River Song and filming for Twice Upon Time hadn't started. I had a look at the bottles and they really do have alien names on the labels like Aldebaran Brandy. I turned down a taste because whatever it really was it had been sat in there for more than a year. It made me smile seeing it appear in Twice Upon a Time with the First Doctor wondering who'd had some.

[galacticprobe]

I have only one thing to say about those amazing photos, Tony...


Dino.

[Rassilons Rod]

That's a fantastic photo of you with the Syrian candle btw! So much detail 

[warmcanofcoke]

I have only one thing to say about those amazing photos, Tony...


Dino.

Ditto

[superrichi1a]

I would like to also state my envy at those pictures! Fantastic! It must have been incredible to be on the set without hundreds of people or barriers everywhere. I visited the tour twice, but both were inflicted with those pesky barriers and tour guides. The closest I came to having a brush with the actual set was when I did a makeup test for that Scottish-set episode. They were gearing up for the Tenth Planet Cybermen at the time and I figured that they were making me up to be a Cyber-conversion, but I was just one of those blue tattoo people!
I got led through Studio 5 and saw the box all in pieces, and one of the runners commented that he bet I'd never seen a TARDIS in bits before (I smiled politely), then on the way back I went through studio 4 where they were still filming episode 3 of season 10. Because the set was so cluttered, we had to skirt around the TARDIS and I got a good look inside the set as it was actually in full on filming mode (though Capaldi wasn't in it, he was 20m away filming on the frozen Thames). I think that was quite something special, because though I never saw the set as the "TARDIS", I did see it as an active, current TARDIS set in its prime, still with the cameras rolling inside it on a typical day filming.

Ah... Ok I'll stop being all soppy now, I just wanted to add my 'Who' moment to the mix