Hartnell plans available and ready for revision

[galacticprobe]

(Some people are a 'bit possessive' about early photos and guard them as if they were the Crown Jewels; thankfully, Richard isn't like that.)  

Well, with photos like this one being so rare, they almost could be considered "The Crown Jewels of 'Doctor Who'". So many thanks to Richard for letting you share this one with us, and many thanks to you for hunting it down and posting it!

Dino.

[lespaceplie]

My toes are never stepped on. Go for it! I have already been updating the PDF (but haven't replaced the file online).

[tony farrell]

Let's work together then Gene. I'll do the drawings and send them to you beforehand for approval/sanity-checking! 

T

[lespaceplie]

Perfect! It's very easy (when I'm not lazy) to modify the vector versions. I want to retain the style of my PDFs but include more information. The goal is for these to be printed for use in the workshop as a companion to your renderings, which can be appreciated as a coffee table book, really.

[tony farrell]

In my best David Banks/Cyberleader voice: Excellent!

[kert gantry]

Backtracking a little. From the DIOE screengrab, the panel between the post caps looks to have been a very thin piece of wood. There's a definite lip showing where it's nailed onto the square frame supporting the upper roof. That'd make sense in keeping the prop as lightweight as possible. It's unlikely then that this piece was a continuation of the lower walls.

I don't think we need to read too much into the flashing light being visible through the Police Box signs in Reign of Terror.  Could've been down to any number of reasons; the way the lamp housing was fitted that week for example. Cutting holes for the signs from the inside retrospectively seems unlikely given the patchy maintenance the prop generally received up to the '66 rebuild. I'd guess the sign boxes were always capable of being lit from inside the prop (on rare occasions like Reign and Ark In Space), but most of the time they couldn't be faffed.

[

[tony farrell]

I agree that the upper panel is a thin sheet of (ply)wood (and am glad to see you finally got the picture to upload)!

The fact that you can see the sign-box illuminated from within only in later episodes does imply a change otherwise you'd be able to see the flashing roof lamp through the sign from the very beginning. However, I agree again that this is a secondary issue (and was only suggested along with the collapsing bridge causing damage as being the potential cause of the panel being crooked in later episodes).

The main point I was trying to get across was the position of the upper panel relative to the structure beneath it i.e., that the depth of the recess shown on Gene's plans is incorrect. 

T

[kert gantry]

Yes, that photo was an absolute b*****r to load! Don't know why.

Tony, we'll have to agree to disagree about the prop being specially reworked for Reign (forgive if I've misunderstood what you were saying). The majority of times after this, the flashing light still doesn't shine through the signs, despite the occasional glimpse of daylight through them when the reverse sides are glimpsed from the inside (badly put but I hope you get what I mean!).

Secondary issue or no, I'm very glad this topic came up when it did as I'm just making a start on the signs and roof of my CO scale Brachacki model. That photo from Roof Of The World was massively helpful, so thanks again.  

[ionsith]

I've hit the DVD and found something interesting....



The TARDIS as it lands in The Reign of Terror with all lights blazing...



The Doctor exiting the TARDIS, but look at the sign box above the doors, there's a split straight through it. Aren't those the doors that were originally used to lead into the Console room? Could it also be that the TARDIS that lands with the lights flashing through the sign box(es) isn't the proper prop? If it is then why bother to switch the doors around on location with the 'other' ones (I want to call them the 'Dodo Doors' )? If nothing else it might add more ingredients to the discussion.

[ionsith]

Just to add a bit of spice... End of episode six. Compare the brightness/cleanliness of the window frames and a completely different housing for the lamp!

[tony farrell]

The prop used for the materialisation scene is the full prop. When we see the Doctor locking the door, we are seeing the duplicate doors (the Tardis Porch) which were used in the Pilot Episode for Barabara to burst into the Tardis. N.B., in Reign of Terror, we do not see the crew exit the Tardis, we simply see Hartnell's Doctor 'locking' his ship.

The lamp is an interesting observation Ian; as Jonathan/Markofrani pointed out a long time ago, there were several lamps in use in the early years (in fact, two different lamps were used in the same story i.e., The Web Planet - in the aborted take-off scene, the Tardis is fitted with a Tenant-style 'caged' lamp, in later scenes we see the large lamp which was carried on into the Pertwee years)!

So, individual directors/designers do like to show the Tardis in different ways and seem to tinker with the 'old girl' more-or-less on a whim!

As Ian's screen-grab from Reign of Terror shows, the roof lamp is illuminating the inside of the prop and lighting the sign-box from within. If you watch this scene, the pulsating lamp is matched by pulsating light from within the prop. I believe that I am correct in saying this is the first time we see this and I also believe that this is the first time we see any light through the front sign-box. (Contrast this with the picture I posted from Marco Polo - the box is clearly illuminated from the inside but no light is visible through the sign-box. The side windows don't appear to be illuminated but - as we know from the picture of the Tardis in the junkyard with both doors open - the windows were fitted with removable/drop-down 'blanking plates'.)



T

[kert gantry]

Looks more like reflected light on the front windows to me. No light coming out of the side ones.

[tony farrell]

Read my comment above about the windows' drop-down blanking plates! 

[kert gantry]

You could be right. Thought I'd read somewhere that only the front and back windows were blanked off, at least to start with.

[fivefingeredstyre]

It's been quite a while since I last watched Reign of Terror, so I just went and checked. I'm willing to bet that the materialising prop in The Land of Fear is actually a model shot.

I'm struggling to understand a more likely logical reason why they would go to the trouble of restaging the shot for Hartnell to be seen locking the doors. There's a lot of foliage around the prop which would be disturbed using a full sized prop for the roll-back-and-mix shenanigans, making a mismatch between the two takes.

Also note the poor quality of the lettering on the lintel sign, which adds fuel that this is a miniature.

It would possibly be easier to film this sequence as a separate model shot which could be played in to the recording of episode 1 as the miniature could be lifted out of shot by hand without disturbing the rest of the set, keeping the foliage reasonably in tact keeping a reasonable continuity.

(It would also explain the different foliage configuration when Hartnell locks the doors, from that in the materialisation shot)

If that was the case, it would explain why the lintel signage on the full sized prop is not seen illuminated for a number of years after this. The spaces behind the signage may always have been filled in, at least until the side sign boxes had their width shortened as part of War Machines refurb...