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The Pale Green Console and Set

Started by tony farrell, Dec 07, 2012, 06:41 pm

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galacticprobe

Aug 21, 2013, 07:59 am #135 Last Edit: Aug 21, 2013, 08:05 am by galacticprobe
Quote from: Tony Farrell on Aug 20, 2013, 06:22 pm
I can see where you're coming from Dino but we know the console and walls were pale green (TX40/Silvan Green) and we also know this green apparently 'changes' colour depending on the lighting/colour grading of the film used.


This is true, Tony, but in the color publicity photos like this one:
HartnellBox(color).JPG
aside from the phone panel being in a bit of shadow, it looks a dirtied white, and the window frames are certainly white. There is another color photo (which I'm having trouble locating, of course :P) that was taken during the filming of "The Daleks" (second serial), and in that one the white bits of the TARDIS also look white. And the "Daleks" photo appears to be a candid one, possibly taken by a stagehand or anyone of the crew, so no filming filters were involved to possibly alter the color. (I know someone here knows the photo I'm referring to, so if you know where to find it, please post it.)

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

exleo

Ooooo my chance to give a history lesson.......

The reason the interior set was painted green, had nothing to do with film grading (such a process didn't exist back in the 60s for TV work as often episodes of some series would go out live, and even with Doctor Who, which though recorded, was only generally recorded one week before transmission, so there was no time for post production optical work to be carried out on the film, it was just shot, basic developed and transmitted back then......

The reason for the internal sets being the pale green that they were was actually to do with the quality of the film and the cameras and their limited contrast abilities with the rudimentary studio lighting of the day. Something as large as the Tardis set, if it had been painted white, would have just had the effect of creating 'Flare' or 'White Spill', where the image would be so bright that no detail would be visible and it would appear like the actors were on a near blank white glowing set very much like the emptiness in the Troughton story 'The Mind Robber', no part of the set would actually have been visible.
So back in those days, anything large and white was painted the distinct shade of pale green as under studio lighting this would still flare but would flare as the low level intensity white that the set appeared as on screen making everything visible. Had the set been painted grey it would have appeared a very dark grey as monotone shades would appear much darker on film, where as colour was distorted by studio lighting and pale green appeared as white. The roundels remained white in colour as they were allowed to 'Flare' to make them appear as lit up though they actually weren't.

As an aside point when tv first began, because of the flaring of studio lights on anything pale at all, anybody that appeared on a live broadcast such as a 'News Reader' were sent into make up and had their skin covered in thick yellow make up and their lips and other features such as eyebrows and eyeliner and mascara were actually tardis blue, as on camera these colours gave a softer 'flesh' coloured monotone rather than the blacks and greys of other colours but also stopped the persons face from bleeding out to incandescent white......... News readers looked like a bunch of 'Simpsons'!!!

Often clothing would have the same thing done where the colours we assumed them to be were not the actual colours of the material that they were made of, whites would have been pale greens, soft greys yellow etc..... Something like the Police Box windows were just generally white but 'dirtied down' or slightly greyed with a wash as this took the glare off and because they were substantially smaller pieces, often the white was needed to make them look defined on screen, though it still caused problems hence the call box sign actually getting dirtier and dirtier over time until it was unreadable but no longer 'Flared', and of course the windows ended up blue.....

So what appeared as 'Black and White' or monotone on our TVs was infact a world of very strange colours that bore very little resemblance to anything normal on this earth ;)

tony farrell

Hi Exleo - I didn't actually say the reason the colour green was chosen had anything to do with colour grading. In fact, I've repeated argued exactly what you've stated. Here are a couple of photos from the set of Coronation Street which show the set (only a few weeks apart) - the first decorated for black and white transmission, the second for colour transmission (both come from the summer of 1969).
corrie 1.pngcorrie2.png
And for compoarison, the same pictures with the colour 'killed'
corriebw2.pngcorrie bw.png

And, actually colour grading - or colour timing - for film has always existed. The colour tone is in direct proportion to how long the film spends under the filtered printing light (the longer this period, the richer or more 'saturated' the colours appear; the shorter the period, the more 'washed-out' or pale the colours appear).
Tony

madgaz

Hi Tony,

Just seen this article on the Radio Times website today about the original plans that Waris Hussein had.

The link is here:

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-09-25/doctor-who-exclusive-original-tardis-blueprints-revealed

Not sure if this might help you/confirm your ideas somewhat :)

Gaz

DoctorWho8

Sep 25, 2013, 02:21 pm #139 Last Edit: Sep 25, 2013, 02:24 pm by DoctorWho8
Well I guess that means Rob can post his copy since Waris has just done so with his. ;) But here's the direct link to the hi res. 37665.jpg
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

DoctorWho8

Here's a quote of particular importance in regard to the material of the floor plates around the console.
"The central hexagonal control panel is surrounded by aluminium floor sections, alongside a "canopy suspended at +10ft". This piece was so cumbersome, it would feature in few subsequent episodes. (For this November's BBC2 drama, An Adventure in Space and Time, which painstakingly re-creates this Tardis set, Mark Gatiss told me the canopy will be rendered via CGI.)"
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

galacticprobe

Sep 26, 2013, 03:46 am #141 Last Edit: Sep 27, 2013, 06:47 am by galacticprobe
I think this image link will make people's eyes pop out. (I know mine did.) Not trying to out-do you, Bill, but this image is HUGE! I've had to crop off the excess, and shrink it down some - and reduce a bit if image quality, though not enough to make a difference - just to get it within the Forum's 500kB size limit (it's at 499kB now).

Link: http://www.radiotimes.com/uploads/images/original/37665.jpg

Shrunk down version (so we have it in case the above link ever goes dead):
OriginalSetPlans(huge).jpg
Open the image in a new tab or window to see what size this one is. But if you want the FULL size one, go the above link, right click that image and "Save Image As..."!

Dino.
P. S. If the Mods think it a good idea, I'll also cross-post this, with minor edits to include Gaz's link to the article, in the Reference Section. (Just tell me which part of the Reference Section it should go in, but I'm guessing "Console Reference", Child Board "Seasons 1-6", since we've got some plans in there already? And if I do cross-post it, I'll give full credit to both Gaz and Bill for finding the info.)
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Fardels Bear

What a beautiful find! I'll be looking for hours over it! ;D
"Does he still have that rubbish beard?"

tony farrell

Quote from: galacticprobe on Sep 26, 2013, 03:46 am

Dino.
P. S. If the Mods think it a good idea, I'll also cross-post this, with minor edits to include Gaz's link to the article, in the Reference Section. (Just tell me which part of the Reference Section it should go in, but I'm guessing "Console Reference", Child Board "Seasons 1-6", since we've got some plans in there already? And if I do cross-post it, I'll give full credit to both Gaz and Bill for finding the info.)

It is indeed a brilliant find and goes a long way to confirming my dimensions for the original Tardis interior. Here is my version of them (the small differences are due to the Radio Times plans being for the Pilot Episode rather than "An Unearthly Child").

tardis floor plan 40 percent for Tardis Builders.png

The main differences are the length of the photo blow-up walls 28 feet as against 30 for "An Unearthly Child". Apart from the photo blow-up version of the Fault Locator Wall, the two other differences are circled in yellow: Firstly, the planned Police Box entrance doors are show as a 'vestibule' attached to the rear of the main door wall and secondly , we appear to have an additional hexagonal arrangement of the dividing screens/partitions - (I proposed sometime ago that the ceiling canopy was originally designed to be supported by something else hence the use of the word 'canopy'. It looks like this supporting structure was just moved to the side of the Tardis set and - ultimately - not used at all).

  floorplan pilot.png

As regards moving these plans to the reference section, Dino (and others) may be interested to know that my "summary thread" is nearly ready (I'm a bit behind due to moving house). This summary thread will contain all the complete dimensions of the original Tardis set in one place for ease of reference.

Thanks again to Madgaz and Bill.

Tony

P.S., can someone get a decent sized grab of the Tardis part of the Radio Times plans? Every time I try, it comes in over the forum's 500KB limit. Thanks.

DoctorWho8

Test.
37669.jpg
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

DoctorWho8

OK that worked too like the full plans in my previous post.  What I did was use the image code on the link instead of the url code.  This seems to bypass the 500KB upload limit.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

rob49152

Sep 26, 2013, 11:18 pm #146 Last Edit: Sep 26, 2013, 11:30 pm by rob49152
meh... those plans are ... ok :)  I do have that one minus a lot of the markup.  And at 10235x7330px

those are the directors planning layout for camera and movement. Not quite the same level of detail as the actual blueprints. But close for now.

I'll be happy in november :) We'll all be happy.

You can also see just to the side of the original hexagonal hanging light thingy the part of the set they ran out of budget on. It was a 6 pillar glassed in wall (just the 3 closest sides to the console were solid perspex screens). Not sure what it was meant to be..

galacticprobe

Sep 27, 2013, 06:45 am #147 Last Edit: Sep 28, 2013, 06:17 am by galacticprobe
I don't know what happened to the image I posted yesterday. When I opened it in a new tab and clicked the "full size" icon, it was much bigger that the one above (which was resized by my browser). Today I clicked on it to open it in a new tab, the "full size" icon isn't there, and the image only opens the same size as above. ???

The mind boggles. I'll try modifying it and reposting the image to see what happens.

Dino.

Edit: Nope. Just re-posted the above image and it doesn't open full size in a new tab or window. And it's a lot bigger than it is above!
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

tony farrell

Quote from: rob49152 on Sep 26, 2013, 11:18 pm

I'll be happy in november :) We'll all be happy.

You can also see just to the side of the original hexagonal hanging light thingy the part of the set they ran out of budget on. It was a 6 pillar glassed in wall (just the 3 closest sides to the console were solid perspex screens). Not sure what it was meant to be..


November? Now, what is going to happen in November I wonder...  ;D
As regards the additional hexagonal structure we've now both mentioned here are a couple of Marc's magnificent renders to illustrate what were talking about. Enjoy!
T Unearthly_Child_as_planned_01 (1).jpegUnearthly_Child_as_planned_02 (1).jpegUnearthly_Child_as_planned_03 (1).jpeg

cobalt

Quote from: rob49152 on Sep 26, 2013, 11:18 pm
You can also see just to the side of the original hexagonal hanging light thingy the part of the set they ran out of budget on. It was a 6 pillar glassed in wall (just the 3 closest sides to the console were solid perspex screens). Not sure what it was meant to be..


Interesting that one of the camera placements is inside of it.