Missy's Sonic Umbrella

[The14thDr]

I feared that this would happen, given the show's apparent obsession with making everything "sonic" these days, but on the other hand, the sonic junkie in me was also kind of hoping as well. Yes, that's right, Missy's umbrella is sonic. I wasn't entirely sure at first, but given the way Missy was pointing her umbrella at  the lift door in the same way that the Doctor was pointing his screwdriver, I guess it was inevitable.

All I have on this so far is the BBC concept art, but it appears to me that this is the same umbrella used by Missy in series 8, so I'll have a look online to see if any costuming forums have managed to ID this prop. I'll also get a few screengrabs, both from World Enough and Time and Dark Water/Death in Heaven.



Kind regards, The14thDr

[The14thDr]

First of all, here's a screengrab from Death in Heaven. It's not brilliant, and certainly doesn't show off much detail, but I've included it here for posterity.



And now for the screencaps from World Enough and Time. It doesn't look like the umbrella actually lights up in the episode, and as far as I can tell it doesn't make any sound, so it appears that any of the "sonic" features were shown purely in the concept art.







Maybe we'll be seeing more of this in next week's episode, hence the need for concept art? To me, it doesn't really make sense for them to have put together some artwork if they were just going to use a plain old umbrella (especially one that had been used by the character before) - unless of course the script specified a sonic umbrella, but filming/budgetary restraints put a stop to that.

Kind regards, The14thDr

[The14thDr]

I'm really not sure whether this will be of use to anyone, but for the sake of completeness I found an image of the umbrella open.



And here's a nice photo showing off the handle. There also appears to be some sort of gold design on the end of the handle. Thoughts?



Hopefully I'll be able to start a build on this soon.
Kind regards, The14thDr

[Davros Skaro]

That looks like a button on the handle, but then I could be wrong with my shonky eyes!

Chris.

[The14thDr]

Well, the concept art does specify a "small concealed button in handle" so you could very well be right with that one. Well spotted Davros Skaro!

[galacticprobe]

Well... Missy's looks like a "shade" umbrella rather than a "rain" umbrella, which would explain the sheerness of the fabric, and its smaller area. Modern bumbershoots have their fabric ends sewn in place on the "arms" (for lack of a better word). Those arms have small holes in them for that. To shorten the fabric part of a modern umbrella you'd have to shorten those arms, and then cut the fabric, re-hem the edges, punch a new hole in the end of the arm so you could re-sew the fabric on, and that's not even counting the rounding of the arms' ends so you've got that smooth tip, and not one that would scrape and either cause injury (cuts) or damage other fabric.

I've been searching 'Victorian umbrella' and after looking at I don't know how many images, I'm only finding ones that are either lace, or ruffled, and none have handles or tips that match Missy's. (I may have missed one, but I did try to look carefully.) Even the ones on eBay (most are "Auction Only") don't match, and they're pricy. There was one on Amazon, but it didn't look anything like Missy's. Even the usual historical re-enactor and living historian web sites don't have any that look remotely like Missy's. And in all cases, the ones that didn't have fancy lace fabric had heavy fabric with rows of ruffles progressing from the center to the edges.

This one could end up being a total scratch build. (Of course I would he thrilled to have someone prove me wrong on this one, but at the moment, it looks like a scratch build, with very thin fabric for the covering, is what this one will have to be.)

A frackload of help I was this time!

Dino.

[Angelus Lupus]

Well... Missy's looks like a "shade" umbrella rather than a "rain" umbrella,
Dino.

I was just about to post something like this. Even tho the concept art (and this thread) calls it an umbrella I can't help thinking it looks far more like a parasol.

[The14thDr]

I think you guys might be right - it definitely is a parasol rather than an umbrella. But even with the correct terminology, I'm still running into the same problem as Dino: I can't find anything that matches Missy's at all - be that on Amazon, eBay or even Google Images.

Modifying a normal umbrella may be the way to go for this one (at least for me anyway), but that does sound like a lot of work to shorten the arms, and scratch-building a parasol is definitely miles beyond my skill level! The only other solution would be to make a "close-enough", idealised version, perhaps slightly larger than the original prop to account for the elongated "sonic" tip and longer handle - with more of the handle being concealed by the fabric when the umbrella is closed.

Hmmm... there's certainly a lot to consider with this one. But thanks for the input guys, you've given me a couple of new ideas to think about that's for sure!

Kind regards, The14thDr

[Cardinal Hordriss]

I won't be adding this to my collection personally but thought I'd try and help. Some interesting results for -

Victorian parasol black

I went for parasol over umbrella because of the long handle in relation to the wrapped up part and also the puffiness of the thing even when it's wrapped up. Parasol also fits the costume better overall. Anyway, see what you think.

[galacticprobe]

I tried your suggestion, CH, but still came up with no matches. However, I did see one that came close, but it was in a museum and was called a "Victorian Mourning Parasol". So there's another term to throw into the search. (I'd look more, but my eyes are going, not to mention my back is giving out. Definitely time for a lie-down.)

I hope that "mourning" term leads to more close finds.

Dino.

[The14thDr]

In the series finale we get a few good shots of the tip of the umbrella, which appears to differ from the concept art in that it tapers towards the end slightly.




There's also a nice full-length shot of the umbrella:



I'm also a little disappointed that the end of the umbrella didn't light up, a la the concept art, but I guess budgetary or time constraints just got in the way of that being added.

Kind regards, The14thDr