The Girl Who STILL Waited - episode 2

Today is the second part of The Girl Who STILL Waited, from my massive Cardiff photoshoot.

While the two Amys have been searching for The Doctor, and older Amy has discovered the Eleventh Doctor behind a door . . .

INT: TWO STREAMS FACILITY - UPPER LEVEL
Discovered by Amy, The Doctor has some explaining to do, after all she has been waiting a long time.

No matter what he says, the feisty Amy counters his every move. She’s having none of it.

Meanwhile . . .

INT: TWO STREAMS FACILITY - LOBBY
While the Eleventh Doctor is fending off an angry Amy Pond, the familiar buzz of a hand-held sonic device echoes through the empty lobby.

It is the Tenth Doctor, who has traced his other self and the parallel Amys through a time displacement in the vortex.

He knows he must close the displacement to prevent a potentially universal catastrophe.

Tracing the signal he finds his way to the upper levels, where he surprises both his other self and the aggrieved Amy Pond.

Strangely the Tenth Doctor has a calming effect on Amy, and he soon has her under control, to the irritation of the Eleventh Doctor.

INT: TWO STREMS FACILITY - LOBBY
Back in the lobby the Tenth Doctor and Amy are getting on like a house on fire. She is entranced by his tales of adventures on distant planets, meeting exotic aliens and saving the universe. All the Eleventh Doctor can do is sit and listen, feeling increasingly left out.

But it’s Amy’s choice - who will she choose to travel with? The charismatic Tenth or the ever-faithful Eleventh Doctor?

There isn’t really a choice to make - the Eleventh Doctor is AMY’s Doctor!

I’d like to thank Matt Elliott, Kevin Coppa and Lisa Baxter for modelling for the photoshoot and an extra special thanks to the management of the Cardiff Millennium Centre who granted us special access to the upper galleries.

The Girl Who STILL Waited - episode 1

Today I’ve got some more pictures from my Cardiff photoshoot.

As well as visiting Eddie’s Diner, we also gained very special access to the Cardiff Millennium Centre. Not only was it the venue for the recent Official Doctor Who Convention, it was also the location used in the David Tennant story New Earth and the Matt Smith adventure The Girl Who Waited.

I had originally met our Amy Pond for the day, Lisa Baxter, at last years Entertainment Media Show, where she debuted her armour barely two weeks after The Girl Who Waited was broadcast.
So when I was planning our Cardiff shoot, I knew SHE was the one Amy I wanted along!

I made a particular point of approaching the Cardiff Millennium Centre so we could visit the upper galleries and see the doors where Amy wrote her lipstick message to The Doctor.

Here is the first part of our mini episode - The Girl Who STILL Waited.

INT: TWO STREAMS FACILITY - LOBBY
Amy has found herself trapped in a parallel timeline, isolated from The Doctor and Rory.

In the lobby she hears a voice from above....

INT: TWO STREAM FACILITY - GALLERY
Later Amy, now many years older, meets her younger self.
The two Amys devise a plan to find The Doctor, and they set out to search the facility until they find him.

Amy finds herself drawn to a door where she had earlier left a message for The Doctor.

Touching the door she feels a connection to her Time Lord custodian.

Suddenly the door flies open to reveal THE DOCTOR . . . 

TO BE CONTINUED...

Shetland Tweed jacket does NYC

Last month I had to get a Shetland Tweed jacket done for a client in time for a photoshoot in New York’s Central Park.

The photos are in, and the client was happy! Here’s what he had to say about the jacket I made him.

Any reservations I had about the price tag on Steve Ricks’ replica 11th Doctor tweed were immediately thrown out the window the moment I pulled it out of the shipping box.

This jacket, even though made out of the same fabric as my previous Doctors’ tweed from another leading costume maker, just FEELS more solid. The gorgeous white liner in the sleeves just makes this jacket look and feel more luxurious.

Not leaving anything to chance or error, I sent Steve one of my own jackets that fit me perfectly to use as reference when creating this new replica. That was one of the single best things I could have done as Steve absolutely nailed the fit and even accommodated my request to ensure the sleeves were cut slightly shorter just like Smith’s jacket.

The details? Well, there is no arguing the authenticity of the details because Steve has done the homework on this and I have to admit, I felt a lot of confidence wearing this knowing it was created with a wealth of knowledge and appreciation backing it.

My jacket arrived to me just in time for its maiden adventure to New York City for a day at the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park.

LFCC 2012 - random cosplay

As well as seeing a good selection of Doctor Who cosplayers, I saw some great costumes from other films and tv programmes.

Here is a little gallery of the best.

LFCC 2012 - cosplay Who?

The London Film And Comic Convention may encompass sci-fi and fantasy in all its forms, but there is always a good showing of Doctor Who cosplayers.
As I went round I did my best to snap as many costumes as I could. Here’s what I found.

Despite matt Smith being the most popular Doctor of the moment, I did find a number of classic series costumes.

Nice to see a young closplayer as the Seventh Doctor; I shan’t say too much about the costume the Fifth Doctor is wearing (since I made it!); I’ve seen this Fourth Doctor before - he makes me smile; and really cool to see a First Doctor, especially with half the original TARDIS crew (William Russell and Carole Ann Ford) attending the event!

David Tennant star may be on the wain, but there was still a good number of Tenth Doctor cosplayers in attendance, all of them wearing the right suit and tie combinations!

I’m still not quite sure what the muppet in the pram was about, but its costume was cool too!

The lad in the blue suit had a really good alternative match to the Nina Ricci tie. I was impressed!

I also found a group of Doctor Who cosplayers who were raising money for charity.
There was a variety of Doctor cosutmes as well as K-9 and a weathered looking classic series Cyberman!

They also had a curious new series Dalek, but painted in a form of classic series colours. I’ve seen a few of these around and am expecting to see a few more when I attend NorCon alter this year.

The Dalek was escorted around the event flanked by two UNIT officers - one classic and one new series.

LFCC 2012 - product Who?

While at this weekend’s London Film And Comic Convention at Olympia, I took a good look around the dealers tables.
There were a lot of cool Doctor Who stuff on offer, most of which was the standard fare you would see at Forbidden Planet or any good science fantasy bookshop.

But if you looked beyond the usual, you could find one or two interesting things to buy.
Here are just a few I thought of note.

Knitted K-9s
Yeah - everyone seems to be knitting things these days, but these caught my eye and made me smile.

Russian Dolls
An original twist on a classic idea, these are pretty and nicely painted.
I do, however, have to pull the seller up on a couple of things. I was looking at them in their glass car, trying to get a good photo or two, when the stall-holder and maker of the dolls came up to tell me about them.
His hard sell and relentless information was quite off putting, and I found their note on the publicity material that they were Patent Pending made me frown as I bet they are NOT BBC licensed.

Matt Smith doll
Something that is distinctly BBC licensed is the posable Matt Smith!

I have seen the publicity photos of Matt and Karen with the dolls, and have read about the attention to detail they contain.

The face is scarily lifelike, for such a small doll.

Seeing it up close was certainly interesting. The doll and costume is certain surprisingly accurate, with a reproduction of the Shetland Tweed fabric, with the stripes and pattern repeat just right.
His jeans and boots are also pleasingly accurate.

The doll comes with a variety of interchangeable hands so he can hold a number of prop sonic screwdrivers and accessories.

LFCC 2012 - queuing chaos theory

Last year I had a great time at the London Film and Comic Convention at London’s Earl’s Court.

This year it was staged at Olympia’s Grand Hall, as was less of a pleasant experience.
I had bought myself an Early Bird ticket for the Saturday, which gains me entry after 9am, whereas the standard ticket holders don't get in til after 10.30am.

With the impending London Olympics the underground has been rife with weekend closures for engineering works and this weekend was no exception. Luckily for me my route was unaffected, but there were substantial barriers for a lot of people heading for the event.
However, they all seemed to have got round this as when I got there I was confronted by a sea of a thousand-plus people. Last years venue has a substantial open space in front of it and it was possible to have two distinct queues for early and standard entry; Olympia by comparison just has a pavement out front along which there was a chaotic queue which snaked its way back and forth in front of the venue, with people slowly moving in opposing directions.

I joined a queue which seemed to contain people with the same ticket as me, and at one point we started moving. Hurrah!
I followed the queue as it moved and at the point when I expected it to turn - it just evaporated and I found myself standing in open pavement. Looking round I found all branches of the queue had suddenly rushed for the door, leaving me behind!!

Chaos ensued as officials told us to go to the North entrance - on a building that has its doors labeled with numbers! No-one seemed to know what was going no and it was not far off 10am before I could get in.

Once inside, the first thing I came across was The Batmobile from the early Batman films. It is pretty awesome - and large!






I was a honey pot for anyone in Batman cosplay and there were some great costumes to see.

The Batman and Catwoman looked superb, and the Batmobile was the perfect backdrop.

There were lots of ‘celebrities’ on hand to sign autographs, for a fee.

Representing Doctor Who were William Russell and Carole Ann Ford - the only surviving members of the original TARDIS crew - oh, and Janet Fielding!

Around the corner promoting his appearances in Merlin, Buffy and the Nescafe adverts, as well as Doctor Who.

Being a modern convention, a vast area was given over to the trade stands all out to part you with your money.

Finally I thought I’d share with you my Where’s Waldo photo of the convention floor. Can you spot The Doctor’s TARDIS?

Another fine mess!

When writing for my blog, I do my best not to clutter it up with too many spoilers, and limit myself to giving you a heads-up on new official publicity shots the BBC want us to see.

Well I had to share the following with you, but I’m putting it under a spoiler to spare those who don’t want to know too much about series seven . . . .

SPOILERS
DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU WANT SERIES SEVEN TO BE FULL OR SURPRISES!

News has been breaking quite openly that Dame Diana Rigg is going to be appearing in series seven! As well as posting on the official Doctor Who twitter feed, the story has been running on the BBC News website.

The controlled release of this news is often a forerunner to location filming, which is notoriously difficult to keep under wraps these days, given the tenacity of fans who stalk the production's every move.

So it came as no surprise to me to see photos emerge later the same day showing filming in Bute Town with Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and none other than Dame Diana Rigg herself!

But what caught my eye, as I'm sure it did you, is Matt is wearing yet ANOTHER new costume.

This time it is a brown tartan/tweedy frock coat, with matching waistcoat and trousers; another new brown bow tie; he is also wearing new brown shoes; and for the first time a bowler hat.

The weather wasn’t very good yesterday, so a lot of time - and hence a lot of the photos - show Matt keeping dry under a long thermal coat, but there are a few glimpses of the whole ensemble.

The story has been announced as being set in a mysterious Victorian village up north, so I'm hoping Matt is merely dressed incognito and this is jut a one off outfit for this story.

Looking at the photos, I just can't get the face of Stan Laurel out of my mind!

What ho, Doctor!

Filming continues apace on series seven, and Matt Smith was seen shooting scenes for Cubed.
As well as holding the prop cube, he also is seen using a monocle, something I can’t recall being used regularly since the 1960s by original Doctor, William Hartnell (I have a recollection of Jon Pertwee using one, but I maybe wrong).



I’d assume this is a one-off prop specifically used for this one episode, but it would be cool for it to pop up again at some point.


It would be cool too if it was a reference to previous incarnation.