Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011): Season 3, Episode 2 - Stage Fright - full transcript
NARRATOR:
There's much ado on the set
of the Doctor's
latest historical hurrah.
I picked up the script,
and I really couldn't believe
that we were about to embark on this.
NARRATOR: Filming this epic adventure
took the Who production team
across the country
and all over the Globe/!
Author! Author!
It's the bard at his best.
So sit back and relax,
because Confidential has
the best seats in the house.
One hundred and fifty miles east
of their South Wales studios,
the Doctor Who team
have travelled to London
to film at Shakespeare's spiritual home.
It's really a big deal for us
being here at the Globe.
It was very important for us to
get in here, really, for this episode,
because this episode
is so much about Shakespeare,
about the performance of his work,
and we really wanted
to show the audience
what it would've been like.
The Globe itself
is the most extraordinary place,
and when you walk in
and just see this beautiful space
recreated so painstakingly
and so lovingly,
it's not like anything else.
It was probably the ultimate location
if you're filming an episode
set in Elizabethan England.
It couldn't be more perfect.
NARRATOR: It may well be
the perfect location,
but back-to-back performances
of the bard
mean some very long midsummer nights
for the cast and crew.
The performance has
Just finished about half an hour ago,
and all our guys have got in now,
and we've got about an hour
to set up our backcloth
and dress this Globe
as the Globe as it would've been
in 1599, Shakespeare's time.
So that's a hell
of a daunting challenge.
The script was originally day,
but because of the Globe's availability,
we had to flip it into night.
And as you can see, it's a military
operation they're getting here.
We're the first drama
ever to film in here,
and it took a lot of quite delicate
negotiation between ourselves
and the brilliant people
who run this theatre.
I think I remember
saying to Russell and Julie,
"You're sure we can get it?"
Russell was going, "Oh, yes,
of course we can, I think,"” you know.
So it was always there, and I think
we sort of had a vague talk
of a backup plan if we couldn't get it,
but it didn't come to that in the end.
The Globe wasn't easy to get,
'cause it's not easy to get into there.
And it's a long way for us to travel,
but the whole script had been
written around that place.
And to set a Doctor Who story there,
to fill it in the way we've done it,
to have the whole climax
of the adventure,
I think brings Shakespeare to life.
Okay, guys, let's just start
clearing everybody out now, please.
If you don't need to be in here,
step outside. Thank you very much.
Filming there was quite daunting,
but fantastically exciting,
the idea of doing it,
but logistically, extremely complicated.
COLLINSON: We've had to bring in extra
make-up people, extra costume people.
The whole design effort's massive.
MAN: All right. Take one, A camera.
-WOMAN: Marker.
-C marker.
And action!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
Author! Author!
Hardest part of all in the script
was deciding exactly
what Shakespeare is like,
because, quite famously,
not that much is known about him.
Genius. He's a genius, the genius.
The most human human there's ever been.
Now, we're gonna hear him speak.
There's no record of Shakespeare
as what he was like,
what his temperament was like,
if he was a beast of a man.
If he was like most tortured geniuses,
there's that real dark side.
So there's no record.
SHAKESPEARE: You've got excellent taste!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
When he comes on stage
for the first time,
I wanted rock star screams
as if Robbie Williams or Liam Gallagher
or Mick Jagger had walked on stage.
Shut your big, fat mouths!
Shakespeare is a Northern monkey.
Hey, nonny, nonny!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
He's got that indie rock star feel
and he does it effortlessly,
and also gives him the wit
and the wisdom and the humour.
It's just a lovely performance.
"Love's Labour's Lost,
that's a funny ending, isn't it?"
It just stops.
Will the boys get the girls?
Well, don't get your hose in a tangle.
You'll find out soon enough.
Love's Labour's Won is a genuine legend.
Love's Labour's Won.
I don't think much of sequels,
they're never as good as the original.
It's mentioned in someone's diaries,
and I think it's mentioned
in a list in a folio somewhere.
Have you seen this last bit?
Must have been dozing off when he wrote
that. I don't even know what it means.
The fact that there is the possibility
that there was a sequel that's lost
really appealed to me.
It's strange 'cause Love's Labour's
Lost isn't one of the best-known plays.
If it's the last thing I do,
Love's Labour's Won
will never be played.
Well, then, mystery solved.
That's Love's Labour's Won
over and done with.
I thought it might be something,
you know, more mysterious.
One of the other hearts
of the whole story
is to have Martha's eyes opened
to the Doctor's incredible lifestyle,
and to take her back
to Elizabethan London.
I promised you one trip
and one trip only.
Episode 2 is where she actually
just embraces it and goes,
"I'm so fortunate
and this is gonna be fantastic."
And, yeah, you can sense her
enjoyment of it all, really.
Outside this door,
brave new world.
For me, really jumping out of the Tardis
and looking at that side
of the street and thinking,
"Look at the workmanship
that's gone into this. We are in 1599,"
was just probably the same
as what Martha was feeling.
NARRATOR: Back on location at the Globe,
director Charles Palmer is tackling
the episode's biggest problem,
packing out Shakespeare's performance
with just a handful of supporting cast.
The challenge was that in
Shakespeare's day it held 3,000 people.
Now it holds 1,500 people, but in
Shakespeare's day it held 3,000 people,
and we only had 50 extras.
It was how were we going
to pull that off?
We filmed some elements here of
people in the upper row, upper levels.
431, take one, A camera.
And we're gonna take those shots,
which have mainly empty seats,
into a green screen studio, line up
some green screen elements of the crowd,
and film those and composite it
all together to make it look like
all the boxes are full
and the ground is heaving with people.
The Mill will paint
those people into the whole theatre,
and when the whole thing's
spliced together,
it'll look like the whole place is full.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
We'll actually have two huge, sweeping
shots that come down across the Globe
onto the stage that are full of
screaming, baying, cheering people,
as it would've been
back in Shakespeare's time.
NARRATOR: But computer graphics
really took centre stage
during the show's ambitious finale.
The finale was a real challenge,
you know,
not least because we had to split it
into all sorts of sections.
MAN: 426, take one,
guide track, A camera.
Sometimes when you write something,
you do write it and then
you're sort of
half expecting a call saying,
"Could we scale that down just a bit?"
But in this case, I got a call saying,
"No, go bigger."
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
Stage door!
I storyboarded the whole thing
to within an inch of its life.
And I sat down with Dave Houghton,
the Visual Effects Supervisor,
and worked out exactly where
we needed a visual effects shot,
because we couldn't have one everywhere.
I'm always aware when
we get a sequence like that
that we're only gonna be able
to do 10, 15 shots at the most
within the sequence.
So I have to think of a way
to shoot the stuff around
our visual effects sequences.
In the air above the Globe here,
we're going to have a giant whirlwind
into which these Carrionites will fly.
All of which we'll be putting
in as CG elements later.
So what we're filming here
are just generally plates with crowd,
and plates for the witches.
(WOMAN SCREAMS)
They come, they come!
-Come on, Will, history needs you.
-But what can I do?
Reverse it!
Lots of physical effects
go into making the CGI witches
that are flying around
bedded into that sequence.
So, you know, we had to have humongous
wind machines blasting air at people.
Standby, cue wind machine, and action!
(CACKLING)
The Doctor! He lives.
Then watch this world
become a blasted heath.
They come, they come!
I think the Carrionites are one
of our best designed creatures
just 'cause they're so odd.
I've sat in that edit a million times,
and I'm not sure
I could draw a Carrionite,
'cause they're quite indefinable.
They're really oddly structured
and they're really quite original.
They've got the witches' chins
and the witches' noses,
but it's more like a carapace,
more like a kind of armoured shell.
And their bodies are much more,
much less corporeal, they're very...
They're kind of floaty rag things,
so they can fly around gracefully.
I'm amazed by the results.
It just looks incredible.
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
The final result, I think,
is absolutely glorious.
There's smoke, there's people screaming,
they're trapped, the clouds are opening,
the lightning's coming down,
the wind machine's going.
Love's Labour's Won, there it goes.
Great, big epic ending
to what is quite an epic story.
The Doctor, where is he?
Martha!
It's a dark story.
I like futures like that.
It's very Blade Runner.
It's kind of a frightening vision
of the future, I think.
You can see the Doctor coming
and literally saving the whole world.
Magnificent.
The Doctor feels a great responsibility
for what happens to Martha.
It's the first episode that he realises
that actually he's started
to become attached to her.
The Face of Boe
finally reveals his secret.
Big set-ups, even bigger picture.
There's much ado on the set
of the Doctor's
latest historical hurrah.
I picked up the script,
and I really couldn't believe
that we were about to embark on this.
NARRATOR: Filming this epic adventure
took the Who production team
across the country
and all over the Globe/!
Author! Author!
It's the bard at his best.
So sit back and relax,
because Confidential has
the best seats in the house.
One hundred and fifty miles east
of their South Wales studios,
the Doctor Who team
have travelled to London
to film at Shakespeare's spiritual home.
It's really a big deal for us
being here at the Globe.
It was very important for us to
get in here, really, for this episode,
because this episode
is so much about Shakespeare,
about the performance of his work,
and we really wanted
to show the audience
what it would've been like.
The Globe itself
is the most extraordinary place,
and when you walk in
and just see this beautiful space
recreated so painstakingly
and so lovingly,
it's not like anything else.
It was probably the ultimate location
if you're filming an episode
set in Elizabethan England.
It couldn't be more perfect.
NARRATOR: It may well be
the perfect location,
but back-to-back performances
of the bard
mean some very long midsummer nights
for the cast and crew.
The performance has
Just finished about half an hour ago,
and all our guys have got in now,
and we've got about an hour
to set up our backcloth
and dress this Globe
as the Globe as it would've been
in 1599, Shakespeare's time.
So that's a hell
of a daunting challenge.
The script was originally day,
but because of the Globe's availability,
we had to flip it into night.
And as you can see, it's a military
operation they're getting here.
We're the first drama
ever to film in here,
and it took a lot of quite delicate
negotiation between ourselves
and the brilliant people
who run this theatre.
I think I remember
saying to Russell and Julie,
"You're sure we can get it?"
Russell was going, "Oh, yes,
of course we can, I think,"” you know.
So it was always there, and I think
we sort of had a vague talk
of a backup plan if we couldn't get it,
but it didn't come to that in the end.
The Globe wasn't easy to get,
'cause it's not easy to get into there.
And it's a long way for us to travel,
but the whole script had been
written around that place.
And to set a Doctor Who story there,
to fill it in the way we've done it,
to have the whole climax
of the adventure,
I think brings Shakespeare to life.
Okay, guys, let's just start
clearing everybody out now, please.
If you don't need to be in here,
step outside. Thank you very much.
Filming there was quite daunting,
but fantastically exciting,
the idea of doing it,
but logistically, extremely complicated.
COLLINSON: We've had to bring in extra
make-up people, extra costume people.
The whole design effort's massive.
MAN: All right. Take one, A camera.
-WOMAN: Marker.
-C marker.
And action!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
Author! Author!
Hardest part of all in the script
was deciding exactly
what Shakespeare is like,
because, quite famously,
not that much is known about him.
Genius. He's a genius, the genius.
The most human human there's ever been.
Now, we're gonna hear him speak.
There's no record of Shakespeare
as what he was like,
what his temperament was like,
if he was a beast of a man.
If he was like most tortured geniuses,
there's that real dark side.
So there's no record.
SHAKESPEARE: You've got excellent taste!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
When he comes on stage
for the first time,
I wanted rock star screams
as if Robbie Williams or Liam Gallagher
or Mick Jagger had walked on stage.
Shut your big, fat mouths!
Shakespeare is a Northern monkey.
Hey, nonny, nonny!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
He's got that indie rock star feel
and he does it effortlessly,
and also gives him the wit
and the wisdom and the humour.
It's just a lovely performance.
"Love's Labour's Lost,
that's a funny ending, isn't it?"
It just stops.
Will the boys get the girls?
Well, don't get your hose in a tangle.
You'll find out soon enough.
Love's Labour's Won is a genuine legend.
Love's Labour's Won.
I don't think much of sequels,
they're never as good as the original.
It's mentioned in someone's diaries,
and I think it's mentioned
in a list in a folio somewhere.
Have you seen this last bit?
Must have been dozing off when he wrote
that. I don't even know what it means.
The fact that there is the possibility
that there was a sequel that's lost
really appealed to me.
It's strange 'cause Love's Labour's
Lost isn't one of the best-known plays.
If it's the last thing I do,
Love's Labour's Won
will never be played.
Well, then, mystery solved.
That's Love's Labour's Won
over and done with.
I thought it might be something,
you know, more mysterious.
One of the other hearts
of the whole story
is to have Martha's eyes opened
to the Doctor's incredible lifestyle,
and to take her back
to Elizabethan London.
I promised you one trip
and one trip only.
Episode 2 is where she actually
just embraces it and goes,
"I'm so fortunate
and this is gonna be fantastic."
And, yeah, you can sense her
enjoyment of it all, really.
Outside this door,
brave new world.
For me, really jumping out of the Tardis
and looking at that side
of the street and thinking,
"Look at the workmanship
that's gone into this. We are in 1599,"
was just probably the same
as what Martha was feeling.
NARRATOR: Back on location at the Globe,
director Charles Palmer is tackling
the episode's biggest problem,
packing out Shakespeare's performance
with just a handful of supporting cast.
The challenge was that in
Shakespeare's day it held 3,000 people.
Now it holds 1,500 people, but in
Shakespeare's day it held 3,000 people,
and we only had 50 extras.
It was how were we going
to pull that off?
We filmed some elements here of
people in the upper row, upper levels.
431, take one, A camera.
And we're gonna take those shots,
which have mainly empty seats,
into a green screen studio, line up
some green screen elements of the crowd,
and film those and composite it
all together to make it look like
all the boxes are full
and the ground is heaving with people.
The Mill will paint
those people into the whole theatre,
and when the whole thing's
spliced together,
it'll look like the whole place is full.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
We'll actually have two huge, sweeping
shots that come down across the Globe
onto the stage that are full of
screaming, baying, cheering people,
as it would've been
back in Shakespeare's time.
NARRATOR: But computer graphics
really took centre stage
during the show's ambitious finale.
The finale was a real challenge,
you know,
not least because we had to split it
into all sorts of sections.
MAN: 426, take one,
guide track, A camera.
Sometimes when you write something,
you do write it and then
you're sort of
half expecting a call saying,
"Could we scale that down just a bit?"
But in this case, I got a call saying,
"No, go bigger."
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
Stage door!
I storyboarded the whole thing
to within an inch of its life.
And I sat down with Dave Houghton,
the Visual Effects Supervisor,
and worked out exactly where
we needed a visual effects shot,
because we couldn't have one everywhere.
I'm always aware when
we get a sequence like that
that we're only gonna be able
to do 10, 15 shots at the most
within the sequence.
So I have to think of a way
to shoot the stuff around
our visual effects sequences.
In the air above the Globe here,
we're going to have a giant whirlwind
into which these Carrionites will fly.
All of which we'll be putting
in as CG elements later.
So what we're filming here
are just generally plates with crowd,
and plates for the witches.
(WOMAN SCREAMS)
They come, they come!
-Come on, Will, history needs you.
-But what can I do?
Reverse it!
Lots of physical effects
go into making the CGI witches
that are flying around
bedded into that sequence.
So, you know, we had to have humongous
wind machines blasting air at people.
Standby, cue wind machine, and action!
(CACKLING)
The Doctor! He lives.
Then watch this world
become a blasted heath.
They come, they come!
I think the Carrionites are one
of our best designed creatures
just 'cause they're so odd.
I've sat in that edit a million times,
and I'm not sure
I could draw a Carrionite,
'cause they're quite indefinable.
They're really oddly structured
and they're really quite original.
They've got the witches' chins
and the witches' noses,
but it's more like a carapace,
more like a kind of armoured shell.
And their bodies are much more,
much less corporeal, they're very...
They're kind of floaty rag things,
so they can fly around gracefully.
I'm amazed by the results.
It just looks incredible.
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
The final result, I think,
is absolutely glorious.
There's smoke, there's people screaming,
they're trapped, the clouds are opening,
the lightning's coming down,
the wind machine's going.
Love's Labour's Won, there it goes.
Great, big epic ending
to what is quite an epic story.
The Doctor, where is he?
Martha!
It's a dark story.
I like futures like that.
It's very Blade Runner.
It's kind of a frightening vision
of the future, I think.
You can see the Doctor coming
and literally saving the whole world.
Magnificent.
The Doctor feels a great responsibility
for what happens to Martha.
It's the first episode that he realises
that actually he's started
to become attached to her.
The Face of Boe
finally reveals his secret.
Big set-ups, even bigger picture.