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Anonymous |
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Sunday, September 04 2005 @ 11:17 PM EDT |
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 James, Ken, Louis;
Thanks for doing a fairly lengthy piece on my "Second Key" photo story. I listened intently as you spent a fair amount of time commenting glowingly on my story.
As you talked about it, I realized I gave you very little background on myself and my history. For my first Doctor Who photo story, Redemption, I did a "Behind the TARDIS" page which describes in great detail just why I did it, giving a lot of the background and motivations for the story.
I haven't done that yet for "Second Key" because I intend to hand out spoilers quite liberally as I write those pages, so I want to make sure the whole thing is finished before I go into that, and I will try to make sure anyone reading it will have finished the whole story first.
Anyway, to answer some of your questions (direct or indirect):
1) Yes, I'm a huge Doctor Who fan. I saw my first episode on an American PBS station from my home in Newfoundland. It was "Robot", the first Tom Baker story, and they then aired (and I recorded) every episode through McCoy's last episode. I lapsed in fandom for a while until I started listening to Big Finish productions a couple of years ago, and when I heard they were picking the show up again, my interest surged again. But I did "Redemption" several years ago now, after having written the story as a short story years before.
2) I'm not a professional photographer, but I did work with one for seven years. I worked in a production company of at most 10 people which produced videos, TV commercials, and the like, from 1989 to 1996. I learned a lot about TV production and photography during that time, though I certainly don't consider myself a professional photographer, but I did have my hand in every part of production. I learned storyboarding, and all aspects of video production there, from finding a power outlet in a crowded hotel, to directing videos. I didn't direct, but I saw it up close.
3) This story has been in the works for nearly two years now. About this time two years ago I began scripting, though I had the idea of revisiting of the Key to Time in my head for years.
I never was happy with the way they ended that. It all seemed so pointless. All that effort to find the six segments of this key, only to redistribute it throughout the universe again without having handed it to the White Guardian... never sat well with me. So I came up with a reason why... it was a test. And the Doctor passed.
Also, I wanted to do a lenghty epic story that was fully written in advance so I could foreshadow, and refer back to past events seamlessly. I published the first episode last July, thinking naievely that I could do an episode a month... heh....
It takes at between two and three months to do one episode. Considering I have a full-time job, and a wife and 9-year-old daughter, I'm rather busy. If this were my full-time job, I could easily pump episodes out faster.
The script is in constant evolution, though. I find that I am often revisiting the script and refining things before I actually shoot the current episode. This helps, because sometimes I will come up with something ad-lib while shooting the current episode, and that may change how I look at the next episode.
It gets a little confusing because while the story has 8 chapters, I refer to the 8 parts as Prologue, Six Segments (corresponding to the six segments of the Key), and an Epilogue.
But it has evolved that the Epilogue is not exactly an epilogue... in that it is not exactly peripheral or incidental to the story... not just an added thought. It is in fact a vital chapter on its own, perhaps THE most vital chapter, so I'll be changing its title from "Epilogue" to something else, which I have not decided yet. But as it is so important, I decided that it should not be relegated to the role of epilogue.
4) My use of minature sets come from years of studying Thunderbirds and other shows that use miniatures. I've never been a professional modeler, but I've studied it all my life. Other than Doctor Who, my favorite shows are Anderson's Supermarionation series', so that may explain my fascination in working in miniature.
5) The last Segment (as opposed to chapters, as explained above) is underway. I have storyboarded about 80% of it, and actually intend to shoot about 50 shots in an exterior shoot tomorrow, on Labour Day. The rest of this episode takes place in the TARDIS and in a Museum, so that should happen fairly soon too. Oh... And there is one other exterior scene which requires about a half-dozen shots in a forest...
Anyway, be assured that I will let you know as soon as Segment Six is ready. By the way, as a teaser, I can let you know it's called "Tempest in a Tin Cup".
Again, I can't tell you how pleased I was to hear you spend so much time talking about my project, and it was thrilling to hear James' obvious appreciation for it, not to mention Louis and Ken's kind comments. It was far more than I expected. I expected a passing reference, and you did a whole bit on it.
Thanks, guys. And keep up the good work. And please make an .MP3 version of each show available so I can listen to it on my Archos Jukebox, which for some reason doesn't recognize your new .AAC .M4A formats. (For some reason Episode 2 is the only one that my player even displays as a file.)
Sean Huxter
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Hey Sean,
Once again, great job on your Doctor Who Photo Story. As I eluded to in our Podshock - Episode 4, I can really appreciate the work you put into it. Although I did not go as far as to create stories, I did shoot miniature photography recreating special effects scenes or sequences from various science fiction works, mostly Star Wars related material though some years ago when I was a wee bit younger and had the time to do it. Coincidentally, at the same time, I was also creating my own hand-drawn comic book adventures in the science fiction genre. But I had not thought about combining the two as you have done with such remarkable results.
Good show Sean... Believe me, I know how difficult it can be to juggle projects in between a full time job and everything else in life. So no rush... It is worth waiting for...
Cheers, Louis
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"Show me some Spock!"