Godmaker - Part Five

 

Godmaker - Part Four

 

Godmaker - Part Three

 

Godmaker - Part Two

 

Godmaker - Part One

 

Twelfth Night

 

INSPIRATION

Ok, so officially, we don't do new AFT stories. But there are always exceptions, when I'm exceptionally inspired or for special occasions like Christmas. Last year, inspired by The Power of the Doctor, I wanted to relaunch the AFT repeats with a new Christmas story. This was one of the ideas I came up with on 30th November 2022, based purely on the title Twelfth Night, it had to be a 12th Doctor story - admittedly, not one of my favourite Doctors. Given his continuing struggle with being good or not, a retelling of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (yes, I know it's already been done on the TV show!) seemed appropriate.

The original idea was very nebulous but featured the Doctor about to vanquish an enemy, possibly a dalek and wrestling with his conscience. In the present he'd meet Bill while Yaz, Ryan and Graham were in the future section. Finally, the Doctor chooses to be a bad person and kill the enemy, but only to confuse the mind wraith that's caused the whole illusion.

Returning to the idea on 4th October 2023, knowing that Donna would return in the anniversary specials, I knew I had my past AND future sorted. I wanted this story to be far more whimsical and light than last year's quite doomy "Let It Snow".

For the enemy, I considered the Silents, the Weeping Angels or even the Ood but I knew it needed something new.

CAST

12th Doctor (B&M pack), Pepper Meanstix (custom), Donna, 10th Doctor, Missy (B&M pack), Bill (B&M pack).

The "companion heaven" scene features Captain Jack (coatless) Ryan, Rory, Graham, Amy Pond, Romana (Power of Kroll), Sarah Jane (SJA: Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane), Bill (Amazon exclusive), Ian Chesterton, The Brigadier (The Three Doctors), Peri (Vengeance On Varos), Yaz, River Song, Leela (Face of Evil, Martha Jones, Rose (series 2), Jo Grant (The Three Doctors), Romana II (Destiny of the Daleks), Ace (Silver Nemesis) and even my custom Angel from my 8th Doctor series.

Pepper Meanstix (a corruption of Santa's "real" elf, Pepper Meansticks) is a Toby Zed figure. His torso had already been painted green for when he appeared in the 3rd Doctor story "The Time Riders". I added the hat, collar and cuffs and painted his ghastly face. He was created on 9th October, painted on 11th October and the back of his head was teased on instagram.

SCRIPT

The script was started on 9th October and finished on the 12th. Donna's 'kick it's arse' line was totally nicked from the Wild Blue Yonder trailer.

SHOOTING

I started taking the pictures on 13th Oct with the relatively simple set of "companion heaven" which was just a silver crepe paper background.

On the 14th Oct, I shot Pepper's lair for the "past" sequence. This set uses a lot of bits and pieces I have in store including a Hulk pressure chamber, a Halo Cryochamber and lots of computers from the McFarlane Batman 66 batcave. Pepper's lever is an accessory from (I think) some Clone Wars figure. The viewscreen from the 2009 Star Trek enterprise set is above the lever and was supposed to show a view of a snowy city but since it doesn't appear in any shot, that didn't happen.

The Vault was the set I struggled with. I didn't have a lot of time but I thought it should at least try to look like what we saw on TV. It's very simple with paper windows stuck on the black backcloth. The centre piece is made of strips of blue paper with my mini Christmas tree and pipe-cleaner tinsel in the middle. It was put up on 26th October and the necessary pics taken the next day.

On 29th October, I shot the scenes in the Doctor's "purgatory" using printed purple stone walls I had in stock.

The last location was the street where the Doctor chases Pepper. You probably recognise it uses bits of Bannerman Road from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Those pictures were done on 31 Oct.

EDITING

Editing began on 27 October using photoshop. The pictures were added in the order they were taken, with the final images from the final location being added on 31 Oct.

Though the script was written in anticipation that Donna would be healed and would survive the specials, I waited until after the specials aired before completing the lettering, just in case I needed to change anything.

Since this is the first time I've used this new version of photoshop to edit stories, I wasn't sure what size to make the lettering. As a result, the letters were too big on the first page and I had to redo it. All the lettering was done on 10th Dec 2023.

CONTINUITY

This story obviously takes place during series 10. The Doctor has Bill as his companion, Missy in the vault and mentions Nardole. It's probably set after Empress of Mars because Bill is aware of Missy. 

Missy saying the Doctor has been very naughty for the past 700 years is me mis-remembering her 1000 year sentence in Extremis.

TRANSMISSION

The first teaser image of Meanstix was shown on instagram on 11th October. The title of the story was dropped, also on instagram) on 11th December.

The story went online on 23rd December 2023. 

Run! By Steve A Williams

 

INSPIRATION

One of the things I had always wanted to do with Action Figure Theatre was to make it more inclusive and get other people involved, whether in writing stories, filming or editing but I could never really make it work. Over the time, we did have a stories by Jack Rees, Jim Sangster and Dave Spilsbury and art work from Luke Spillaine and Aaron Vanderkley.

In 2012, I mentored a group through the process of making their own one-part AFT story. This was one of those, written by Steve A Williams. What was his inspiration?

"This story was originally dreamt up over 2 years before but it stopped on page 2. That was it, a one page joke. The idea for it came from a 10th Doctor figure that had lost its hand - it was going to be bitten off by the T-Rex"

It was such an ambitious and imaginative story. Steve took the brief and totally ran with it (no pun intended) and made it his own, pushing the boundaries of the format.

CAST

The 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, Teletubbies, The Celestial Toymaker (custom)

"I've always felt that Martha was an underused character and wanted to use her, which meant I had to use the tenth Doctor. 

The Teletubbies were from my original jokey idea and my daughter still had the toys. The Celestial Toymaker was a custom I started a long time ago and when extending the original idea, a major classic villain seemed a good idea and I had recently listened to the Big Finish Companion Chronicles Solitaire, in which he features. The custom uses a Host body (Voyage of the Damned), Dr Constantine head and loads of Green Stuff."

It's an excellent recipe for one of the great and definitely underused villains of the 60s. I love Steve's attention to detail on the Toymaker's robes, wonderful!

SCRIPT

Steve changed the story (having lost the T-Rx figure). Phil encouraged me to develop the story firther (and helped with the rhymes). I developed the script with him, altering it when I composed it on screen.

The story uses elements from The Mind Robber, The Celestial Toymaker and The Sound of Drums as well as (on pages 2, 3 and part of 4) the layout of Rupert The Bear. Did anyone spot the hidden TARDIS in the layout?

SHOOTING

Most shooting was done in March 2011, with various pictures of the Doctor, Martha and the Teletubbies, their house and the TARDIS. The Toymaker was taken later, when the custom was finished, along with shots of the Doctor and Martha tied up.

EDITING

Editing took a long time because of the fx I used. For the first page I used Daz Studio for cgi work on the first page. The Teletubby landscape was originally modelled in cgi but because it wasn't good enough, I took screen grabs from a library Teletubby DVD. (The jungle set and dinosaur were made by others).

The speech bubbles are colour coded because I knew that there would be a fair amount of dialogue and I wanted to make it very clear who was speaking at all times. I borrowed the idea from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (Vertigo Comics).

One thing I learned about photographing is that I really need to learn how to 'green screen' the figures - I wasted a lot of time cleaning up the background noise before I could cut'n'paste the figures into new settings! (BTW the penknife on page 4 is my own)

Steve's editing on this story really is top notch, bearing in mind every frame has required work and none of the backgrounds are real (apart from the TARDIS interior, but even those frames needed a 'green screen' background.)

Particular highlights are the first image of page three, where a combination of flawless cut and paste, and excellent lighting make it look like the Doctor and Martha really are in the tubby house.

Also, take a look at the last frame of page two. I didn't know the Martha figure came with eyelids!

Another thing I love is how the 'Rupert Bear' format appears as we enter the Land of Fiction, really creating the illusion that we're intruding somewhere that already exists.

CONTINUITY

The story fits between Smith & Jones and The Shakespeare Code. I posited that the Doctor took Martha into the distant past first before visiting Elizabethan Britain. I love the idea that the TARDIS team are in the middle of an adventure we know nothing about - the TV series never uses that and it works really well - see the Indiana Jones films for example. (If you look closely on part one you will see part of the reason for this adventure - this is a deliberate red herring for later!)

The implication that the Toymaker and the TARDIS are heading to the same place is not accidental.

SUMMARY

In summary, Steve was one of the reasons I decided to do the AFT Writers' Group project in the first place. He was one of the people that had expressed a desire to do a story but wasn't sure where to start so I'm really glad he has done it.

What he's produced is vibrant in its colours, showing Steve's enthusiasm. His story is incredibly imaginative and utterly ambitious in terms of execution and its a real credit to Steve that he's persevered and seen it through to its conclusion.

I'd like to thank Phil for the opportunity to do this, I've learned an awful lot on the way.

Steve's passion for the story has been evident from the beginning. Every so often I'd get a flurry of emails from him as he finds time to work on it, full of ideas and work-in-progress pictures. I'm really glad he saw it through as I think he's created something truly unique, fun and full of whimsical Who-iness.

TRANSMISSION

This originally appeared on the AFT in January 2012. It's back, posted on 9th December 2023 to coincide with the return to our screens of the Toymaker!

The Eleven Doctors - part two

 

Ed: not tomorrow, next Saturday!

Backwards

 

INSPIRATION

Backwards is a funny kind of story. It was written in 2005 before Doctor Who returned to our screens. It was intended to be one of a series of six adventures for the 9th Doctor and Rose (along with The Axis of Fear) Since I knew little about the characters of the new Doctor or Rose, this is less about the characters and more about telling an interesting story in an original way. 

It was inspired by the 2000 thriller movie Memento starring Guy Pearce as a man with no long-term memory whose life resets every few minutes so he has to take photos and leave notes in order to remember things.

I loved the way the director tells the story through flashbacks and you don't really see the whole truth until you've got back to the beginning, so to speak. And it's that kind of story telling that I've tried to emulate with Backwards.

Hopefully, it kept you guessing until the end - the flashback elements (in more muted colours) play fowards while the 'present' sequences play backwards.

CAST

This was only the SECOND AFT story featuring Character's 5" figures. The series 2 Rose had yet to be released. At that stage, there was a dearth of supporting characters in the same scale so the inhabitants of Kulkaron are gladiators bought in a 3 pack in a pound shop in Hull. They were originally intended to look a lot more alien.

Can you also believe that while Character had released the TARDIS interior playset (Sept 2006), there still wasn't a Police Box toy so the one used in this story was the money box, which was of a decent enough scale.

Mio's form-swapping device comes from Spy Kids 2 figures and makes numerous return appearances.

SHOOTING

The story was shot in late Summer 2006 with some pick-ups in September following the acquisition of the TARDIS interior. 

The paper sets were designed in photoshop.

EDITS

In order for the reader to distinguish between the past and present strands the colour saturation was taken down somewhat for the 'past' sections making them appear less vibrant. For the original publication, a "vortex" image was placed on the background behind the past sections.

The planet Kulkarron as seen from the air is a composite image of buildings in Greece.

The banners of Mio feature the Fonz actor Henry Winkler since I thought the figure looked a bit like him.

In the original script, after the Doctor has beaten up Karrick, Rose puts the Doctor in a car. He reads the note in the reflection of the window rather than a phone box before driving off. The confrontation with the guards then happens on a high bridge. When it came to shooting, I simply didn't have a car.

The story was original made up of individual jpegs for each panel. When it came to reposting the story in 2023, I re-edited it (25 May 2023) and gave it more comic-like appearance, a new title and a more coherent recap towards the end. The 'past' sections have blue frames.

TRANSMISSION

Backwards was original published in October 2006 with a fantastic cover by Luke Spillaine to whom I'll always be grateful.

At the time the story was quite odd and I worried that readers wouldn't get it. So I posted this reassuring panel on the homepage (below).

After the AFT was temporarily closed in late 2006, Backwards was offline until 11 June 2008.

It was reposted for the third time on 15 July 2023.

CONTINUITY

As it was written before series 1 aired, I had no clue about the other stories so it doesn't share any continuity with existing episodes.

It's clearly established that the Doctor has been to Kulkarron before and knows Mio personally, but this is presumably in another incarnation and certain before he met Rose.