Maximum power.
Welcome to a very special episode of Maximum Power, which, in the finest tradition of Blake 7, had some location work recorded up front before being completed with a studio session later, but you won't be able to spot whether our hair has grown a little in between the two.
Coming up, there's another of our exclusive interviews with the maestro of new model work as maximum power listener, Chris Thompson, takes us on an audio tour of his spacecraft hardware store.
But first, we'll put you down and safe at the BFI in London, where 7 podcasters convened in a space corridor to try and review the series 2 Blu-ray launch event, only to be joined by a mysterious stranger on a quest for the last of the free promo postcards.
It was none other than liberator recreator model man Richard Ashton, who very generously joins us to give an impromptu interview.
So we hope you enjoy our series B, Blu ray special.
Welcome to Maximum Power.
I'm Pete.
I'm Tom.
I'm Dan.
Cole.
I'm Zoe.
I'm Hannah.
And I'm sorry.
And we have just seen Redemption and Star one in their revitalised and soup top versions.
What are people's 1st thoughts?
I mean, I mean, firstly, they picked 2 of the best episodes in the series.
Maybe not everyone's favourite episodes, but certainly I think Star One is probably one of the best in the series.
I struggle with redemption purely because I'm like, that's what in what sense is that redemption?
When Blake goes, they want it back. kind of redemption.
That's not what it means.
I don't... because the episode...
Simon Cattroll downstairs was pointing out, maybe it's like redeeming a coupon and that's...
George Blake 7 episodes based on their titles.
I guess.
But they're into a strict format of one to 2 words, most of the time, except occasionally when we need to make them a bit longer.
Giving back the liberator is not quite so catchy, is it?
No, yeah, yeah.
The deliberation.
Deliberate as well.
Sorry, I've forgotten that.
Yeah, so what do you think is the new effects?
The effects particularly, I think, for redemption were brilliant.
The space battle at the start is more dynamic than it's ever been before.
But I think what really stood out for me was the entry into Space World and the and the exit of Space World.
Just the things like the little clamping walkway, the fact that in quite subtly in the, when once we're in the nuclear power station on location, they've augmented those scenes and you can see the back of the liberator, we're going in through that door.
So that is the back of the liberation.
So you get to see the big green bulb in some of the scenes.
So things like that.
Those backing things is kind of what's to that, to me, it feels like it's like, we know it's filmed on location and we know where it is, most of us, but it felt like it gave it a better sense of scale of like, oh, no, just all these little background things. you can see going on.
Oh, it feels like we really are here and it's one that probably bears a bit more to repeat viewing now. like you'll spot things in the background as you're sort of, you know, once you've seen these a few times, you're looking at other stuff as well.
And these all add to it.
Yeah, I agree.
I think it grounded it in a more real kind of situation that actually we could believe that the liberator was actually in there and it does make it a little bit more room.
I really loved the speed at which it would, they injected into it, like the planet really going fast, them going by the planet, so it felt much more tense.
But I also love the idea that those 2 pursuit ships they had with the same models.
They just really, really, really clean them up.
Yeah, that's just like really good CGR really good new models, brand new moulds, but it's like, no, no, we just washed these.
I can't really tell what's model, what's CGI, and I, like, it's basically they're trying to say what could they have achieved at the time if they had more money and a bit fancier lighting and more time.
I talk to a few people here of about another sci-fi series that's also had replacement things, but in, this feels like it enhances stuff and adds to it, and like you say, Tom, gels much more with what potentially could have been done at the time rather than just being like slightly fancier replacement.
And Matt Levon was asked a bit, oh, could you have done this stuff?
at the time and it's kind of like, yeah, with a lot more time and money.
We could have because it'd have used different techniques, but like modern techniques mean that we can do it a lot easier and quicker.
Yeah, when they got him and Chris on stage and they were saying something about removing the wires.
And like they were saying, yeah, we could either just do this.
There's a thing we could do to the wires while we're doing this shooting that will take ages and it will get rid of the wires.
And Chris was like, yeah, I can just do that in post.
You don't need to bother.
And they were like, fantastic, because that gave them more time to work on the models and get the best out of the models.
Yeah, and yet you can still tell that that spaceship was made out of 2 hairdryers, which just adds to the charm.
It got a lovely sort of chuckle, but a very warm chuckle of love.
Change the design, like the spaceships at the end.
They were very clear on like, we're going to recreate what it was originally.
This was close fear when we were on the train this morning that we were going to replace one Fisher Price invasion set with a slightly augmented Fisher Price invasion set.
They've been very successful in that.
Yeah, I mean, Matt was hilarious from saying, you know, finally, we can finally, we can do it with really good spaceships. like, no, we're recreating them exactly as they were, but in slightly higher definition in plastic cutlery.
Only my light is, you know, the liberated design.
Some elements of that appeared inside the nuclear power station when you when they just panned out.
Yeah, you see the back end of it, yeah.
It's like the greeny glow and other little bits.
Yeah, and they didn't have to do that.
So I think they're going to be above and beyond to make it look the best it can or just to sell the world.
I've never noticed the go faster stripes.
They stick on the nuclear power station as you're walking around.
This is cool.
Yeah.
And it's tiny little details.
I noticed when they did the Instar one, when the screen goes off after the report of the 2 spaceships, it just had the word rapport underneath it. and that just a bit, it's just a tiny...
They didn't have to do that, but it just makes it...
And yes.
I thought I just failed to notice it on every previous viewing.
That's how good it was.
It made me think it had been there all the time.
And the way they worked on the sort of footage of all the planet.
So it wasn't just the stock footage.
They'd got someone out in a trooper costume.
Just recording little bits or there was a broken model or something in there.
Yeah, sorry, just to continue on that.
It was, I love the way there was like a Federation guard in every shot.
Just to imply continuing to imply the control, the dystopia, just everywhere I thought.
That was a really nice touch.
Yeah, there's one over there.
The pan with the snow where they'd got the domes with the with the palm trees outside.
It's just really, really great because it gels the world together. that dialogue about, oh, our tropical fruit.
It always gets a laugh, that one.
Yeah, and you've got to remember, like, Chris and Matt, they were saying, you know, we still have to do 6 shots a day or 12 shots a day, like they did back then.
But they're really putting more work into it.
I saw one of the when it went to one of those abandoned planets, or you know, not environmental disaster planets, on the newsreel that Servlan's watching, they had one of those ships in the style of the London, but it had a sign on it saying the Belfast.
I think that's the little nod from our FXC.
My eyes were probably going because I thought it said series 2.
No, it would be B. Everyone said two. under my breath every time.
I could hear the game.
Can you hear like a...
I was being James for that.
And so then, yeah, so then we jump from one end to the other with Star one.
Which again, like we said about the spaceships, has had a lot of work done, but yeah, it feels it's really fitting.
It just, it didn't look like they were trying to redo it.
They're just trying to do it as it could have been.
No, I mean, the model shots at the start are just subtly, slightly better.
So there were lights on the models, things like that.
The crash was a bit more intense.
It was just a bit more faster cutting that they could do.
What I really liked actually was the liberator around Star one.
There's an amazing shot where it starts at the top of the planet and pans down with the liberator across the equator and it's just beautiful.
I think the new liberator model that they've built to do these shots for series B is really detailed, really beautiful, and that comes across in all of the new footage.
But then Matt said a lot of his original ones is series, like some of the spaceships in Killer, was it?
and Redemption, like still, were the original models that they could be photographed with.
That's right.
It's amazing.
Yeah, the lead, yeah, the lead federation pursuit ship is still the original one that they built in 1977.
Oh, that shut of Space Command as well.
Yeah, with all the all the ships around.
Yes, and a couple more Scorpios.
Was there a Jerry Anderson star one?
not sure.
Chris alluded to that, didn't we?
So Easter eggs, I think.
When we interview him, we'd have to ask him.
We'll find out, yeah.
Stay tuned.
But for space commander, though, they've done the CGI version.
They've still kept like the coat hanger.
Like it's slightly thinner than it does. much less like an actual coat number, but I love that they've sort of kept that detail.
Because there is a, there's an argument like, do you replace that fleet of ships with something out of Battle Socker, whatever, or do you make it look like just, there's more of them and the, you know, moving a bit differently and I think they made the right call.
I think it look really good.
And they changed it, like the changes of design slightly.
They were saying the paper.
Have you do you not want to talk about the paper craft?
You've got to.
Yeah, we should explain that, yeah.
Which seems really low tech, but the guy was outside showing us them.
And yeah, they look really realistic and they're made out of card and...
Callum from Blake 7 paper craft to seeing sharing stuff on various Facebook grooms.
They got him to recreate the fleet.
Because obviously, you know, 50 odd random models that don't survive anymore and to do it for real rather than CG.
There's CG in the background, but...
And they're the tiny little ones that are filling out the stream, basically.
And they're just...
How the hell you can see all the definition on the original and then recreate it?
Never feel so nerdy as when, like, I'm just drooling over some spaceships.
Should have made them darlic ships.
Sorry, I'm not I don't recognise that word on this podcast.
And it was great to have with us in person, whoever they were.
Who cares?
Is he here every day?
I think he just lives at BFI now.
He lives in a cupboard and they can...
He's always great. need it, Mark.
Yeah, and as you said, you know, he hasn't done 5.1 around some mixers or anything with these, it's just about tidying it up and clearing out the drops and things.
I know it's one thing.
The sound level in the space donut place is like a weird humming the whole time.
There's like space tillitters.
Is that is that more, is that more this?
That's the noise of the of the Andromedons.
It's the aliens.
That's how you know that they're there.
It's that bubbling noise all the time when those characters are wrong.
No, it's just the air con in...
Both places had their own noise because on the Star one, they had a different humming.
Yes.
I mean, we had the 2 stars who are still able to join us. in fine form. absolutely.
We have Brian Darling at the start.
Oh, yeah, that was nice, wasn't it?
A special message from Brian Croucher.
Yeah, who's interviewed on the, we saw a bit of the interview with Matthew Sweet.
Yeah.
That was good.
That was very funny.
Yeah.
Well, the guy lists all the cards.
No, the postcards.
I think you might have done it.
If you ask at the box office, they may have some.
They might still have some.
I built the liberator.
We're literally just talking about how fantastic it looks for our podcast to be recording.
Oh, thank you someone.
Yeah, isn't it?
So you're happy with what they've done to your baby?
Um, I've seen, because obviously I work, um, I work heavily with Chris and stuff.
It was like, um, I did have long to build her.
It was like 2.5 months.
I built 3 footer and I built a one footer.
Wow.
And then I build a freighter in the style of Ian Scones, that's the original, what's it called now?
Original London.
We have the original drawings for the original London.
If you look at season one, we redid.
When the London takes off in the background, you'll see a red version of the in Skoon's design.
So what we wanted to do, we wanted to take it to the next level.
So, You know the episode's better than bloody.
The one where they go up and they plague shit.
Oh, yeah, killer.
Killer.
Yeah.
Right.
So I built the freighter that go originally it used to be like a Saturn 5 rocket that went up.
Now we've got a proper shit that goes up.
Oh, wow.
And he actually worked on Blake Seven, as well as Alien, Outland, Flash Gordon, Space Precinct, and his name is Bill Pearson.
And Bill Pearson said, to have to be a model maker, the greatest thing is, to have your work on screen is the closest thing to immortality.
And I witnessed that today.
I tell you, when, because you've never, you know, you didn't know the sequence, but when the liberator, when that boulder goes around, the rock flies out the way and the later comes flying towards the screen.
I've seen that shot so many times.
And he's trimmed it and trimmed it and then I got to sit in my head.
Yeah, okay, I get you now, both.
Cheers, Victory.
Amazing.
So, can we include your comments in our podcast?
Are you recording now?
You're literally a live intervention.
We're not live.
We're not putting it out for a couple of snow. the best.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I I didn't know I was just over like, what were those cars?
Whereas we're like, we wish we weren't too shy to go and ask someone to come on our podcast.
Have you ever listened to maximum power?
No, no, it's the ones that...
But the thing about this is it's like I've been a model maker all my life since the age of eight.
My dream was to see my work on screen.
And it took me to a mine 54.
I don't know, which This is a bit of a...
And then you see it...
On the big scrot of it.
And then I was the worst critics I were going.
You know, the last bit on, on, um, Star, Star one, Star, and it, and it's going past.
I was the, everyone's probably were like, oh, man.
No, well, that is good.
What are you looking out for when you look when you peer at it like that?
Are you looking for the right shading?
Is it the lighting?
Or just make sure I haven't balls.
Well, like I say, when I was when I was building her, I built her over last Christmas.
Yeah.
So did you build it for this series or last series because I think...
Right, this series.
This is all new for series 2.
Series two?
Yeah, because I think...
Chris said the one... was like the original or something...
It was a fan made one, I think.
Yes, it?
Yeah, it was.
This is this is how sad we are when we were doing that film.
Yeah, we are filming there on my friend's farm.
Oh wow.
And it's on a stool.
You'll see this in Killer, and then the ship will take off, but we filmed a natural...
The clear blue sky, though.
So there's nothing better than natural light on a subject.
So that I built that.
But no, um, yeah, I built it last Christmas, so basically what it was.
No disrespect to the previous model, though.
He built the liberator according to the plans that were available, sadly, they were wrong.
And also, some of the dimensions weren't right.
No disrespect to him.
He did a great job.
He built that liberator as a display piece.
But is that because there was there was improvisation done back in the 70s when they were making it, so it didn't quite adhere to the plans.
There's a problem.
Right.
The history of the liberation is very simple.
It was made by space models.
It was delivered to Martin Bauer, who detailed it and painted it.
Yeah.
Then all the things with man Roland.
Don't want go into that.
But the end of the day is, that was that.
Then Martin made a new liberator.
It may be parts of the original, it may be parts of something else.
We don't want to go there.
Anyway, because I, I'm good friends with... controversies.
What I'm saying is the liberator itself.
Martin did his own interpretation.
Sorry, he put hatches on there.
He redid some of the paintwork on there. in different styles that was not the original.
So everybody else looked at this one.
I went, well, that's that's liberator.
So I felt, therefore, I, you have, this is the one you follow.
This model itself, really nice model.
But it was done.
There's 2 styles of modelling.
You do modelling for shooting and you do modelling for display.
A model a display model is usually painted in the style that the model looks on the screen.
The shooting model is painted darker because you're going to hit it with high key lies, so it will bleach out all the detail.
So what I had to do is, I went with Chris and I says, you know, we need Chris is, oh, we need to build the liberator.
Fine. amazing.
Sure.
Okay.
High bar, because the real fans will want me on the end of a, on a road. don't do it right.
And I'm like, I'm going to get this right.
So I've got good friends who are like really nerd doesn't quite come into it.
Anal, anal, we probably know that.
They know everything.
Yeah, every respect.
And it was like, I knew a lot of the detail.
So I was like, okay.
And then Chris got a load of reference and he says, right, we have to build this liberator.
This is currently Oktobertime.
We're gonna go with the fashion of, and he worked out how he wanted it mounting because we wanted to side mount it so he could flight over camera.
We wanted to mount it in such a way we can have it side on.
We can flip the image, we can make it do things that the original miniature couldn't do.
Because it was sentimounted underneath the fan.
So we didn't want that.
So this had 2 mountain points.
I actually said went.
I thought it should have three, but we went with the 2 and obviously it's worked, which is an underneath mounted point, which is on the solar panels, so you can pop a solar panel out.
It's got a mountain point in there, that goes in there.
But the solar panel itself is missing a bit.
So you wouldn't, you wouldn't know.
Then the top soul panels, they pop out.
And it's got white forks.
So you put these 2 forks in, and that mounts and goes on the back and that gets mounted on an arm, and then you and it's solid.
Solid doesn't run.
So we waited till that.
And obviously we moving with the times.
So due to the time limit, I had to build this.
It was like, okay, so, I can't build it the old-fashioned conventional way of getting EMA parts, going pipe, whatever, cutting to length, machining pieces, making ends.
So, right.
I says, well, Chris, tell you what we'll do.
Well, 3D printer.
Oh wow.
So Chris got the original images.
And then made a model from the original, so he could get the angles because the hardest thing to get right on the liberator is the front nose section.
Some people do it too fat.
It's coming in at an angle and it just drops down the towers and then it flows down.
So we got that right.
We've got everything on out one and I went, right.
So he says, are you happy with that?
I went, right, I says, well, I want 2 slots down everywhere.
Everyone of the pylons for strength.
So it holds it self correct.
Right, great.
Got that fabulous.
Then he sent all the files.
To my friend, and we printed it in PLA, which is a hard plastic.
Um, and it's in sections.
There's no detail on it.
She's just all smooth.
Right.
And then it's like, right.
Okay, so we've got the shape.
Everything there.
The back end, the clear engine set, that was clear, clear resin, we did that.
But everything else is PLI.
So then the 1st job is you have to you have to car body filler it and then fill a primer and sand it and blend it.
So we got a nice, perfectly smooth mob.
And then he gave me all the reference material. that I've got of all the different angles, all the different sides and everything, even the underside, which I've never seen.
And the hardest side to see is the side opposite camera because she always flies from left to right.
You hardly see a fly from right to left.
So the only shot I have of that I got from the swap shop thing. you know, when when he brought the onto there and it was positioned that way.
And there's a zoom in and now like, and then obviously it's like, because we already had the 1st season out on Blu-ray.
That's really...
Grab, grab.
And then he sent me some more shots of liberator that had been finished by Martin and they'd just been delivered to studio.
So I had, and I even had underneath shots of Liberator.
So I was like, it's just, that would be great.
We can do this.
So it was a case of I was cutting out plastic card pieces, building the panel work on the body, as Martin, as Martin, or Martin Bower would have done, when he got the model delivered to him.
So I did all that.
Then I made, um, I airbrushed.
So it's all airbrushed.
But the base colour of the liberator is for diamond white.
So you spray it the 4 diamond white and give that a couple of days, the paint to harden and so.
And then you start painting.
And I started painting her in November.
I carried on painting through November into December into January.
I had one day off for Christmas or I worked 8, 8, maybe more than 8 hours a day on her.
And then finished.
I think it was the 20th, Chris came over on the 20th to collect the liberator.
In that time, I built 2 liberators and the freighter.
And I, and you, I will literally spend a day on a pylon.
So I would mask everything out, work everything out and paint and paint.
She's got pieces on her from girder bridge, the girder bridge sections.
There is, um, what else?
There's Space 999 markets on...
Oh fantastic.
We would just say it was one of them called one of them is called the Belfast in this.
Was that a little thing for?
That's crispy.
If you watch any big finish, because obviously Christa's big finish, it's not done as much because he's been so overloaded by doing stuff for Anderson Entertainment as well as BBC Studios.
If you watch any of the the trailers of the TARDIS, and you'll see the TARDIS fly over the UK. always ends up landing in Belfast.
So that's why it's called Belfast.
That's why he does.
It looks amazing.
Are you quite critical when you watch it back?
Are you looking, are you looking?
You're the most critical of your own work.
Because end of day, I mean, how many hours I put into that damn thing?
You always need more hours.
The back section, my only people make criticise this.
It's my little into the model.
Okay.
The back section, there's a ribbing section on the back.
It's like grilling.
And they never liked it.
It looked, it just looked like an afterthought, and I didn't like it at all.
So I, what I've done is I repaneled the back, the backside of that thing took me ages to paint.
It was a, I looked at it and I had to study it and work out back to front how to paint it.
So that, all right, sorry, started that.
So, right.
So if I take that layer of paint off, what do I get?
Take that layer of paint off, what do I get?
And then I worked it back and I went, right, ah.
So I find paint mask, that paint that bit, right.
Then we do the next, then we do the next, then we do the next.
The thing that got me about the original liberator.
And I know it's down to time and I know it's down to money, was the lining on the back of the ball, it was done in tape. see it.
You can see the crinkles.
And I were like, So I masked all the back end of the section and all painted all them lines on to make it all.
So you wouldn't get any creases.
Oh, come on.
This is the enterprise of the UK, Chrome. absolutely.
Better than the Enterprise. much better.
Yeah, there's 2 famous spaceships in UK TV is the TARDIS and the Liberator.
Yeah, flying the flag.
I know.
Well, there is a little Easter egg on my liberator.
Talking about flying the fly.
Yeah.
Right at the back, underneath, the back section, there's agreeably, which we call this greeable. is a famous Greeboo that's used on the front of Thunderbird 2s pods.
It's been used on this, that's a bloody other.
I didn't realise it was actually on it's on Liberator.
It's underneath Liberator.
So there's a piece on the liberal.
Was it on the original?
Yes, on the original, it was.
So on the original.
It's this grebly piece that's from the Girder Bridge.
That goes underneath and behind it.
I've done a quarter of the union flag.
It's a British it's a British ship.
So it did look absolutely fantastic in the shots we saw today.
Yeah, really busy.
I mean, I wanted to do A, I wanted to do the fans proud.
I wanted to do this.
No, no, because under day, you think, if I do a terrible job, you won't buy the Blu-ray.
No, if you decided it looked better based.
No, I lose work.
Yeah, the best job I can for you guys.
And there's always some people pointing out things.
You'll never please everybody.
But if I can please the majority of people with what you, I give them, then they can go, I like that.
That's nice.
And also you'll, when you get the Blu-ray yourself and you watch a lot of the shots, I'll give you a test.
Find, tell me which one is the one is the one foot.
Liberator.
And the 3 foot liberator.
Because some shots, Chris has used the one foot liberator where I thought he was using the 3 foot liberator.
Wow.
And if you think that, I didn't realise it was hard enough to tell.
Because I actually said to Chris, I will like Chris, because I've got the scissor reel.
And I'm going through it, I'm going, so you're happy where have you seen?
I'm going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really good.
That's really good.
I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Not seen much of the foot one.
It's only been about 5 shots, Richmond.
I didn't realise that.
It shows how detailed it is.
Well, that's what I mean, what we had was, Chris had a small liberator and he used it for season one for some of the distance shots and they showed it me and I were like, come on, Chris.
We can do better that.
And you were like, well, we ain't got much time.
I says, I tell you what, we'll print another one out because we've got it already on the computer, but we'll print this one in resin.
We'll go through the same process of how we've done it, and then, and I will just do the same.
But in minute, but smaller.
God, I don't know why I did it.
It was all worth it.
In the back of Liberator, in big was hard.
So now try and do it this size.
So it's from that.
And then, because since done, I've done that.
I'm now working on Doctor Who. as well, so I'm doing classic Doctor Who models as well.
Have you done the TARDIS said as well?
I can't say anything.
You can't...
I'm not allowed.
No, it's always worth asking, just in case.
No, it's not, but there is...
Presumably, they've got the model now for series C.
The guys have filmed a good portion of it.
We have had, we wanted Travis's ship, and the yellow shit.
So I'm building that, and I'm slightly redesigning it to give it a little bit more thing, and I've got to build a section of the liberator, the underside, because she's coming in and she's going to dock under me.
Well, the thing about that is the hardest thing, this is how...
Because I'm always a stickler for quality accuracy and detail.
Everything is in the detail.
Finishes everything.
I was always told, finishes everything, work and meticulously get that finish because if you don't, you can make a crap model, look brilliant with a great paint job, but you can make a great model, terrible with a crap painter.
Right.
So you can do all the prep, do all the building, you can throw it all away.
So, I'm doing that.
I've got that shit to this spot.
I also got to make the underside of Lin.
So that's going to be interesting because we've got to work out the size of the spaceship.
Now, the original was about this big, so that's about 2 foot.
I'm doing a foot long one.
And also I'm going to build some of the liberator.
So I've got to work out the curve.
Now, originally when they did, when they did the original, they wouldn't be bothered that.
They just do a flat surface, but I want, I want you to see a gradual curb, and then I'm going to pinpoint a piece on the liberator the underside.
And then just go.
And make that a docking hatch and everything.
Right, yeah, give it some nice green leaves on it and stuff like that.
Fantastic.
But yeah, and then obviously I've got Scorpio to build.
2 Scorpios.
I've got all the reference for Scorpio, so I've got 4 foot and a 2 foot to build and a crashing.
Oh, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah, we doing it right.
That bluepeeter train set is going to be crashed in too.
Like it's never been crushed into before.
The thing about it is, Chris, I feel it's quite funny because me and my tuck were talking about this.
We went, we have raised the bar from season one to season one.
This is your problem now, yeah.
We've got expectations now, mate.
I mean, and also, you know what's coming up.
And the lovely thing about it is Matt Irvine, he's always been cautious about this because it's his baby and I get that and he's carried this all this length of time and now we're just coming in a good.
I'll play with that.
You know what I mean?
And you would get very protective because in that's yours.
And he never watched any of the shows.
He never watched the series.
It was his job.
Yeah, not his job.
Yeah, he's not a fan.
No, he's finally saw these 2 episodes that we've done.
He's watched it.
And him and Mike Tucker.
Look at me, Chris, and the gang as the future VFX, guys.
Fantastic.
And it's like, get on from these people who did it in the 70s and 80s with Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, Blake 7, tripods, but, you know, it's all that, it's, it's in the DNA of British filmmaking and all that kind of stuff.
So it's, and also models are people went crazy about CG, but the thing about CG is, CG is just a tool.
It's a tool in a box.
It's what you use in the box.
They're doing the same thing, but yeah, on a computer.
I mean, in the day, I'm not a fan of alien Romulus.
No, but they use practical big miniatures, which is great.
It's great pastige.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, but also it's cost effective as well.
Well, I've been told, like, say, if you film in in, like, 12 K. Um, you literally, now the detail.
Go through the roof.
And every day, there's something about a miniature has weight.
It has gravity.
Yeah, you know the lighting, yes.
And it's got that realism.
And I think audiences are now getting a bit sick of the flying and oh, I can get a camera and now my camera's going to fly down the wing, then my camera's going to go outside this and it's going to go on one side of the pilot and we're just going, you're taking me out of it.
Yeah, you're taking me out of it.
I need, I want to, I want that realism.
That's why I like Top Gun Maverick.
Did so want the cinema because, yeah, they use real planes, you know, Tom Cruise in the back of an F 18 hornet, but it was a 2 seater, but they filmed it in such a way that he was a pilot, but they used CG in a way to complement it, real that realism, and it, success.
It's an enhancement, isn't it?
Yes.
So miniatures, you can enhance miniatures with CJ.
And that's what I think is the best and also compositing, it helps compensating, helps with setting up a shot.
Pure Viz.
You can pre-visit a short, so you can get an idea instead of having to do storyboard story, but yeah, it's still, we still do storyboards, draw stuff out. get an idea.
What about this?
Was that 3D printing?
3D printing.
Some people hate 3D printing.
I'm sorry, it's just a tool.
It's like an air brush.
It's like a scalpel.
You still need to... it helps...
I would not have been able to build 2 liberators and that freighter. in the 3 months I realistically had. to the standards that I wanted to deliver for screen.
I wanted now to do it.
And it's just me working in the kitchen.
No word of lie.
They were in my kitchen.
But I'd love a workshop.
Anybody want to give me a new one?
Yeah, crowdfighter. yeah send you a PayPal savings.
But no, but no, it's there's lots to come.
Um, I think we've, we've kicked the ball really hard and I think it's people, people will be shocked what they see.
Wow.
Fantastic.
Thank you so much for these unscheduled insights.
A pleasure.
And now we edit seamlessly from the delightful quarry that is the BFI to a little studio session where we are thrilled to be joined once again by Chris Thompson from the land of model making magic.
Oh.
And what a lovely studio, the maximum power studio is.
We've got the lighting turned up on full.
We've got lovely noisy wooden floors for Mark Ayres to worry about when he does a special edition in 50 years time.
It's going to be.
Everything's made of fibreglass and everyone, the crew keeps bashing it as they keep putting under storage and stuff.
They hate it.
They hate.
I hate it so much, but it has got chairs that will end up on the antiques ride show.
Excellent. plus riders to that.
Blake 7 turns up in the weirdest of places right now.
It's more like the weirdest things keep turning up in Blake 7 just because I don't know if I've told the story before.
Like, I did the UFO manual. a couple of years ago and so much of the set from UFO turns up in Blake 7 and the cross Doctor Who, that eventually I should have just waited and model that this time because the references are immaculate.
Yeah, you're basically recreating an entire costume and hiring facility for future remasterings.
Yeah.
Pretty much, yeah.
No, um, because of the course of all this productions have been working on.
I think I've got some like 40 miniatures. kicking around the house.
Some of them you've not seen yet.
Um, and uh, yeah, and then obviously on a digital library, I've also got all the Jerry Anton stuff, which are modelled for books.
So it's uh...
Quite the library.
How do you resist the temptation?
Or have you have you got your own little cuts or it's Thunderbird 2 flying around on your hard drives with Avon and Blake?
To be fair, like, it's sort of the other way around because I have all these assets handy.
A lot of it winds up in Blake 7.
I'm like, I wouldn't put Thunderbird 2 in Blake 7, but a lot of the random background building to see here and there are actually from Space 1999 or Joe 90.
Just because, well, I have, I have those assets model, like Benelita Bass from Joe 90 wound up being the, is, like bits of it are around the launch pad for the London from season one and, um, there's definitely bits, uh, the asteroid Bass in Voice from the Past is actually a Kit Bass version of Voyager from Space 9 to 99's Voyages Return.
Ah, and in fact, the beacon that the liberator leaves behind in killer is, again, the Voyager from Voyager's Return just stuck doubled up and stuck together.
But then again, at least do that all the time in the day because everything like, yeah, like Space Night and Blake 7, everything's covered in eagle transporter bits.
So, like, you know, like nothing's changed.
No, that sounds very Matt Irvin who's got his his kits and just bits that he just glues together and makes a new model out of.
So it's exactly what he was saying in the BFI interview was that it was basically lots of kit bashing and trying things to see if it worked and make a spaceship out of what's in the box and off you go.
So yeah, nothing ever changes, does it?
Like, legitimately, like, I went to, like, obviously, we shoot in the small space, um, hall in handblope, which is down the road for man's place, and man's place is just covered in model kits, like unbuilt ones, like floor to ceiling, and then there'll just be like all these models lying around, like Sentinel 6 from Warriors of the Deep, or, um, chipped from Stones of Blood.
Just canine just sitting there. kind of like this, but almost more randomly.
So, uh, like it, it's cool to see.
Yeah.
And how much, what would you say?
Series A wasn't your 1st rodeo, but what's what lessons did you learn from that from doing that 1st series that you're now seeing on screen this series?
Well, funnily enough, um, season A, so season A came off right off the back of Doctor Who season 25.
And I mean, like, I had a day off and then moved over and it was already like I had 2.5 months to deliver season 25 and then Blake 7 was only theoretically supposed to be due a month after that and then they had to revise the schedule just because I think there'd been a slight misunderstanding about how much work was involved.
Um, so, Like, it was this mad, season A was this mad grab of anything that we could kind of get together, and then there was that initial shoot, and then we were able to build some stuff over here, and then we sort of got to the finish line with what it was, and I wasn't as happy with it, because I think I had like a baseline in my head that I wanted the hit, and, like, I don't, I, people have been very lovely about it.
Like we've got a lot of good feedback from season 8, but there was an there was an area of what I wanted to see in my head.
And luckily, we had a couple of months, basically, like season B was never a guarantee.
Like they needed to see how well it would have gone down.
Okay, because it was because it was theories that maybe it was only viable if you did all four, so that's not the case.
It was really a series one's got it.
Yeah, yeah.
There was never, like, it was never taken for granted.
So, um, we, I had a couple of months off.
I did a space precinct film in the meantime, and then I got the call from Russell basically saying, we've got, see, like series 2, season B, whichever, is going ahead.
What do you need this time?
Because I let, when I finished season, uh, A, I was a mess, just because I burned out.
So, and very generously, it was like, it was, I really appreciated it because it was like, look, let's not repeat that.
What do you need to get this done the way that you want to get it done?
And so we sort of reconstructured everything the entire show from the ground up.
Like we had a pre-production phase, which we should have had at the beginning.
Um, we were able to rejig the budget so that we can build a new liberator.
Oh yes. into large spaceship on shelf behind him. looking very nice.
Well, 2 new liberator, actually, because...
Because there's a small one as well.
Oh, look.
This is a small one.
I mean, it's bigger than your head.
It's but yeah.
Like, it's literally Richard, Richard Ashton, who I commissioned to do the big one, built me this one as well.
And it's a one, basically a one-to-one, like, representation of it.
Like it actually looks, I ended up using this a lot more than they thought it would, I would.
And you can't tell half the time.
Um, just because like there's so much detail on it.
But yeah, we had that done.
And then we rejigged the shooting schedule a little bit.
So, rather than, The England shoot, which we'd have to basically pick out 2 days and then shoot everything we could in those 2 days, and then do pickups of guest models in Belfast, which is what we did last time, we swapped it.
So the hero ships, the liberator, the, um, uh, pursuit ships, um, the white pursuit ship, um, Space Command, and the Andromedean fleet flagship were all shot in Belfast, and that meant that I could basically just shoot them whenever I wanted.
So, I think we did 6 shoots and all, but basically, we're doing a round of shots for Liberator, I would go back, start working on them, and if it was something I didn't like, I could then schedule another shoot and do a ton more stuff, and it meant that rather than doing a day shoot and just trying to get everything to fit, we could just shoot stuff, like we could retake stuff, do better takes of it, or just that sort of thing. to really get the best of what we could out of it.
Then, um, in the, in the time when we were doing all that, Matt was restoring a lot of his old models that he, because he kept almost all of them from the show, and he was building us a new space world in the space city.
So towards the end of production, uh, we had our London, we had the uh, Hanselip shoot, and uh, again, really lovely time, like we got to play about with the Atlay shuttle and the killer ship and Matt's new models.
And, uh, yeah, basically, and also we had more time as well.
Like the whole process was 6 months as opposed to 2.5 .
So, uh, yeah, just from the top down, it was just a massive rethink, and then just trying to find the most efficient way to do stuff while also just taking your time with it.
And that is largely led to me being a lot more proud of season 2 than I am of season one.
Even though there is a degree, like I'm still proud of season one.
Under the circumstances, but season 2 is a lot more realistic in what I was hoping season one was going to be.
So, did that mean you could be more ambitious this time round?
Pretty much, yeah.
Um, like there was, there's stuff that we added over the course of it as well, um, like the creature from weapon and things of that.
But I kind of knew going in that, like there's 3 big episodes in season two.
It's redemption hostage in Star one.
Um, because like hostage has about 50 special effect shots in its 1st like 5 minutes.
Yeah, they're going for broke with an opening that week.
Yeah, it's such an odd episode because it is because an average Blake 7 episode has about 30 shots and the only one to kind of go beyond that in season one was breakdown.
Um, whereas, yeah, season 2 has these 3 big episodes, and then you have, um, like Gambit with barely 10 shots in it and things of that, like Gambit doesn't even have any shots of the liberator in it, I don't think.
So, um, it's got speed chess, however.
Nice little 3D speech chess set.
Which was good fun.
I felt bad about redoing that because that's the only CG shot in the entire show is the animated speed chest.
No, no series.
I think so.
Like, because obviously, like, they didn't really have access to 3D back then, and any, any sort of Faux 3D would have been like, kind of like the Terror Hawks opening.
It would have been drawn out by computer frame by frame.
So, yeah, that is the only CG shot in the original Blake 7.
And it's still, it's still there, if people want the original.
Pretty much, yeah.
I'm thinking about incorporating it, but hopefully I've made speech has a little bit more exciting.
But yeah, no, like, um, I think it's roughly the same amount of shots.
Like I think season 2 still has 420 shots and season one was about the same, but I could, I could just take that extra time with them.
Was it with, so you mentioned, were there some that you, that examples that weren't on your list, but you were able to squeeze in?
Well, it was mainly the creature from weapon.
Towards the end, Ben, who's our puppeteer?
Um, just sort of asked if there was anything interesting we could do.
And obviously there's a lot of stuff that we could do in season 3 with puppets, but like there was that one in season 2 and part of me was a bit annoyed.
I wasn't able to deal with the guy from the web in season one, so and that creature is just an ice warrior claw, I think.
Yeah, it's very basic.
So we did a slightly more ornate claw that kind of properly snakes.
Then when it dies, it kind of comes out of the door.
Um, so, yeah, that was the big one, but I think everything else was on my initial list in some way, shape or form.
People have been speculating with her.
Bruno from strictly could be persuaded to come back and reprise his sea devil costume wearing in the 4th series with the new sexy sea level costume.
I might be very fond of that one shot he was in.
What are the odds?
yeah I bet it's one or the other.
A3's got no memory of it at all or, yeah, who knows?
It might have been the moment.
To be fair, a good new path.
Actually, another one which was sort of late in the day that we added actually was the all the Federation Trooper cameos.
Because we shot a ton of live action trooper stuff.
Oh, yes.
No, that went down really well at the BFI.
Yeah, yeah.
And who is it the same trooper?
How did, how did, is it you?
No, so I, so yeah, we've, there was a couple of us.
Basically, I was picking up the Liberator and my friend Mark Dando, who people would know him from the convention scene because he used to run a lot of the Leicester-based conventions and he's done a bunch of others around the the country.
Very lovely man, but also Big Blake 7 fan, and I remember years ago, him putting up a photo of the trooper helmet and trooper gun.
And I knew I wanted to do that shot.
I wanted to do something at the opening of Countdown, because there's no establishing shots at all in Countdown.
Like, it's a very interesting story.
So I did that TNG style matte painting that's in the trailer of the troopers firing and you can just about see the rebels coming in over the bridge just before the it fades the original footage.
Um, so the troopers on the roof is me.
Um, that's my cameo for season two.
The 1st group that you see in Star one is AC, like Andrew Clements, he's another one of the team, but he's also the producer of the Anthony Entertainments, like Thunderbirds and Stingray Rangers.
Um, the 2nd one is Ryan, Ryan Wade, Ryan's like another model maker that works with me over here in Belfast.
And, um, Yeah, and then Ben is obviously the creature and weapon.
Connor has yet to be in Blake 7 just yet.
Connor's another is an artist I work with, but he's also the other member of the local team as well.
So, uh, but yeah, color's, color's got a pretty big cameo in the next thing we're doing.
So it's all fine.
You can easily offend your friends by forgetting to give them a gabby.
And we took, so this is, we should clarify, few people haven't got to that episode yet.
This is, we're talking about the little, the shots of devastation throughout the Federation as Star Wars on the blink, which have all been just spruced up quite a bit.
Yeah.
Well, that's one of those things where, like, Blake Seven's pretty, when it comes to visuals, it's pretty light and world building. like they'll say stuff and they'll make sort of mentions of things, but you will never actually see them.
So, stuff like that, which is just lots of BBC film reel stuff from various news programs really excites me because then you can do stuff like pursuit chips landed in the snow.
Or um, new federation troopers or even outside of that bit where like we've done new federation battleships that you see in the background from time to time, just to kind of make it feel more of a, more of a fleet, more of an empire kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, more London type ships like the Belfast.
Oh, we did notice the Belfast.
How did you come up with the name?
Yeah, I don't know.
It wasn't...
The name panel isn't big enough for a Dairy Londonderry.
So it's kind of just dairy slash London dairy, but the Federation logo is the slash.
Several letters, Max, for eight.
Yeah, the next one needs to be the handslope.
So who takes?
Yeah, so a choice, so a choice like that, does that just sort of emerge organically as a, yeah, go on, let's have a go going a little bit further than that.
Um, I get a lot of freedom to be honest.
Uh, like, basically because all these decisions are made pretty early on where I watch the episodes and I'll have a big list.
I'll just sort of write in a Google Doc, um, and just sort of annotate like this in the effect.
This is what we could do with it.
Um, Jonathan Helm published my season one list in one of the Blake 7 magazines.
So, uh, um, you'll probably see my season 2 list and all the rather sarcey anecdotes I put on it too.
But, um, it's all comic sands and I take it very seriously.
Uh, but, um, so a lot of those decisions are made then, and then, um, I'll run it past, uh, Peak McTai, who's kind of the quality control manager on my work, and, uh, he has the right to veto stuff, though he pretty much never does.
Um, so there's a lot of freedom.
Like, I just need to bear in mind to not go off the reservation myself.
Just, uh, and also, like, particularly with the England shoot stuff, um, like uh, Mike and Matt.
Obviously going to say as well as Paul Vinicius, who is sort of the producer of the special effects, particularly on that side of things, and he also does the remastering.
But, uh, so it's quite collaborative, but we do have an immense amount of freedom as long as I don't go nuts.
What would you rule out?
Is there any ideas that you've had and then thought, no, I'm not doing that.
That's crazy Ooh, um...
I don't know.
See, it's more...
Does it, like, because at the end of the day, everything needs to look like it was shot in 1979 or whatever it was.
Um, so I'm like, well, I don't completely stick to that.
Like sometimes the liberator will do some rather fun manoeuvres and whatnot.
Um, I don't know, like, I don't think it's ever come up on Blake 7 before.
There's been a few things on Doctor Who, which, um, people have had to say, no, cam that down.
Um, but, uh, yeah, no, Blake Seven, no, it was pretty much been able to kind of do everything we needed to.
Like, I originally was intending to build more of the Andromedean fleet on this end, but in the end, like, I was so busy and I was able to give that off to Calum Ashley Ward from, like, 7 paper crafting to help fill out the Andromedean fleet.
So, uh, like little bits like that, like I do sort of, like, relax a bit on.
But no, for the most part, everything that we do intend to do generally is feasible.
Let's talk about that fleet because it's spectacular.
And seeing them in this guy, Callum stands up at the BSR BFI holding a sort of plastic tub, which thought the sort of thing that might contain a couple of 100 sandwiches, and instead it contains a paper battle fleet.
Wow.
And you're now seeing the boss.
Which is not my favourite.
Yeah, so this is the lead ship, the little spinny wheel on the top with CG, but the rest of the ship had just lights in it.
And this is basically the original ship, just with these wings added, and I wanted to have something that could like, it's as weird as the Liberator, effectively, but just, and it's coloured like the Andromedean scout ship.
So you've still got the little R2D 2 bits on the side.
Um, but also you've just got like some little bits of detail, just where the cannons would be.
But I just wanted to look really alien and something that would stand out in the battle in season three.
But, uh, yeah, everything else literally was, uh, a mixture of Callen's models, like his little paper ones, which were all very closely based on the original fleet.
And then I just filled everything out with bits from my, like, repertoire.
So, uh, so does he already make?
What's his backstory?
did he have to did he have them anyway?
Or does it?
No, so he, so Callum reached out at the, when season one was announced and was just like, hey, can I work on this?
This would be great.
And I was like, sure.
So initially he contributed the ship that blew up in Shadow for like the 2 frame gunship that blows up.
And then, um, Yeah, and then it just sort of, it ended up helping me out that he could do the fleece as well.
And, uh, yeah, but he's been on, um, Facebook for quite a while, and you can see a long list of his work, and obviously he had to make the new ones in the new colours, because the original Dromney and fleet was really technicolour, whereas we've unified it quite a bit.
So it's kind of bronze with like blue highlights and blue glows and stuff like that to offset the reds of the federation and the green, the white and green of liberator.
Matt telling the story of the day that they made that fleet and it was just, grab anything if it made it into a spaceship.
Itll do.
And now it's coming on Blu-ray.
I can do it all properly.
And you guys have just meticulously recreated every single one.
But like, I think that's one of the things it's like, we could just redesign the fleet.
Like, that would have been almost, like, that would have been easier than recreating the old one.
There's an element of like, oh, Blake 7, it's that crappy show with like cutlery flying around and stuff.
And at the end of the day, it's not.
Like, and even if it was like a ship thrown together quickly, that's still a design.
Like somebody was like, this, this, this, that looks like a spaceship, let's go.
And the designer and me feels the need to respect that.
So, like there is areas where we have done new ships.
Um, for example, Like this is from killer.
And this is the Federation Salvage Dressel, complete with Federation logos and stuff on it.
And a wing, you can't beat a winged spaceship, a kind of space shuttle...
That was the idea, is that it's Ian Scoon's in the front and Matterovan in the back.
But like this is literally based off the original London logo design and then we sort of morphed it into sort of using the invisible enemy ship as an inspiration.
This was actually mostly designed by Richard Ashton, who did the Liberator as well.
And even incorporated like the engines from Fire Flash from Thunderbirds in there.
Um, but, uh, but the reason we redesigned this is that it was exclusively stock footage.
So when it takes off, it's the, um, the same uh, archive shot of the rocket from redemption, not redemption, deliverance.
Oh, what a fan five, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
So, um, it was like, well, okay, well, that's a gap and that's a gap for a new spaceship.
So, uh, that's where we feel like we can kind of go off the reservation.
But if something's already there, um, we do feel the need to respect it.
Um, and to be fair, like, there's nothing wrong with the Federation fleet.
Like, well, not the Andromedean fleet.
We have done some redesigning.
And I'll show you this, but you can...
Oh, yes.
You can find out more about this next year.
Very skeletal looking.
Yeah, yeah.
So a bit, um, yeah, this is uh, this is Serbaland ship for season three, which we have done a redesign on, but it's recognisably sort of a bunch of shit, but hopefully it feels a bit more logical.
But yeah.
And then obviously another design, which I talked about earlier, was the Federation Battle Cruiser.
And this was always, always meant to be a background miniature.
Like, we've never, this was never meant to be sort of upfront and featured, but eventually, it takes the Federation silhouette.
It just makes it kind of tanky.
You've got like a little underslung bridge.
You've got these lasers that can kind of pivot around.
And my logic for this is that this is sort of equivalent, like, it's slow, but it's equivalent to a liberator.
So when the when Zen says 3 federation pursuit ships could destroy the liberator.
He's talking about these and all the tiny things that you see, the liberated blast through like a 100 of.
So, uh, just little bits like that where we can have a bit of creative freedom.
Yeah, and it's the aesthetic. it's the aesthetic that we all fell in love with that's being just souped up a bit, not reinvented.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, it does everything needs to look BBC, Blake 7.
On the flip side, the best it can be.
Yes.
I really liked the white pursuit ship in hostage.
So the big command.
Oh, it's on the shelf there.
There's a lot of, this is like, you're like the best, it's like the best hardware store ever.
You know, little old school hardware stores where you go in and you ask for a specific type of nail and the old man goes home and finds one.
What class of prescription would you like today, sir?
A white pursuit ship for this, sir.
Yeah, this was built by me and Ryan.
It's kind of hard to get good reference of what the original one looked like because...
As far as I'm aware, one of the pursuit chips got stolen, like one of the red ones.
So this got sprayed orange for season 3 and it sort of joins the ranks and then the missing pursuit ship ended up turning up at Matt's anyway.
But so this is a bit of a redesign as well, but it's got the blunted front.
It's got the weapon pods on 3 of the wings and it's called dishes instead of the small ones.
And yeah, we ended up featuring it a lot more than the original one did just because we had the model.
So it turns up in Star one, and I think it turns up in one of the other, Potentially trial, but, um, yeah.
So, but it's a, it's a cool one.
Yeah, and if, and trial is like, if, it's really, um, Silverland's, the death donuts. is really busy.
That's the one I was reaching for.
There's just stuff going on around it.
It looks like a busy.
It actually looks like a hub of an evil empire now.
Yeah, it's like Death Donut, the MILF Wheel, that kind of stuff.
There's many internal names for it.
Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's, I've left it over at ACs for the minute because I, I've moved into my, um, old house, uh, just for reasons, but like, so I've been slowly, uh, sort of finding homes for everything, but the, the, the donut is with AC at the minute.
But, uh, that was one, um, because, like, I always want to make it look busy, like, there's, there's ships docking with it.
When it gets the hole blown in the side of it, that's persistent for the rest of the season.
Yeah, that was a nice bit of a nice bit of detail, that time has passed, but they still haven't quite patched it up.
I noticed that particularly at the start of hostage.
That took me by surprise.
Even in Star one, they've put metal panels over it and there's still a ship working on it.
And like again, that's sort of with the sort of mixture of models and CG, we can do that.
Like, and also because I know that's coming, I can write that in.
And then if we use it for harvest of Kyros, um, because I think there's a question about whether it should be in harvest of Kyros, um, the, like, we can still have the marks on the side of it if we wanted to, but, uh, no, Federation Space Command, like, I love putting stuff around it and making it look like a hub of activity, and especially that shot and star one, where you've got that 32nd sort of establishing shot of space command, and you've got that wonderful, like, little, like, it's one of, Dudley Simpsons best cues from the show.
And then it just made a lot of sense to have like the entire fleet there.
So you've got that shot of those 3 pursuit chips.
They wipe the camera and then it's like, battleship, battleship, battleship, battleship, battleship, battleship.
And eventually space command comes into view.
Because that was, it was a good opportunity to be like, hey, the start of season 3 is coming.
Let's build this up.
And that makes perfect sense because Serverland's plotting her coup at the time, so she would have the whole battle fleet around her.
So one of them.
Because they do mention that like the 600 Andromedean ships and the only reason why the Federation win is because there's way more of them.
Yeah, it's just we only see the same 3 usually.
So when we're not conditioned to speak like that.
But like, hopefully that made an impact.
Like I've had a lot of good feedback about the series so far. one of the, one of the ones I, I really enjoyed was, I think I'd some said when we were talking about what might you do for for series B when you get there was Space City in Shadow, which is a beautiful model.
There's so much detail in that new model.
It's really awesome So that's a combination of Matt and myself.
So Matt had built the general.
Matt still had the plans for the old space city.
So what he did was he built the shape and like the sort of the ring and then the domes and then I replaced the domes in the end.
Um, so what's in the domes of CG and what's on the outside is practical, except for the 1st shot, which I think is all CG.
Um, but uh, even that was, there was a lot of really fun things we were able to do there because obviously with Matt's house down the road.
Um, we had, I think the invisible enemy shuttle is orbiting it.
Uh, the, uh, Matt's small space, Clavis pod is orbiting it, um, The Moonlight SY3 from Godzilla Destroyer Monsters is orbiting it.
Uh, just little, like there's so many, and also um, Richard Ashton, whenever I went to pick up the liberator, like his house is full of just models that he's built over the years.
So we took 3 or 4 of his, uh, Um, sort of spaceship, just general everymanships and filmed them.
So they're also flying in and out of Space City.
And then, yeah, I think the pod from deliverance is also there as well for like a brief shot.
But I love doing stuff like that because it's like, like that's, that's what you kind of missed from the original, is that you want it to feel like a hub of activity and all that stuff.
Do you um, do you have any leeway for adding frames?
adding a few, a 2nd or 2 or do you have to, you have to absolutely match, Marquez can't magic it, extend the soundtrack, Kenny.
It's because of the, um, uh, the way that uh, the new effects are added.
So it's this branching system where, in theory, I could go over, as long as it was within a branch, it has to match the audio effectively.
So I can go outside some of the live action stuff.
I generally don't just because, again, that's an editing decision that the director's made.
So um, on some of the Doctor Who releases, they'll do a special edition where they'll do re-edits and things of that, but we don't have that freedom on Blake 7.
Yet.
Um, I might see if I can push to do an episode in the future, but, uh, the, um, for the moment it is just uh, alternate effects for the TX version is where we're at.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you've got to slot it in precisely.
I think Horizon seemed to have a lot more cutting in that space battle at the start, but maybe that was just the impression it gave because there was so much going on.
Horizon or hostage?
Uh, yeah, we hostage.
Thank you.
Again, that's frame to frame.
It really is.
Well, it's just, I don't, again, I don't know if it's, I did reorder some of the shots, like, um, the, uh, because I actually kept, uh, the deal I sort of had with Matt, is that anything new he had shot back in the day, we would be fairly faithful to, and then, and I think that's a stock shot, I could just do what I want with.
Um, so, but there is a shot, like, it's the pursuit chips pass the liberator, and then the liberator gets hit.
So I reordered that.
So the liberator gets hit and then as it's sort of smoking, the limpasucci chips overshoot it.
That kind of thing.
Um, but yeah, no, I think...
Pretty, yeah, that the space travel is basically one-to-one.
I think we were just a bit more dynamic, so it might feel a bit faster.
Yeah, a bit more whizzing and whooshing a bit going on.
Which, so, so you've got your 2 liberators, um, that you mentioned, well, the 2 very high, high quality ones.
What's the advantage?
Can you can you can you get a faster looking swoosh with one than the other?
How did?
Um, so, uh, the reason for the new liberator basically was, um, the original liberator and as the one we used for season one, um, which was uh, donated by Phil Stevens, had a pole running up through the middle, which is obviously how they mounted it in the time.
And, um, I would have to manually paint out the poll.
Which was like a massive pain in the ass.
So, and it meant I'd have to like chop neutron blasters off and do the far neutron blasters and CG, whereas for the this one, the new liberator can be mounted from the side.
Um, it can also be disassembled for travelling and stuff.
And also, like, I was able to go back to the original, like, I got Jonathan Helm to send me all his reference from when it was delivered for spacefall, and we ignored everything but those photos.
So, uh, like nothing that's happened since or like some of the restorations to the original models, um, which have changed them quite a bit.
So that was kind of the reason for that, but also, um, and it also means we can fly underneath it and then we can change the mounting point to suit, so it's never obscured by a pole.
Um, but the small one was used for, because that one's about 2.5 foot.
Um, The small one means we can get further away from it easily.
And it does, we do do some flybys with the small one, like the ending to, uh, horizon and the ending to, um, pressure point are both the small one flying away.
And it's just because like, it's 8 foot of track with the small one looks wave longer than 8 foot of track with the big one.
And there's a there's a great fantastic shot in a voice from the past, of a tiny little one going around the gas giant planet with its rings.
Yeah.
No, again, that's, uh, I love doing stuff like that because for one, like voice in the past, those liberator shops, with not, with not, um, Dudley's best scorer, I'm gonna add, um, just slowly turning and stuff, and I just wanted to do interesting dynamic ways of doing stuff there, but also, I love making the liberator look tiny.
And like, particularly with that very 1st shot you see of it in redemption, where, like, it's in the asteroid field, and you can just about see it passing the asteroid, and then you cut to the asteroid wiping the camera, and the massive liberator goes over you.
Like, those are quite deliberate.
Like, I want space to feel big, but I want the liberator to feel bigger, but then I want Spaceworld to feel even bigger than that.
So, uh, yeah, but stuff like that.
It was like, um, I really appreciate Richard doing that extra one for me as well because, like, it makes my life a lot easier. gives you more, yeah, more choice.
Yeah.
And I mean, some of the people are falling in love with those shots in redemption, especially just of, you know, you can see the back end of it inside the power station and things like that.
That's just so, nobody would know that that was new if they didn't know the interest, like because I can spot it, but I don't know if that's because I know what to look for.
I think on the BFI screen, the new shots, even though I do add blur and grading, still aren't as blurry as the, as the original film.
But yeah, no, it just, um, that was, it was just to try and add some of the Blake 7 production design to that power station.
And because the liberator's engine is effectively a parosaurus, it kind of made sense to put them here and there and come up with new designs for them and new colours because there's obviously one in the middle of the dry dock that you see as well, which illuminates as the liberator comes in.
Yeah, and that it's all the same technology.
It's all the same world.
Yeah.
Like, if I could have, I would have got rid of the brick work, but, you know, I'm not a miracle worker.
Some things are just universal constants.
Yeah, yeah, like making new space station out of bricks, yes.
Yeah, and a little walls made out of triangles.
And yeah, red bricks occasionally.
Yeah, I noticed as well that you sort of enhanced the very bare sets in pressure point when they're in the bass as well.
So it looks a bit busier and it looks a bit more like a secret base might look if you were sort of setting that up as a trap, say, so rather than bare walls and different kind of gels over the lines.
Well, that's the thing, like, that is probably, like, I figured it's because, like, the changing the lighting setup is a very smart waiter to imply that these are different levels, but it's helping them along a bit with some rubbins and just like storage tanks and whatnot, just to kind of give it some production value.
And also like pressure points are relatively easy episode.
Like, I think there's only 2 shots of liberator in it at the very end, and everything else is just liberator beam ups and those sets.
I think it's just 12 shots and all.
So, like, it's stuff like that is quite easy to add in.
Cool.
So, look into the future.
You've already at work and on series C, as we're going to keep on calling it.
Yes, Mike did sort of reveal that at the BFI.
I mean, it didn't.
I think some of the gasps were a bit a little bit.
People were kind of joking when they were gasping.
Yeah, um yes, no, we've had a shoot.
It was really cool.
Um, there, there's big plans for season C, uh, series C.
With whatever we're calling it.
And in America, is it going to be called Paul Darrow series one, just really confused.
Blake 7, 1980.
But yeah, there's a lot of plans for it.
The entire introduction sequence. is we've not, Yeah, it's, I don't want to say too much, like, because at the minute it's just a text.
Um, animatic, but it's it's going to be hopefully pretty good.
Um, and yeah, uh, yeah, so we've started it.
I've not had the episodes come in yet or anything like that.
And there's there's other stuff I'm working on in the meantime.
I'm finishing up on the next Doctor Who set, and we're about to move on to something that's not BBC.
That's people are going to be very excited about sooner or later.
Um, but then Blake Evans back on the radar, uh, in the new year and uh, I'm looking forward to it.
Uh, this, even on the Hanslip shoot that we just had, there's some really cool stuff that Mike Tucker's done that I know people is going to blow people away.
And you've got some incredible challenges ahead.
So particularly terminal, for instance, and the very end of that, you've got a chance to go really big.
I got a chance to take a hammer to that thing.
Yes.
All the difficult...
Yeah, like it's such a delicate model and you get a bit nervous about moving it.
Um, and then, yeah, just as soon as it's free and it's like, okay, I need to make room for the Scorpio, which is going to fit in here somewhere.
Then I get to break that too.
I've seen debates raging online about the 4th series title sequence, which some people really hate.
But for me, that was the one I really started watching.
So I don't, the tees, you know, the long tracking shot of the horizontal hole and everything, of the liftoff year. is kind of how I always, that's my nostalgia.
Did one of the maximum power team say that it gave them the impression that it was like about a group of people that blew up planets?
As I said, just before we started recording, I did actually binge all of maximum power between season one and two.
So I actually was listening to some of it.
The episodes that you were discussing as I was working on the episodes.
That's lovely to hear, thank you.
But yeah, no, the season 4, like, and to be fair, and the season 3 title sequence.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, that was all a model shop shoot really, wasn't it?
So, yeah, like, I don't know if is the real answer because um, season 3 is probably going to have about 450 special effect shots.
That's not a guess.
I know that for a fact.
Like, I've not, like, I've watched season 4 recently, but, like, I've not tallied it up or anything like that.
So, There is an element, like of a season one title sequence.
The only thing I changed was Liberator.
The liberator broadly looks very good in the season 3 title sequence, and I've seen Paul's remaster of it, and it looks like, because it's on 35 millimetre film, so it looks good.
Um, So, it'll be one of those things where like, if it needs to be changed, like we might, but it already looks like, to my eye, it looks really good.
The season 41, um, there is a temptation to put the Scorpio in it somewhere.
I've seen fan ones online, which have done a good job of it.
Whether we do it or not, we will remains to be seen.
Like the focus is on the episodes and there's a lot of cool stuff to do with the Scorpio, which, because like there's a lot of shots of empty space or I think I'm thinking particularly of sand where the Scorpio is supposed to be in the atmosphere, but you only ever just see lightning in the sky.
And like you could, there's so, you could have a cool shot of Scorpio flying through green clouds like flying out the surface as it does.
So, like, I'd rather focus on that than the title sequences, which are people broadly really like, and we don't really do the end title sequences either.
Um, so, I haven't checked yet whether you matched the apparently random left or right pan of the title sequence.
That would be Paul.
Paul's exactly the kind of guy that would do that.
I watched the, I watched all the 4 seasons with AC and we would always be like, at what point does the camera operator get bored?
Like, they're obviously directing with live.
It's just like, you know what?
Screw it.
There's one episode where they've paned too quickly and then just have to stop. running out of stuff.
We haven't got to the production credits.
Yeah. slow down.
It's like we've got one take.
Let's go.
It's 5 to 10, yeah.
If your alarm would just like, print it, go.
No, we're getting a bloody overspend for that.
Yeah.
No.
No, like genuinely, I really, like, it's, like, I always had a fond soft spot for Blake 7, but, like, I'm halfway through my Blake 7 journey.
In fact, I received this 2 days ago.
You do have your own copy.
I've got my own, like, I get it after everyone else.
And it's one of those things where like, I'm so busy.
It's like you receive it and you're like, that's cool.
Shelf, when you've got 13 hours spare, yeah.
And the rest.
I did watch the documentaries, whenever we got the test sticks, the discs in, and they're very good, so I can, I'm assuming you're going to be chatting to Chris at some point anyway.
Um...
But, uh, yeah, no, the documentaries are very good and I just, it's been really nice looking at the various Facebook groups and the blue sky and Twitter groups and just seeing like people react to it because season 2 has definitely had a bigger reaction than season one.
On the effect side.
Interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
I guess it's just getting more people are paying attention, yeah.
And there were people still, there were people saying, oh, yeah, I've already got it on, with the 1st series, there was a moderate amount of, I've already got it on DVD, why bother?
But the words got round and people are taking the plunge now, I think, a bit more, a bit more readily.
Well, that's the thing.
I think, particularly Paul's restoration work, because, um, I remember, um, even the stuff that they didn't have original film elements for, like, it just looks so vibrant in colourful.
And like you compare it to some of the stuff that comes out of Doctor Who, because obviously Doc 2 is in weirdly worse shape than Blake 7.
Um, and like it is night and day. like it's crazy to see how good Blake 7 looks.
And I've been using the DVD versions to do my initial, um, sort of overview of season three.
And again, like, it's such a jump when you get those shots in from Paul.
I remember like, the Space Command model was originally used done using the DVD reference, and on that version, you can't see the red striping on the side of it.
So for season 2, I added that in because I think I got sequel gate destroy last, um, and it was 2 weeks before the deadline and by that point we had built it.
So it's nice to take that time to update the model just with the new reference.
Yeah.
But it's also interesting seeing that people didn't realise there was a white pursuit ship because of the original DVD colour master.
And the, I mean, the whistle gummage Blu-ray that came out easily, uh, is, um, uh, an amazing revelation to anyone who's, who's only seen it on DVD.
And, and do your memory does not cheat or anywhere, if you, I'm watching it as a kid, it seemed like all this really bright and sunshiny show that was shot in a heat wave and then you watch it on the DVD, which is on the masters that have been lurking for years and it's quite dreary and drab, yeah.
I think that's the thing with the collector's market these days is that, um, if you're going to do this sort of thing, like, you've got to go all out and like we've been seeing this like, uh, with, with the Thunderbirds Blu-ray that's been announced and uh, all that sort of thing and the Doctor Who stuff, it's just like, throw everything at it, because this is probably the last time it's going to get physically released.
Um, unless we come up with, I don't know, retinal entry or like, uh, yeah, that sort of thing.
Maybe on a crystal of some kind.
At some point, you know, things have got to come out of crystals.
We were promised...
It was just like everything, like evolution just goes all the way back to like Beta Max tape or something.
Yeah, it wasn't enough vinyl revival equivalent.
Yeah.
Yeah, no my own Shibidon tape, whatever it was called.
Is that what you're saying?
Like 7 it was meant to be seen on ViewMaster.
Well, thank you so much for making time to talk to us again.
No problem.
And and for everything that you've that you've that you've done to uh, to, to get it looking so, so to speak and spam.
Yeah, thanks, Chris.
Thank you.
And I look forward to hearing your review of season 5 for Blake 7, which I'm sure is coming.
But to the power, go, go. 30 seconds stressed at maximum power.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximum power.
So the only things we've not talked about so far?
Should we just quickly wrap up, then?
Yeah, I need the loop.
The only people we've not talked about so far.
German jelly.
Yeah, yeah.
I asked a question.
You asked a question.
What was your question?
I asked who was their favourite guest star, and they worked with...
Yeah, that was a really good question.
When she said, of course, I won't be here for the next one.
Yeah, what do you mean?
I know, because I'm not in it.
I'm forgetting.
Because they're always a pair.
You always go around as a person anyway.
You've got to come and do those on your own in future, yeah.
She can sit there, she can come and watch that.
Get it to come and watch animals and be now, this would have been you if you'd stayed.
Oh, no, that's the reason.
Well, me and Colin, it's the best thing we we had a great idea of employing Jan and Sally to come and do commentaries on the episodes they're not in.
Yeah, we have a glass of wine.
Jan clearly wants to drag along Josette as well.
Yeah, they'll have to divide it at these conventions, you really should come along.
Yeah, and shout out to Space Dog, of course, because my God, Space Dog, a dog, good dog, and Sally's dog came up...
I was on my leg.
I stood up and gazed at me and I straightened it up.
So I've had a very good day.
That's fantastic.
So, yeah.
I love how the dogs lie right in shot.
Right next to the that old liberator model. liberator.
So yeah, another intriguing event.
And we didn't talk about Zill.
Oh, Zill.
Yeah, she's in the she wasn't here in person.
She was a reptile. good reptile actor.
But Clare Lewis is a real star.
Wait until you see her on the documentary.
So, yeah.
And for that same time next year, I guess.
Sounds like it's happening.
Yeah.
See, yes, see, aftermath.
Anthem.
Yeah It's got to be.
Top and tails, yeah.
You can't start with PowerPlay, really.
We've got we've got a huge space battle for them to recreate.
Until then, and the mini, Blake and Jenner just...
So much to look forward to.
Brilliant.
Until next time, it's goodbye from maximum power.
Goodbye.
Bye