Doctor Who
Press pack - phase two
Prosthetics and special make-up
Neill Gorton, Millennium FX - prosthetics and special make-up designer
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Doctor Who fan Neill Gorton was thrilled to re-design one of the Doctor's old enemies, living shop dummies the Autons, for episode one.
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But even the experienced 'monster maker', who has worked on blockbuster movies including Gladiator and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, was surprised by the scale of the undertaking.
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He says: "Initially I was told we needed 'some' Autons, then as things went along I found myself emailing Russell T Davies and asking incredulously 'How many...?'
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"We ended up with about 50 of them charging down Cardiff High Street blowing the place up!
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"The old Autons were pretty scary and hopefully a new generation of kids will find them scary again. I'd like to think we've taken them to another level."
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Neill says of the new series: "I was delighted when
I saw episode one because it's new, it's fresh but it's still recognisably
Doctor Who.
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"I grew up with the old series, and it's part of the reason I do this job. When it came back, I just had to be involved."
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The Autons were just the first challenge delivered to Neill by scripts which also called, for instance, for 'green, eight feet tall baby-faced monsters'.
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"The process is we'll get a script, then you read the story to see what the creatures have to do, then you start doing sketches," he explains.
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"The sketches go to Russell, production designer Edward Thomas, and whoever's in the loop on that episode, and we all chip in until we achieve the right look."
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Neill says the creature inside the Dalek went through a heavy design phase because everybody has their own opinions about what it should look like.
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"It was glimpsed in an old Tom Baker episode, but only as a blob-like being, so we were really starting from scratch, and Russell had some very strong ideas about it," he says.
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"We really went through a lot of concepts and designs, and it ended up being about 80% Russell's ideas and 20% mine. He always wins when he really wants to!"
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At least Neill had his say - often not the case on major
movies, he says: "With something like Doctor Who you're really involved,
and not just being told what to do.
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"You're pitching ideas which you know won't simply be ignored. The whole set-up is very collaborative.
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"That's why it's not just one monster or anything else
that has given me most pleasure while working on Doctor Who - it's being
part of the whole thing."
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