The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 13 - Excerpt - The Robot Maker interview

THE FORGOTTEN DOCTOR, 2008, Titan Books, London - Edited by Barry Entridge

Excerpts from Interview with Ian Walsh, Production Designer:

.....So one day, after the big dust up, after Barry (Letts) calls me up... What? I have no idea what it was about. The blokes up at that level, they were having rows all the time about everything. They mostly weren't sharing it with us, and when you did hear about it, well you just didn't want to be around. So anyway, the big row, they actually shut the production down, we all go locked out. Lots of rumours. I just didn't want to know.

So, where was I?

Right.

Barry calls me up and he says, "We need to build a robot for 'Vienna, 1913'"

Well, I ask him to repeat it. We're in the middle of Vienna, 1913. I'm already doing design work for Murder in Space.

So he says, "Yes, its for Vienna."

So then I say, "Well, that's a short window. How much time do we have?'"

He says "A few days, maximum a week." 

You can hear ice just rolling out of the phone.

So then I say, 'Well, how much money do I have to work with?' 

And he says, 'You have no money.'

Just like that, and I'll tell you, I know I'm in trouble.

But I have no choice, so I say, "What kind of Robot is this?"

And he says "I don't care!" 

And he hangs up.

So no time, no money. Basically, at that point, you are stuck with spray painting an extra in silver and hoping he doesn't die of aluminum poisoning before you get your shot. I didn't have the scratch to buy a halloween costume. But I know that if I give them tosh, they're going to be having a row on me.

There's just no way to win.

So, I drop everything. Call in the lads, and I say "It's really hit the fan this time!"

We start brainstorming, putting up sketches for cheapest, best looking bots I than think of. All over the place. I mean, 1913? Who is building a robot in 1913? Who built it? What did they build it for? Is it a clockwork man? An automaton? Or alien? Or ancient astronauts? Is it a big scowling monster like that Bela Lugosi thing? We have no idea. We're just sketching out anything we can think of and trying to figure out how we're going to make it and not have it look like utter shiite.

Around noon, this memo comes down from Ian. About a page, and half of this is 'put this in the script' and 'put that in the script' and 'change that.' Still not a clue as to where this robot comes from.

But I read through it, and I read 'metamorphic robot'? What's that? No clue. But I keep reading, it changes its features like clay, it impersonates people. Calls it a 'golem.'

Aha! I'm thinking to myself. A clay robot? A golem! Not bad. Like that old jewish movie, the Golem of Prague. I think the Nazi's burned it, but I've seen stills. Basically, a medieval looking Frankenstein, page boy haircut, balloon pants. That's not going to go. But it's maybe the direction we look at. So I whip off a set of sketches, all the way from straight golem, to kind of a shabby version of that thing from Fantastic Four, what's he called? Thing? Really? They spent a lot of time working up his name I see. How about that. Send them up.

Forty five minutes later, I get a call from Ian. He goes "What the F... Are you doing, you son of a bitch," I swear to god.

So Golem doesn't fly.

I say, "What do you want?' And he starts telling me all about living metal robots, like from terminator two. I'm thinking 'F— me! Yeah, sure, I'll give him Terminator 2 robot - give me 45 million pounds and a year and a half, I'll give you your f—ing living metal silver terminator."

But what I've got to work with is six pence I nicked from my mom, and all the spare fur that my dog has shed. I'm trying to explain this, and he's going ballistic.

So I says "F— you! I'll give you a robot, It'll be a terrific robot, it'll be a better robot than you deserve you c–nt. But you don't tell me how I'm going to do it. I'll give it to you, you'll like it, and that'll be that!!!"

And he says 'Okay.' Just like that.

So then I say 'Just answer me one question to help me out like a good lad - in the story, who built this thing?'

And he doesn't know. They haven't decided. Whatever it looks like.

Unbelievable!

We spend the rest of the day, a whole day, getting nowhere. Then we hit the pub and start drinking and kicking it around. Any ideas.

The Terminator robot, what's its defining quality? I mean, aside from being silver, and spearing things with its fingers and taking peoples appearance - in it's own form, doesn't look like a robot, doesn't look like anything. It's got no face. Okay, we can do that. No face, break out the fencing masks, theres' stuff you can do with that..

Vienna, 1913, this is the story about Hitler right. So it's a Nazi robot. I know, Nazi's are later. But you know, the whole Nazi aesthetic. Black and red, all that sexy S&M fetish stuff, jack boots, leather. So it's a robot that looks like an SS officer without a face. That's what we came up with. So we had the sketchpad out, we were drawing all sorts of things, designs, red piping, silver highlights, wetsuits. We had to be cheap you know. No money, so we were looking at things and thinking, how can we take something off the shelf and make it look like this.

It didn't have to look mechanical. That was such a relief. We were talking Terminator 2, what's that thing called anyway? T-1000? You're kidding. Terrible name. Took them all week to come up with that? 45 million pounds and that's what they came up with? Just goes to show you. Anyway, no seams, no joints, just very smooth. We could have that of course - seams, joints. I should show you the production sketches, we were drawing rivets on it (laughs). But we weren't wedded to that stiff armor thing.

What was I on about? Shiny. Silver. Can you believe it. Silver robot on the Telly. Nightmare to light, throw all the colour balances off. Same with black, we'd need to use a deep gray. But you know, you could tart it up with some proper highlights. Why not make the robot leather? Or PVC? Get some shine?

That's my big inspiration, we take our SS officer faceless robot, and we shrink wrap it, so it's covered with plastic and shiny and it looks F–ing amazing. Bargain basement T-1000, and you could just barely see under the latex pvc , gave it depth. Nice effect, very nice effect.

Of course we had to poke air holes so the stuntman could breath (laughs)

And if he moved more than a couple of minutes the pvc would lift and separate and all come apart. (Laughs). It would look like hell, and then there was no way to fix it up, you'd have to do the whole thing over.

So what we did. Oh, this brings me back. We'd do a bunch of stuntmen. Two or three, a dozen if we needed it, and we'd bring them to the set on a dolly, stand them up in the corner like mannequins. They didn't dare move. They couldn't move. We'd wheel them over to do a take or two, that was all it could hold up for. Then wheel over the next bloke.

We got it done. And it didn't cost forty million pounds and take two years. It cost a wicked hangover. Crazy times, hey?

I suppose that's what gave them the idea though....

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Walsh's story, while colourful, is incorrect. The introduction and design of the robot in Vienna, 1913, took place in April/May, 1991.  Terminator 2 was released in July 1, 1991, in the United States and on August 16, 1991, in the United Kingdom.  Although after the fact, comparisons were common, the Terminator 2 robot could not have been the inspiration for the Vienna Robot. The best explanation for this anomaly is that Levine and Walsh were exposed to and inspired by computer morphing demos that were loosely similar.