Picking up from last week's 'cliffhanger' Aubrey, Van and I had set off from L.A. to San Jose on an early Monday August morning. I was feeling pretty good at having hastily arranged and shot the three pre-filmed sequences here in L.A. in the 8 days we had between San Diego Comic Con and the KTEH Studio shoot. So spirits were high until 2 things happened…

First, Simon (the ninth Doctor in our "45 Years" Video) who was supposed to join us fell ill and stayed behind. Second, we got a call from Robert Kovacs, who had built the Dalek we intended to use in one of the segments. He told us that, due to a transport issue, we might not be able to bring the Dalek in studio after all.

We had a panic. Then, we decided to do our best to roll with this.

Upon arriving in San Jose, we met with our producer Stacy Bond and our infinitely patient studio director (and editor!), Rich Bartlebaugh. We got a walk through the KTEH facilities, dropped off our TARDIS walls on the sound stage, and…

proceeded to stay up until 3AM writing new material to replace the segments that had originally featured our now unavailable Dalek and our sadly under-the-weather cast member.

Luckily, it turns out we didn't up needing this fresh material — which mainly consisted of three new skits. (One of these sketches involved the use of the KTEH Phones/Pledge Drive set! Since these segments weren't used after all, they may find their way into a fan film down the line. We'll see…)

Tuesday morning we got a call from Simon. Good news! He was on the road and feeling better!

Then Robert called about a half an hour afterwards and said he'd solved the transport dilemma. The Dalek would be at the studio when we needed it!

Lack of sleep aside, all seemed well. Well…almost.

Because we didn't think we'd have the Dalek, Stacy had called in some favors including calling up former KTEH producer, Steam Punk artifact designer and longtime Doctor Who fan Merv Staton. He and his wife Judith gamely rose to the occasion, bringing in a lot of fantastic Classic Dr. Who monster busts and masks to be featured on the air.

Stanton also helped Stacy contact Mette Hedin and Bryan Little, who showed up with their fabulous Vashta Nerada costumes!

So now, with the Dalek back on the slate after all, and so much talent to choose from, what could we do?

We decided we'd try and do two additional segments with the new props/costumes to feature if we could squeeze it in. Even if they didn't make it to air, we could put them online.

As always, time in the studio has a way of dematerializing out from under us. As the evening wore on, it became clear — we would not have time to shoot everything we wanted to.

Reluctantly, we had to leave the monster masks/busts off camera. We also scrapped our original closing segment in which we had planned to talk about the history of Dr. Who on PBS. Instead, we decided to feature the Vashta Nerada costumes in an interview with Mette and Brian.

If that last segment feels little more 'loose' it's because it was! That was the 2nd to last segment we shot that evening — and the only segment we did completely on the fly, without a script. It was harrowing, but fun. (Who doesn't love a challenge?)

On another note, I'm sure that after watching my friends I host for the past few weeks, everyone has noticed that Simon, our fourth host and our potential Fifth/Ninth Doctor did not make an appearance. What happened?

Well Simon had arrived in the mid afternoon and rehearsed the first 4 segments with us. (To prove this, we have some photos! Here's one:)

Unfortunately his flu bug wasn't entirely kicked and he had a re-lapse shortly after dinner. it became clear very quickly, that he simply wasn't well enough to appear on camera. He went into a back room to sleep it off while the rest of got on with the show. (He would fully recover 2 days later). Lucky for us we had our scripts from the late night before ready to accomodate the situation.

It was very stressful of course, but we managed to pull if off between our changes and the power of the teleprompter!

I wish we would have had time to finesse a few things (i.e. having the "6th Doctor" wax lyrical about the New Series Sonic instead of the "9th Doctor" never felt right to me.) But at least we managed to get everything "in the can" with minimal overtime for the volunteer crew at KTEH.

We shot the Cyberman segment last due to the severe costume change, and I'm glad we fought to get that in before the time got totally away from us.

After wrapping, we all said our good nights, and Aubrey, Van and I went back to our hotel to pass out
on arrival. It had been a LONG day.

The following morning we stopped back at the station to grab our costumes and pack up the props and TARDIS walls. It was a relief to be finished, but a little sad in a way. I know while we were mentally reviewing what we did in our heads (and hoping that we could have gotten a second take on several of the final few segments on a certain bit or line) overall we were very happy and pleased we had dealt with the hurdles and accomplished something very few fans get the chance to do.

With these thoughts in mind, we made a few touristy stops in the area and then finally the long drive back home to our life, family and jobs. I'll have one more post here, after our final segments are on the air early next month. Tune in for those and more of the Doctor's travel's on KTEH, October 4th!

From "How Who Are You?" Winner Bob Mitsch –

I hope all the San Jose Dr. Who fans have enjoyed the start of the "How Who Are You?" marathon!

The one thing we've been asked that we didn't have time to cover in the studio was how we made our winning short entry. Well… it all started with one e-mail.

The subject line was "Dr. Who Fan Film Competition" and it simply contained a link to this blog discussing the rules for the "How Who Are You?" Competition. It was forwarded to me by my friend who cosplays the Third Doctor in our group and wishes to remain anonymous. I shall refer to him appropriately as John Smith.

He knew what with all the Who costumes and props I've assembled and my desire to eventually make a fan film, that this would be right up my alley. I told John I'd think about it. It was the day after Christmas and I was in a post-holiday meal coma, so fan films were not foremost on my mind.

Fast forward 7 weeks later with the Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles approaching quickly. My friends were lined up to play all 10 incarnations of the Doctor for a skit in the Masquerade, which you can still watch here:

as well as a photoshoot we'd planned for that Saturday.

It occurred to me to use this opportunity to shoot a fan film entry for KTEH while we were at it.
So I took inspiration from Tony Lee's rather fabulous comic book mini series Doctor Who: The Forgotten and decided to focus the short on the Doctor himself through-the-years using our costumes/props as a linking motif.

The original plan was to shoot it on green screen but this presented too many headaches in post production especially with all the curly hair wigs! So instead, I called in a favor from a friend I work with, who sampled Peter Davison's TARDIS set walls from a 1984 photo still. He recreated the roundels and column in Adobe Illustrator and printed out 4 Roundel Sheets and 1 column sheet on 8 ft by 3 ft poster stock. We had our backdrop!

We were also lucky enough to be granted the use of a convention room — dubbed the
"Cosplay Hall" for Gallifrey One cosplayers to use to set up — as both our photo studio and our
video studio. So we shot both simultaneously with many Doctors floating back and forth between our backdrops which were only about 10 feet apart. I shot the video footage, while Scott (our 1st Doctor) and his wife shot the stills. Both us were handing off camera duties when we were needed as Doctors in the other's sessions.

I had hoped to include an appropriate companion per Doctor for each sequence but had to drop this plan mainly due to lack of time (we only had about a 3 hour window to shoot everything in), but also we didn't have a companion on-hand for the 1st or 8th Doctor! (Incidentally, you can see highlight from our photo stills session here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottsebring/. All pictures by Scott and Vickie Sebring. There's a nifty photoshop of all ten of us from this session here by Kevin Coppa, our 10th Doctor.)

Because I couldn't find my tripod that weekend we were forced to shoot handheld, using a nearby chair to steady the shots as best we could. Being handheld though meant I could do some nice push ins and pull outs for some of the transitions (see the Tenth-First or Seventh to Eighth Doctor handoffs in the video so it had it's advantages.

We got everything done that day except for the three opening shots with Kevin (Our Tenth Doctor) and the TARDIS prop in the lounge. We picked that up the following afternoon and were interrupted breifly by none other than Colin Baker! He'd stopped by on request of the owner to sign the interior of the box. We were happy to let him! You can see the aftermath of that here:

here:

The video was nearly complete failing one last pick up shot which was the close up of the 8th Doctor's hand sliding down the 9th Doctor's jacket. When we shot this at Gallifrey, I goofed on my continuity and had my friend use his right hand when in the master shot he'd used his left. So a week after Gallifrey, I had "John" hold up one of the sections of paper in my front door patio (which simulated the lighting we had best) and our 8th Doctor (now out of costume but off camera) re-do the motion but with the correct hand.

I cut the video together in a week or so. I first cut our 'finished' version which runs about 3:18. Then I began the process of shaving it down and getting it down to the final 2:00 minute competition length as well as adding sound effects for the TARDIS, and Sonic Screwdrivers. Although I temp tracked the video with the Orbital version of the Dr. Who theme, for entry I had to adhere to the rules of the contest on copyright, so I began searching for public domain music to score it with. No
luck!

Finally Scott, who has a musical background, graciously stepped in and provided an original score in the vein of Dr. Who for not one but *both* lengths. I was very pleased since he knocked it out of the park. Scott is also responsible for some clean up work on the video and the end logo/graphic
design. (Saying his help was invaluable is an understatement.)

Then came entering the video by the March deadline, the inevitable waiting and of course the excitement of seeing the other entries posted as well…

I'll pick up on this process in my next post.

In the meantime, let me mention two things about the Sonic Screwdriver that was edited out for time on tonight's segment:

First, The Pertwee/Baker prop was originally used in Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds movie for one of the close up shots. It doesn't have the emitter head but it's hard to miss:

The BBC acquired the Century 21 prophouse and just reused the prop for Jon Pertwee. Second, before it was modified for use in the Thunderbirds movie, that same prop was believed to be a 1960's Activator tool use by Chiropractors in England. So it's likely the
Doctor did in fact use a real Doctor's tool! Imagine that.

That's all for now. Keep watching Dr. Who on KTEH because we have some neat props we'll be featuring on air! I'll be back to post next week with part 2 of our journey through the "KTEH How Who Are You?" Contest.

I'll get in touch with our winners and then be back here with more information about when our marathon will be taping, and more importantly when it will be airing.  I'm VERY EXCITED that we'll be producing something with the winning team (hope you hung onto those set pieces!) to show on KTEH.

In the meantime, I'll be posting the promos here.  Just to add a little drama, I'll post one each day — today, Thursday and Friday.  So you'll have to remember to check back, heh.

We'll start with the promo that features the winning fan film. Enjoy!

The Promos are on the air, featuring the creative imaginings of six would-be Time Lords — each vying for the chance to host their very own Doctor Who Marathon on KTEH-TV. Time to seek an answer to the the burning question:

WHO is MOST Who?

We've posted the fantastical "How Who Are You" entries in the order received, followed by the "Exhibition Only" submissions. VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE at the bottom of the page!

COMPETITORS

#1: "Bubblebot" by Robert Patton:

#2: "Message to the Past" by Phillip Stamper:

#3: "Doctor Who: 45 Years and Beyond" by Bob Mitch:

#4: "The Burning Giraffe" by Michelle Elbert:

#5: "Doctor Who: The Running Man" by James Mah:

#6: "Emma Saves The Past" by Vince Barnett:

VOTE HERE!!! Then see the FOR EXHIBITION ONLY submissions below the poll.

BUT LOOK — more viewing excitement! Here are the "For Exhibition Only" Submissions.

For Exhibition Only: "The Doctor's Destiny" by Jay Tyson

For Exhibition Only: "Eternity Burns" by David Nagel

Thanks everyone for the great submissions!!! Good Luck!!!

Progress! At last we are putting together the captivating on-air promos. (We will definitely announce it here, before they go on the air.) Then the next step: voting!

Now that the entries are in, it seems the number one question on everyone's minds is: when? will? they? air???

As it happens, this is a question that cannot be answered. That is — until we have produced the segments/promos that will feature them. And our first step in getting that to happen: we must gather the videos.

I've used file-sharing services (like You-Send-It) with mixed results, and we do have an
FTP site that we could use if we really needed to. But…I think the easiest
solution would be to upload videos to Vimeo, so they can be downloaded by KTEH's
editor.

The file you uploaded to YouTube should be fine for Vimeo if it is under 500mb.
Most h264 mp4s or movs will be well under 500mb, even at HD resolutions.

Does this solution work for most people? If so, I'll set up a page and send you each the password.

OH — and rest assured…NOTHING will be on the air until you've been notified. (That's the whole point right?)

It cannot go unmentioned that we are beside ourselves with excitement over the fantastic "How Who Are You?" entries. 

If you've submitted a video into the competition, you may be wondering what's next. Rest assured, your submissions have not gone missing or tumbled into E space.

We'll be featuring them here over the next couple of weeks, before the official voting period begins. In fact, we may be getting in touch with you personally for a little more information about how you did what you did.

P.S. It has crossed our minds to consider slightly extending the deadline. This would mean those of you who've already entered would have time to tweak your entries until they are absolutely perfect. (Or, if you're feeling prolific, you could make a second entry.) Those who didn't hear about the contest until like, a day or two before the deadline, would still have a chance to participate. It might be a chance for everyone to travel back a week and set things right.

Let us know what you think. We're especially interested in hearing from those who've already entered. Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

If you're looking for some Music for your Video that isn't covered by some-else's copyright then why not use the Music track that I'm uploading here. This piece is used on the KTEH DVD "Whos Talking". When we created this DVD release we had to replace all BBC copyright material that had previously been used in the on-air version. I hope you like this composition which I think has a mystery about it.

Who_ish Music

If you'd like a higher resolution version, just ask and I'll see what I can do.

-Cheers, Merv

It's a fine example (don't you agree?) of what you can do in just a couple of hours!

If this oodtastic video inspires you, you have only to master your time (and the relative dimensions in space) and create your own two-minute original Doctor Who mini-episode for the "How Who are You?" competition. Because, you know, the sooner you get your entry to us, the sooner we'll post it on the blog, and the closer you'll be to winning a chance to host your very own Doctor Who marathon on KTEH. And Who doesn't want that? Hahaha. See complete details here.

Also! Check back in on The Time Space Visualiser early next week because we'll be posting some royalty-free Doctor Who music you can use in your entry!

Cheers!
Stacy