=======================================================================
Original 'Sloth' Transcription from http://www.hwcn.org/~an933
=======================================================================
This file was created without the consent or knowledge of the
Audio/Visuals team.
=======================================================================
/\
/ \UDIO
\ / ISUALS
\/
AUDIO ADVENTURES IN TIME AND SPACE
TRANSCRIPTION: "CLOUD OF FEAR: ON-TAPE"
PART: 1 OF 1
DURATION: 13:13
=======================================================================
THIS IS A ROUGH VERSION OF THIS DOCUMENT. IF YOU HAVE A COPY OF THIS
PLAY, IT IS REQUESTED THAT YOU LISTEN WHILE READING THIS TRANSCRIPT
AT LEAST ONCE, NOTING ANY ERRORS WHICH YOU MAY COME ACROSS.
=======================================================================
MUSIC: ?
GARY RUSSELL: Uhh, what can you say about "The Cloud of Fear"?
WILLIAM BAGGS: Well, I can say that, first of all, it was initially
called "Catacombs of Terror".
NICK BRIGGS: Then it was going to be called "The Psionivores"...
WILLIAM BAGGS: And then I come up with...
NICK BRIGGS: ...But it was difficult to...
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah.
NICK BRIGGS: ...fit on the tape cover, I think.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah. Very, uh, interesting to record that one, [as the
? ?].
NICK BRIGGS: Yes!
WILLIAM BAGGS: We actually had... some noises, and that whole...
NICK BRIGGS: There was a...
BOTH: ...very long speech.
NICK BRIGGS: Yes.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Which we did about ten times, in the end, I think.
NICK BRIGGS: Yeah. We eventually had to pick up in the middle of it,
because... it... it was very long, and very intense, and
I was [ILLUSTRATING THE TECHNIQUE] right up close to the
microphone, you know, having this terrible problem...
WILLIAM BAGGS: Nobody could make a noise.
NICK BRIGGS: That's right. And it... it was like my... the workings
of my mind and... exactly. Either I'd fumble a word,
and, you know, sort of start moaning into the
microphone, or, if I didn't fumble a word, then, you
know, someone would drop something, and whatever. Uh.
You know. Uhhhhh, and we'd have problems like that. So,
that was a bit of a nightmare to do. And, uh, there
was... there was pressure of time throughout, wasn't
there?
MUSIC: BRIDGE.
GARY RUSSELL: Now, with the next play, ummm, you... you... you broke
tradition, and you changed the [car?]. And, instead of
recording it down here in sunny Southampton, you shot up
to wet and windy South West London.
NICK BRIGGS: [Belham]!
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yes.
GARY RUSSELL: [Belham]: gateway to the South.
NICK BRIGGS: [LAUGHS.]
GARY RUSSELL: This was for... "Shadow World", I believe it's called.
By two new writers. Where did you find them from?
WILLIAM BAGGS: Rhys [was from] up north, I think it was.
NICK BRIGGS: Yes. I think so. Christopher Rhys and Emma Lindley.
BEGIN EXCERPT FROM "SHADOW WORLD"
ASKRAN: You do like me, don't you?
WOMAN: Perhaps. I haven't quite made up my mind yet.
ASKRAN: I like you, very much.
WOMAN: That's obvious. But I still haven't decided about you,
little boy.
ASKRAN: Then let me help you.
WOMAN: You're very amusing, you know.
ASKRAN: Let's play a game.
WOMAN: [LAUGHS.]
ASKRAN: Do you agree?
WOMAN: All right. But what game do you want to play?
ASKRAN: Can't you guess?
WOMAN: Hide and seek! How delightful!
ASKRAN: So you'll play?
WOMAN: Yes, but I warn you I'm very good.
ASKRAN: I'll hide first.
WOMAN: I'll count to twenty-five. Ready? One. Two. Three.
Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
SOUND: HER COUNTING IS OBSCURED BY A BRIEF SOUND WHICH FEATURES
BACKWARD VOICES.
END EXCERPT FROM "SHADOW WORLD".
WILLIAM BAGGS: The base of it, is a rather... is a rather fantastic...
a rather wonderful script. It's not a... a brilliant
story, but the lines are something to be...
NICK BRIGGS: Hmm.
GARY RUSSELL: It's... it's very much a *character* story, isn't it?
NICK BRIGGS: It is!
GARY RUSSELL: It's got two ce.... Apart from the Doctor and Greg...
NICK BRIGGS: Hm.
GARY RUSSELL: It's got two very, sort of, central characters to it.
NICK BRIGGS: I... I think....
GARY RUSSELL: Miranda, and... and what's the villian?
WILLIAM BAGGS: Askran.
NICK BRIGGS: Askran, yes!
GARY RUSSELL: Yes.
NICK BRIGGS: Nasty piece of work, him! Uh, it... it's mm... it's
more about Askran and Miranda than it is about Greg and
the Doctor...
GARY RUSSELL: Mmm.
NICK BRIGGS: ...quite honestly. I... In a way, I, uh, I liked it and
disliked it. My ego diskliked it because I wasn't in it
that much.
OTHERS: [LAUGH]
NICK BRIGGS: And when... when I did say something, it ww...wasn't
particularly interesting. It was the... the usual
kind of Doctor facing up to his enemy... uh, sort of
line. Not a... not a... a rr... really a new angle on
that kind of thing. But, I liked it very much, because
Askr.... It was mainly about Askran. He's the star of
this show, really. And, uh, and for that reason, it'll
be a very very interesting play, I think.
GARY RUSSELL: It also gave you scope moving up to London to record it
for, like, a whole new [rep] of actors to come in.
NICK BRIGGS: Hmm.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Hmm. Initially, I used to do a whole lot of the
casting.
NICK BRIGGS: Hm.
WILLIAM BAGGS: And that's because I think we...we didn't... we...we
were all...
NICK BRIGGS: You were power mad.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yes.
ALL: [LAUGH]
WILLIAM BAGGS: No. Besides the power madness, uh, I'd... time was...
uh... was always against us. That was, again, my
prob... my fault. I didn't allow enough time for
rehersals and things like this, but we... we're now
learning from our mistakes, and now, I think it's... I
leave it up to the director to... so that it's... it's
not me, sort of, trying to wrack my brains, and
eventually using the same people... well, people that
have been previously used. It's the director I want now
to bring in... his people, or her people...
NICK BRIGGS: Hmm.
WILLIAM BAGGS: ...depending on who directs it.
NICK BRIGGS: Hm.
GARY RUSSELL: After "Shadow World", comes a story called "Maenad",
which is written by the person that wrote "The Space
Wail", Warren Martyn.
[NOTE: WARREN MARTYN IS GARY RUSSELL'S PSEUDONYM.]
NICK BRIGGS: Ah, yes!
GARY RUSSELL: How did you get him back again? After he did the
pilot, it's a long gap... between his first one, and...
and him coming back again.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah. Well, my excuse was I wanted another character to
come in here.
NICK BRIGGS: And Warren's the man!
WILLIAM BAGGS: Warren's the man, you see.
NICK BRIGGS: [LAUGHS.]
WILLIAM BAGGS: Warren introduced Greg and Nadia very very well, I
thought, and uh, so I've got, uh, Ria, the new
companion that comes in in this story.
GARY RUSSELL: What can you tell us that we can look forward to about
Ria?
WILLIAM BAGGS: Well, my quote is that uh...
NICK BRIGGS: [LAUGHS]
WILLIAM BAGGS: she's a... a fine mixture between Frankenstein's
monster and a test tube baby, without the bolts or
the... the nappies. Um....
ALL: [LAUGH]
GARY RUSSELL: Fine.
WILLIAM BAGGS: [CLEARS HIS THROAT.]
GARY RUSSELL: Now explain that.
NICK BRIGGS: It's very good. Yes.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Well...
NICK BRIGGS: He ought to write a story.
GARY RUSSELL: If "Cloud of Fear" concentrated very much on the... the
darker subtler sides of, sort of, evil, and... and...
attacks on the mind, "Maenad" goes completely to the
opposite end and is... is a story about a man who is
*totally* and utterly insane. And he's... while he's
not your typical melodramatic "Doctor Who" villian, if
the whole thing is set in a lunatic asylum, do you feel
that you're possibly getting too far away from... your
public, your... your buying audience's...
WILLIAM BAGGS: No.
GARY RUSSELL: ...normal conception of what is "Doctor Who". Bearing
in mind that a story set in a lunatic asylum where
everyone in it is basically round the twist, and one or
two of them are *extraordinarily* violent as well. Um.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Well, you can... you can parallel this one to
"Terminus", in a sense, if you like. In fact, it's a
similar idea, umm, you know the...
GARY RUSSELL: Instead of being diseases...
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah.
GARY RUSSELL: ...of the body, you've got diseases of the mind?
WILLIAM BAGGS: Mmm. But, no I.... That doesn't bother me. Um.
NICK BRIGGS: [OVER WILLIAM BAGGS] I mean, our declared aim is... is
to try and do someth... I mean, it's audio, not....
WILLIAM BAGGS: [] stuck to that format of "Doctor Who", itself. Um,
what's the point of copying "Doctor Who"? What's the
point of copying "Doctor Who", um, if you're trying to
be different? You're trying to, sort of, give a new
idea...
NICK BRIGGS: Hmmm.
WILLIAM BAGGS: ...to our listening public, if you like.
NICK BRIGGS: Yeah, well... well...
WILLIAM BAGGS: Um.
NICK BRIGGS: I suppose we're trying to do things that... that they
don't do on television.
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah, and with audio []....
NICK BRIGGS: The first three as you rightly pointed out, were very
much, uh, typical "Doctor Who" stories, and they... they
did all the same things that, uh... that the television
programme does, I suppose, but, uh, I think, certainly
with something like "Conglomerate", we're... we're
trying to explore some new ground, really.
GARY RUSSELL: Mm.
NICK BRIGGS: I think there's always room.... I'm sure this has been
said by other people.... there's always room for a
traditional story now and again: a good... a good
ripping yarn, a good runaround, you know running down
the famous corridors, being pursued by the famous
monsters. There's always room for that kind of....
GARY RUSSELL: Is that, possibly Nick, how you would describe Samual
Flint's, um, story - the one that follows - "The Mutant
Phase", which, once again, sees the Daleks back again?
[NOTE: SAMUAL FLINT IS ONE OF NICK BRIGG'S PSEUDONYMS.]
NICK BRIGGS: That's right. Yes, uh [CLEARS HIS THROAT.].... Yes, is
the answer to that.
GARY RUSSELL: [LAUGHS]
NICK BRIGGS: I... I would see it as...as a very typical adventure
story.
[BEGIN EXCERPT FROM "THE MUTANT PHASE]
SOUND: THE HUM OF DALEK MACHINERY.
LEUM1: What are you doing, Leum?
LEUM2: We're guarding the genetic code transmitter room.
LEUM1: What for? Haven't you killed the intruders?
LEUM2: No.
LEUM1: Then I must inform Dalek Control.
LEUM2: No!
LEUM1: It is my duty. Stand aside please.
LEUM2: Our duty is to Tolem and the Doctor.
LEUM1: The Doctor?!? Leum, my fellow, surely you know the
Doctor is dead.
LEUM2: He is *not* dead. He has been sent by Tolem to carry
out his will.
LEUM1: Oh, I don't believe this! Out of my way!
LEUM2: There are *new* imperatives! The Daleks want only to
destroy us.
LEUM1: The Daleks are our masters! They destroy only traitors
to the Dalek cause. I am proud to serve them. Now
stand aside!
LEUM2: You must not report this. It is Tolem's will that we
serve the Doctor.
[END EXCERPT FROM "THE MUTANT PHASE.]
GARY RUSSELL: Another important thing about "The Mutant Phase" is -
as with all "Doctor Who" - in comes the inevitable cast
change. And, it's the bye-bye Greg story.
NICK BRIGGS: Something fundamental in... in what we asked Samual...
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah.
NICK BRIGGS: ....for was...was to find a way, perhaps...
WILLIAM BAGGS: Yeah.
NICK BRIGGS: ...a novel way of getting rid of a companion.
WILLIAM BAGGS: That's right. Yeah.
NICK BRIGGS: And it is, I think it's a novel way. I don't think it's
been done on television.
WILLIAM BAGGS: No.
NICK BRIGGS: We didn't want... we didn't want him to get married...
WILLIAM BAGGS: A change, yeah.
NICK BRIGGS: ...or whatever. And we didn't want him to die, either.
GARY RUSSELL: Cause you've already done that with Nadia.
NICK BRIGGS: That's right. We don't want to get a reputation for
killing everyone, do we?
ALL: [LAUGH]
NICK BRIGGS: Or maybe we do, I don't know.
MUSIC: ?
GARY RUSSELL: Now, then. Your company is called "Audio Visuals".
So... we turn round and we say, at the end of your
fifteen plays, or however more your three seasons of
"Doctor Who" audio plays - are we going to see "Doctor
Who" transfered to video?
[AN EXCERPT FROM THE FILMING OF "GENTAFILM", CONCERNED
MAINLY WITH THERE NOT BEING ENOUGH SMOKE ON THE SET.]
NICK BRIGGS: [VOICEOVER] Well, the answer to Gary's question, about
whether Audio Visuals are going to do a "Doctor Who"
film, or not, ummm, well I think it's "no", um... but we
have for the last - I don't know - six weeks, or so,
been doing uh, a video, and, uh, it's not a "Doctor Who"
video, but it is based on uh, a science fiction sort of
subject. And I have with me here, the um - I don't know
how she'd describe herself. Uh, production associate?
Designer? How would... it's [Flo Whitlock]. How would
you describe yourself, Flo?
FLO WHITLOCK: Basically, general dog's body, I should think.
NICK BRIGGS: [LAUGHS] Well, uh, you've brought along with you one of
the, um, uh more fascinating, uh, members of the cast,
uh well, it's only a *bit* of that member of the cast.
It's one of the masks for the alien creatures...
FLO WHITLOCK: Yeah.
NICK BRIGGS: ...who appear in the film.
FLO WHITLOCK: Yes. It's, uh... it's uh... a full-face... full-head
mask, and, um... you don't see any of the actor, apart
from his eyes, which are keyed-in with make-up.
NICK BRIGGS: [GIVES A LITTLE LAUGH.]
FLO WHITLOCK: So, uh...
NICK BRIGGS: Wha... how, um... what did you base the design on? How
did you go about designing them?
FLO WHITLOCK: Well, from the [pro's] breakdown, uh that was provided
by the writer, I used his description of the alien, and
made several sketches, and... worked from those sketches
in clay to produce a three-dimensional model. Um, which
I then cast in latex to show to the producer... the...
Bill. Um, and then he liked the design, so I produced a
life-sized head of the two actors who were playing the
aliens.
[BEGIN SECOND EXCERPT FROM THE FILMING OF "GENTAFILM".]
NICK BRIGGS: Uh... Uhhhh...
VOICE: Smoke! Smoke!
FLO WHITLOCK: Smoke! [SHE BEGINS TO COUNT OFF THE NUMBER OF SECONDS
THAT THE SMOKE MACHINE IS ON.] One hundred. Two
hundred.
GARY RUSSELL: [MUFFLED BY A MASK.] Working with Draskin, is like
working with an old *ashtray*.
SEVERAL: [LAUGH]
FLO WHITLOCK: Scene hundred and eleven. Shot one. Take one.
NICK BRIGGS: Sound engineer, Nicholas Layton, talks about the video
project, "Gentafilm".
NICK LAYTON: You know, when I'd seen them, I thought we were going to
get, sort of, bits of uh, [OBSCURED BY NICK'S VOICEOVER]
I *really* thought we were going to get something, you
know, and when I saw them, I thought, "Oh! Aren't they
good!".
FLO WHITLOCK: Ha!
NICK LAYTON: I really did, didn't I?
FLO WHITLOCK: Did you?
NICK BRIGGS: What...
NICK LAYTON: The ones for the [].
NICK BRIGGS: What about the problems of, uh, I mean, the... the
two actors who played the aliens, uh... I thought they
were fantastic...
NICK LAYTON: Yeah, oh they were great.
NICK BRIGGS: I really enjoyed Barry.
NICK LAYTON: Oh, Barry. I loved Barry's performance, because...
NICK BRIGGS: Of course, Barry's going to be in one of the audio plays
soon.
NICK LAYTON: Yes. Yes. He's... he's playing a fascinating character
in... in a forthcoming story, which I won't say too much
about, Nick.
BOTH NICKS: [LAUGH]
NICK BRIGGS: I spoke to, uh, uh Flo[ra] about the... the problems the
actors had, uh, in the masks. What would you say about
that in terms of sound, especially?
NICK LAYTON: We had to, uh, re-dub, uh all the sequences in... that
were taken at [East Point], because, unfortunately, the
masks... just talking through them... the sound was no
good, so that was... that was a sort of all-night
session. When it came to re-dubbing it - I... I've got to
say this, actually - I took, um, I took the rushes,
including the re-dubbed material, to a job interview
that I was... I was... I was going for the job of
videotape editor, and uh... the guy compared - well I
compared - the scene un-dubbed, and the scene dubbed...
[BEGIN EXCERPT FROM THE FILMING OF "GENTAFILM".]
[THE SOUND IS CLEARLY SUB-STANDARD.]
FLO WHITLOCK: Scene one-oh-six, shot one, take two.
SFX: CLAPBOARD.
DIRECTOR: Action.
DRASKIN: Vodro!
VODRO: Yes, Draskin?
NICK BRIGGS: [VOICE OVER] Here is the scene in question, in its
original form; complete with unwanted extraneous
background music, bad acoustics, and microphone rumble.
DRASKIN: Oooohhh when you've quite finished, Vodro, I believe I
feel phase two coming on. Send out the dissemination
signal, will you?
NICK BRIGGS: [VOICE OVER] And here is the re-dubbed version; crisp,
clear, and ready to be voice-effected.
[AS NICK DESCRIBES, THE VOICE IS A CLEAR IMPROVEMENT ON
THE ORIGINAL VERSION.]
DARSKIN: Oooohhh when you've quite finished, Vodro, I... fee...
feel phase two coming on. Ahhhh. Send out the
dissemination signal, will you?
[BACK TO THE INTERVIEW.]
NICK BRIGGS: And finally, um, when, uh, when's this film going to
materialize?
NICK LAYTON: Well, we were going to release it in September, but,
um...
FLO WHITLOCK: Why? Wasn't the original plan to enter it for, um, a
young film-making competition, I believe?
NICK LAYTON: Yes.
NICK BRIGGS: Nobody told me.
FLO WHITLOCK: [LAUGHS]
NICK LAYTON: Uh, for BBC Two, apparently. Um, I think if we... if...
if we release it in December, we get a better deal that
way. But, uh, it's going to be on-show, hopefully, at,
uh, Southampton Park Hotel! And, uh, and available at
your video stockists soon.
NICK BRIGGS: [LAUGHS]
FLO WHITLOCK: In general release around the country by...
NICK LAYTON: That's right.
FLO WHITLOCK: ...by Christmas.
NICK BRIGGS: Oh, fantastic.
NICK LAYTON: If only....
NICK BRIGGS: [LAUGHS] Thank you very much.
NICK LAYTON: Thanks.
MUSIC: [UP AND OUT]
- end -