Doctor Who - 8th Doctor Season 3 Behind the Scenes: War comes to Gallifrey

Masters of all they survey

I apologise for the somewhat spoilery title, but it's the Time War, it's not like there wasn't going to be a load of fighting at home on Gallifrey.

The Daleks ravage the streets of Gallifrey

If you had watched my previous update video, you will already know that the first three episodes are complete. At the time of typing this (in fact, the reason I'm typing this) I have just finished the rough assembly on episode eleven, Rise of the Time Lords. The following images I am sharing with you are not final. Many of them are a work in progress as they require heavy special effects work, from the addition of smoke to laser blasts to extermination negative filters. On top of that there's a ton of sound work to do, including the arduous task of adding footstep sounds, so it's not over yet!

That's a lot of Daleks...

Emily, Romana and K-9 Mk II go searching under the Panopticon

I wonder what this could be? Hmm...

So here is an example of some greenscreen work that I shot on the 11th October. Yes, I know I finished filming months ago, but sometimes reshoots are required and in this case I fancied using a new toy on the market: The Dalek Patrol Ship and Pilot.

What you can see here is the 'almost' final image of the Dalek and ship being composited on to an animated sky background. Below this is the original image before the chroma key effect was applied. As you can see, there was only one toy to film with and as such the green screen enabled some duplication.

As ever, we have sterling work from Chris Clark in the CGI department. He has provided some fantastic aerial battle sequences between the Time Lord fleet and the Dalek saucers, as well as increasing the size of the limited physical Dalek figures.

From episode 10 (with the unrevealed title), we have some finished shots. Alas, I cannot share too much as it will spoil the episode. Practically every part of that story has something in it that is best kept as a surprise, so you'll just have to wait until the air date!

He's blowing stuff up again

The Doctor contemplates recent events

The Castellan looks over his handy work

That's it for now, folks! I shall return with more images and info as production continues. At the moment all I can say is that I am thrilled with how this series is shaping up. I wholeheartedly believe that it is the best set of episodes I have produced  with some of the best scripts I have written. I cannot wait to get them to you and hear your thoughts on them too. That's always my favourite part of the process.

Until next time!