Christian Cawley's Blog, page 261

The Doctor Who Experience Wants A Marketing Manager

Danny_Weasel is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

How many of you out there have dreams of being involved in your favourite show? If you are one of the hundreds now screaming YES! at your monitor/phone/tablet (and yes, I am one of them too) then you may be interested to know that the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff is looking for a Marketing Manager.

The role is newly created and if you get the job you will be:  “responsible for developing awareness of the Doctor Who Experience, its visitor offers, additional events and secondary business areas across its main market segments.” Basically what that means is you will be in charge of drumming up extra business and improving awareness of the Experience as well as coming up with new ways to get it noticed by a wider variety of people.

Sound like your kind of thing? If you’re still screaming YES! at your monitor/phone/tablet (and again I am still doing this too) then see if you fit the description of their ideal candidate and apply at the link below.

Do you think being a fan would be preferable in a role like this or do you think a purely business background would be better suited? Do you think that the need to have a marketing manager is a sign that things need a bit of a kick over at the Experience? Leave your comments below and share your feelings on the matter.

Oh, and if you do get the job don’t forget where you heard about it from in the first place and score me some freebies yeah? Worth a try.

The post The Doctor Who Experience Wants A Marketing Manager appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Have You Played 2048: Doctor Who Edition?

Rebecca Crockett is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

By now, many of you have seen the online brain teasing, time wasting, logic puzzle that is 2048. Even more of you have likely seen a version of it on your mobile device of choice. 

‘Tis a simple thing – move the tiles on the board with your arrow keys, combining like numbers. When two are joined, the tile becomes their sum. So 2 + 2 = 4, 4 + 4 = 8, 8 + 8 = 16, and so on. Keep moving tiles and combining numbers higher and higher until your whole board is full.

Simple yet addictive! The game taps into your logic centers as you plot the strategy you need to keep putting matching tiles together.

The folks at Us vs Th3m have now Whovian-ised the game!

When two of the same Doctor combine, they become the next Doctor! Two First Doctors become the Second, two Second Doctors become the Third Doctor, and so on…

The Blinovitch Limitation Effect at work perhaps?

See which Doctor you can get to!

This writer has only personally gotten to the Ninth Doctor…

The post Have You Played 2048: Doctor Who Edition? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Panini Launches The Essential Doctor Who

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Following the success of 2013’s 50th anniversary specials, Panini’s bookazines continue with a new title: The Essential Doctor Who. Highlights of the first edition include a brand new Cyberman, specially illustrated for this issue by their original designer Alexandra Tynan.

The Essential Doctor Who: Cybermen is a lavish 116-page guide featuring details of every Cyberman episode. There are exclusive new interviews with scriptwriters Neil Gaiman, Gareth Roberts and Marc Platt, choreographer Ailsa Berk and four of the actors who have played Cybermen. The publication also includes archive interviews with Cyberman creators Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, as well as features on comics, novels, audio stories and Davis’ unmade serial The Genesis of the Cybermen.

Editor Marcus Hearn was the author of the New York Times bestseller Doctor Who: The Vault. “Our writers include the estimable Andrew Pixley and our art editor is the brilliant Peri Godbold, so we obviously share our DNA with Doctor Who Magazine,” he says. “But there are a lot of new voices in there as well, and I hope we’ve been able to preserve DWM‘s authoritative tone while creating our own identity.”

The Essential Doctor Who: Cybermen is on sale now at WH Smith and newsagents, price £9.99.

The post Panini Launches The Essential Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Director Derek Martinus Dies [UPDATED]

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

One of Doctor Who‘s most important directors, Derek Martinus, has died a few days short of his 83rd birthday, it has been announced. Responsible for notable serials such as The Tenth Planet, The Evil of the Daleks and Jon Pertwee’s debut Spearhead from Space, Martinus was a successful stage and TV director whose work spanned genres and age groups.

Born April 4th 1931, Martinus went to school in Essex, and studying acting and directing at Yale Drama School following a stint in the RAF. He spent some time in Sweden, learning the language, directing and meeting his wife there.

Here’s the tweet from BBC entertainment reporter and Doctor Who fan Lizo Mzimba:

Director Derek Martinus has died. Directed Tenth Planet, Evil of Daleks, Ice Warriors, Spearhead from Space, eps of Blakes 7 and much more.

— lizo mzimba (@lizo_mzimba) March 28, 2014

The firector died on Thursday evening, and according to BBC News, he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s. Said his daughter Charlotta Martinus, a former BBC documentary maker:

He was a legend, just an absolute legend. He taught me how to love, live and laugh, he was just such an amazing man.

Ten years after he left [the BBC], everyone used to say to me, ‘Are you really his daughter?’. He was really inspirational for me and my sister Pia who is a doctor. He was a leader of men and he inspired everyone.

Our esteemed readers might pay tribute to Mr Martinus this weekend by watching one of his Doctor Who serials (of course we’re pretty sure it’s a 50-50 choice between The Tenth Planet and Spearhead from Space unless you’re sitting on a treasure trove of missing episodes!). You might also cast your eye over this archive interview.

The post Director Derek Martinus Dies [UPDATED] appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Kasterborous On Instagram!

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

We’re delighted to tell you, dear Kasterborite, that you can now follow Kasterborous on Instagram! Our new social feed already includes photos and video and we’ll be updating it regularly over the coming weeks and months with relevant Doctor Who content.

This is in addition to our existing Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, and gives us yet another new way to share the latest and most interesting stuff in Doctor Who fandom with you.

If you’re not already following Kasterborous on any of these accounts, please do so and “join the discussion” – or just keep an eye out for photos and links you won’t see here…

The post Kasterborous On Instagram! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs Now Available For Kindle!

James Lomond is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Kindle-equipped Kasterborites rejoice! Tom Baker’s gruesome work of fantasy horror can now travel with you in your personal Kindle library!

Published back in 1999, The Boy Who Kicked Pigs is a darkly comic and by most account compelling read about a malicious young man out for revenge:

“Robert Caligari is a thoroughly evil thirteen-year-old who gets his kicks from kicking pigs. After a humiliating episode with a bacon butty, Robert realizes just how much he loathes the human race – and his revenge is truly terrible.”

Stunningly illustrated by David Roberts, Goodreads gives it a worthy 3.6/5 stars and enthusiastic reviews abound.

I have yet to enjoy Baker’s novel but the crossword-loving raconteur behind the most memorable of the Classic Doctors is sure to tell an engrossing tale!

You should be warned that The Boy Who Kicked Pigs – available for Kindle devices and Kindle mobile apps for just £3.71 – is apparently not for the faint hearted. Any recommendations, reviews or reflections?

Tell us below… No spoilers please!

The post The Boy Who Kicked Pigs Now Available For Kindle! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Current Models From The Doctor Who Figurine Collection

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The Doctor Who Figurine Collection continues to issue figurines of the Doctor Who variety with the next four models unveiled from the initial, named 23 (twenty three!) collectables – and come number seventeen, we’ll have our first classic Doctor in the 1:21 scale form of the Fourth Doctor!

Available to buy online now are the fourteenth and fiftieth figurines; a menacing example of the Cybermen, as featured in rather disappointing Nightmare in Silver and the almighty Omega, from the brilliantly daft The Three Doctors.

Ending Omega’s reign on the 27th March (because death was the only freedom anyone could offer Omega) are the Vashta Nerada; or to put it bluntly, someone’s skeleton being manipulated by that shadowy presence who after stalking about for a fortnight, will be replaced by the irrepressible Fourth Doctor – modelled on his Pyramid of Mars attire – on the 10th April.

Naturally, following on from the Fourth Doctor, comes the Judoon, as modelled on their debut appearance in Smith and Jones, who’ll be so to flo blo lo kro no go · ho kro so · ho blo to · blo no do · kno kro co kno kro no go · ho kro so · so ho kro no flo so · because they are so mean, on the 24th April.

Each hand-painted figurine comes with an essential magazine featuring in-depth character analysis and the inside story behind the featured episode.

You can order each issue from the Doctor Who Figurine Collection website from Eaglemoss Publications for £6.99, or if you prefer, from Forbidden Planet.

The post Current Models From The Doctor Who Figurine Collection appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Will Cohen Discusses Doctor Who’s Anniversary Year VFX

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

One of the most interesting interviews about the making of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor, and Matt Smith’s swansong, The Time of the Doctor, has largely flown under the radar – and it’s a massive shame.

But may we now point you to an in-depth chat with Will Cohen, CEO of VFX company, Milk which (in a different guise) has been working on Doctor Who since 2005.

Okay, so what do VFX artists actually do? They create special effects and visual clean-ups – essentially, stuff that isn’t live-action. So Will and co. were responsible for the Fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey Falls No More (the painting), Trenzalore, and Matt’s regeneration. Will says:

Television is a medium that often allows for true collaborative production partnership. The budgets and schedules create a situation where the VFX team is able to have a lot of creative ownership over what they are doing. As teams are smaller all the way up the chain, you get greater access to the client and so internal and external communication is a lot more streamlined. The Dalek Pods are a good example of being able to update and freshened the look of an asset; Milk created them for The Day of the Doctor. With an established franchise like Doctor Who, everybody always respects what has come before but they also have the desire to push things further with new ideas or embellishments.

He sheds light on how his team created Trenzalore – and the horde of enemies waiting to hear the answer to the oldest question in the universe:

We needed to ensure that the sizes and scales were correct, between the planet, the spaceships and asteroid field. The surface of the planet had been set up at the end of the previous episode, so there were visual clues from that. The challenge was to ensuring Trenzalore did not look like Earth [as viewed from space] so we had to make it more bleak and grey than Earth… In order to tell the story and set the scene at the beginning of the episode, it had to be a long shot and had to encompass numerous elements – to show the space environment and demonstrate the sheer number of the Doctor’s enemies’ spaceships from all over the universe surrounding Trenzalore. Given the number of elements and level of detail the shot was 20 seconds long, where usually a VFX shot would be between 6-8 seconds long.

It certainly was impressive…

Oh, and he also talks about that shocking regeneration:

We always look for a new creative way to treat the Doctor’s regeneration, for example, we have focused on the eyes or a varying small section of face. This time the regeneration needed to be more dramatic than ever – and powerful enough for a nuclear-like explosion and of course no morphing effect was used. We used a ‘snap back’ so that the new Doctor just simply walked back into shot.

Milk‘s also been commissioned for Series 8 and says he’s pleased to look back on the last seven series:

Many of us on the team have been privileged to enjoy a 10 year love affair with Doctor Who so to be able to carry on collaborating with the BBC Wales team on telling these incredible stories [for series 8 and beyond] fills us with joy and provides us with an opportunity as VFX artists to help push the boundaries of what can be done visually on television.

Please do take a look at the full interview. It’s fantastic.

The post Will Cohen Discusses Doctor Who’s Anniversary Year VFX appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Will Cohen Discusses Recent Doctor Who VFX

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

One of the most interesting interviews about the making of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor, and Matt Smith’s swansong, The Time of the Doctor, has largely flown under the radar – and it’s a massive shame.

But may we now point you to an in-depth chat with Will Cohen, CEO of VFX company, Milk which (in a different guise) has been working on Doctor Who since 2005.

Okay, so what do VFX artists actually do? They create special effects and visual clean-ups – essentially, stuff that isn’t live-action. So Will and co. were responsible for the Fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey Falls No More (the painting), Trenzalore, and Matt’s regeneration. Will says:

Television is a medium that often allows for true collaborative production partnership. The budgets and schedules create a situation where the VFX team is able to have a lot of creative ownership over what they are doing. As teams are smaller all the way up the chain, you get greater access to the client and so internal and external communication is a lot more streamlined. The Dalek Pods are a good example of being able to update and freshened the look of an asset; Milk created them for The Day of the Doctor. With an established franchise like Doctor Who, everybody always respects what has come before but they also have the desire to push things further with new ideas or embellishments.

He sheds light on how his team created Trenzalore – and the horde of enemies waiting to hear the answer to the oldest question in the universe:

We needed to ensure that the sizes and scales were correct, between the planet, the spaceships and asteroid field. The surface of the planet had been set up at the end of the previous episode, so there were visual clues from that. The challenge was to ensuring Trenzalore did not look like Earth [as viewed from space] so we had to make it more bleak and grey than Earth… In order to tell the story and set the scene at the beginning of the episode, it had to be a long shot and had to encompass numerous elements – to show the space environment and demonstrate the sheer number of the Doctor’s enemies’ spaceships from all over the universe surrounding Trenzalore. Given the number of elements and level of detail the shot was 20 seconds long, where usually a VFX shot would be between 6-8 seconds long.

It certainly was impressive…

Oh, and he also talks about that shocking regeneration:

We always look for a new creative way to treat the Doctor’s regeneration, for example, we have focused on the eyes or a varying small section of face. This time the regeneration needed to be more dramatic than ever – and powerful enough for a nuclear-like explosion and of course no morphing effect was used. We used a ‘snap back’ so that the new Doctor just simply walked back into shot.

Milk‘s also been commissioned for Series 8 and says he’s pleased to look back on the last seven series:

Many of us on the team have been privileged to enjoy a 10 year love affair with Doctor Who so to be able to carry on collaborating with the BBC Wales team on telling these incredible stories [for series 8 and beyond] fills us with joy and provides us with an opportunity as VFX artists to help push the boundaries of what can be done visually on television.

Please do take a look at the full interview. It’s fantastic.

The post Will Cohen Discusses Recent Doctor Who VFX appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Eighth Doctor Who Star Paul McGann Set For Ohio Comic Expo

Drew Boynton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Paul McGann is coming back to the US, and no, it’s not to make another Doctor Who TV movie!

The Eighth Doctor actor will be appearing at the Comic Expo in Cincinnati, Ohio.  The expo is set for September 19-21 at the Duke Energy Convention Center.  Tickets cost anywhere from $20-$75, with more information and specifics on the convention’s website.

Many other guests will be at the show, including Star Wars actors Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and David Prowse (Darth Vader), Jewel Staite of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, John Rhys-Davies (seemingly everything ever made), Lou Ferrigno (TV’s Incredible Hulk), many comic book creators, and at least one Power Ranger! Most of the guests, including Paul McGann, will be signing autographs and appearing on panels.

If you’re planning on a trip to Ohio in about nine months time (and who isn’t?), why not stop by the Comic Expo and catch a moment or two with the Eighth Doctor?  Maybe he’ll even tell you what was in that elixir that made him turn into the War Doctor!

Kasterborites, any chance you’ll be flying your TARDIS toward Cincinnati come September?

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